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Klain Drain & Trump’s Big Announcement

As Biden’s numbers sag, and Klain’s tactics wear thin, Anita Dunn is already making her impact felt with some optics tactics. Is it enough to create the much-needed vibe shift in Bidenworld? Also: news on Trump’s big announcement, House in-fighting, and French D.C. diplomacy.

Ron Klain
White House chief of staff Ron Klain. Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images
Tara Palmeri
June 2, 2022

The dam, it seems, has broken for Joe Biden’s highly disciplined, always-on-message, mega-professional, pro-staffed White House. Recent stories about the West Wing being “adrift” have appeared in NBC and The Washington Post, both essentially reporting what I’ve been saying in this space for weeks: the knives are out for Chief of Staff Ron Klain, a brilliant tactician who is nevertheless facing blowback on account of Biden’s low approval numbers and his own, albeit often necessary, neurotic pageant-mom management of the gaffe-happy president.