Biden campaign manager to serve as deputy chief of staff: reports

Jen O’Malley Dillon, President-elect Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign manager, will be joining his incoming administration as deputy chief of staff, NBC News and CNN reported on Monday.

O’Malley Dillon joined Biden’s campaign in March after he started to gain more support from his former rivals in the Democratic presidential primary. She had previously worked on the primary campaign of former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas), as well as both of former President Obama’s campaigns.

O’Malley Dillon has previously worked as the executive director of the Democratic National Committee and is also the founding partner of the Democratic consulting firm Precision Strategies.

CNN reports that O’Malley Dillon had told friends in the past that she has no desire to work in the White House after finishing a campaign. However, the offer was too much to refuse this time, a source told the network, with O’Malley Dillon expected to have the White House operations portfolio when she begins working in January.

Biden is expected to name more appointees to White House roles in the coming days and weeks even as President Trump has yet to concede nearly two weeks after the election.

The Trump-appointed head of the General Services Administration, Emily Murphy, has so far refused to certify Biden as the election winner, blocking the transition process.

Last week Biden named Ron Klain as his chief of staff. Klain had previously worked as Biden’s chief of staff when he was vice president and has been working with Biden since the late 1980s, including on his presidential campaigns in 1988 and 2008.

During his time in the Obama administration, Klain also coordinated the United States’ Ebola response in 2014 and 2015.

“Think about what kind of president you want to have running your country,” Klain said in a campaign video released earlier this year. “As someone who has led a response like this and has worked with Joe Biden for more than 30 years, I can tell you he would know what to do when something happens again like this in the future. He wouldn’t mess it up like our current president has.”