Joe Biden picks longtime adviser Ron Klain as chief of staff

Ron Klain, a close associate of Joe Biden for decades and a veteran of Washington politics, has been named as White House Chief of Staff.

Mr Klain, 59, has been one of Mr Biden's closest advisers during the election campaign and described the appointment  as “the honour of a lifetime.”

His association dates back to the late 1980s when he joined the staff of then senator Biden.

Mr Klain, a lawyer,  first entered the White House as vice president Al Gore's chief of staff. He led the legal battle to force a recount of Florida ballots in the hotly-contested 2000 election.

There was a falling out with the Biden camp when Mr Klain signed up to work for Hillary Clinton at a time when the vice-president was mulling running himself in 2016. But relations were restored.

Mr Klain played a key role in helping Joe Biden prepare for his debates - reprising a role he has performed for John Kerry, Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton.

As vice-president Biden's chief of staff, he was responsible for overseeing the stimulus package contained in the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

He also served as Barack Obama's “Ebola Czar” and was widely praised for his work in preventing a pandemic erupting in the US. It made him a trenchant critic of the Trump administration's handling of coronavirus.

Mr Klain's s experience will be needed as the Biden team negotiates a transition without the help of the outgoing administration.

However,  the job might be made easier thanks to the intervention of several Republican senators who said the president-elect should be sent White House intelligence briefings.

They included Mitt Romney the party's 2012 presidential nominee, Susan Collins of Maine and Chuck Grassley of Iowa.

James Lankford, a Republican from Oklahoma and a member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said he would intervene if the White House refused to back down.

Choosing Mr Klain is also likely to assuage some concerns among progressives who had been gearing up for a fight over one of the first and biggest staff picks Mr Biden will make as he builds out his White House team. The chief of staff is typically a gatekeeper for the president, crafts political and legislative strategy and often serves as a liaison to Capitol Hill in legislative negotiations.

Progressives had expressed concerns that Mr Biden would pick one of his other former chiefs of staff: Steve Richetti, who faces scepticism for his work as a lobbyist, or Bruce Reed, who is seen as too much of a moderate to embrace reforms pushed by the party's base. But progressives see Mr Klain as open to working with them on top priorities like climate change and health care.

Experience in Washington had prepared him for such challenges."His deep, varied experience and capacity to work with people all across the political spectrum is precisely what I need in a White House chief of staff as we confront this moment of crisis and bring our country together again," Mr Biden said.