Biden’s first West Wing hires shows he is building the anti-Trump team

President-elect taps team of trusted aides and DC insiders as he prepares to tackle coronavirus and hobbled economy

President-elect Joe Biden is building a West Wing team that one might describe as anti-Trump, stocking his staff with White House and congressional veterans.

The incoming chief executive is opting for longtime political players and individuals who have long been part of his inner circle to get his administration rolling amid a spreading-like-wildfire coronavirus and a sputtering economy.

The nine picks announced on Tuesday stand in stark contrast to the kinds of individuals the outgoing president put in senior roles as he built his White House team and Cabinet four years ago.

Mr Trump was elected as a disrupter and outsider. Many of his picks also met that description.

There was Steve Bannon, tapped as White House chief strategist after holding the same position on the 2016 Trump-Pence campaign. He was credited with helping propel Mr Trump to victory.

His background was largely Breitbart media, the ultra-conservative information site that spent the next four years dabbling in the kinds of conspiracy theories that often made their way in front of Mr Trump and helped shape his presidency. Mr Bannon recently called for Anthony Fauci, the federal government’s top infectious disease official to be beheaded.

Electronic searches showed no records of Mr Biden’s first wave of picks urging any political foe lose their head.

Mr Trump’s outsiders also included figures like Michael Flynn, his first national security adviser. The retired Army three-star general lasted all of, depending on who is counting and how, 24 or 25 days.

Future national security advisers typically are not months removed from leading chants at political conventions calling for the jailing of their boss’s general election foes. But Mr Flynn had done just that, leading a “lock her up” chant at the 2016 Republican National Convention about Hillary Clinton

“You know why we’re saying that?” he said to a packed arena crowd, referring to her use of a private email server while secretary of state. “We’re saying that because if I, a guy who knows this business, if I did a tenth, a tenth of what she did, I would be in jail today.”

Mr Flynn and Mr Bannon worked their way into the president’s inner circle. But over a relatively short period of time.

The individuals headed into the Biden White House have been in the soon-to-be 46th president’s inner circle for some time.

Steve Ricchetti will be the likely chief counselor to the president. He was chief of staff to Mr Biden during the second term of the Obama administration.

Jen O’Malley was his campaign manager and is set to become deputy White House chief of staff. She’s new to “Biden world,” and is drawing some comparisons to Kellyanne Conway, who left the Trump White House recently after being his final 2016 campaign boss.

An insider’s insider

Mr Trump did not include many Hill veterans on his initial West Wing team.

Louisiana Congressman Cedric Richmond is heading into the Biden White House to serve as a senior adviser to the president and White House Office of Public Engagement director.

“Just saw the Biden WH staff announcement,” Joe Lockhart, who was Bill Clinton’s White House press secretary, tweeted Tuesday. “That is a helluva lot of political talent going to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”

Mr Richmond’s appointment could be key.

He will give the new president a link directly not only to the House Democratic caucus, but also Republican leadership in the lower chamber. He is a close friend of House GOP Whip Steve Scalise.

And with no known close relationship between Mr Biden and Ms Pelosi, unlike Mr Trump, Mr Biden chose an insider’s insider.

“It’s going to be hard for Biden to get much done,” one Washington insider said this week. “The Senate is one thing, you’ve still, as of today, got to get 60 votes [to pass bills]. It’d help if Chuck [Schumer] is the majority leader, so at least you can put your bills on the floor.”

“But the House is another beast. There’s trouble and the liberals – or progressives – are going to want things that [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi won’t want to deliver because they can’t pass the Senate,” the insider added. “I don’t remember some close Biden-Pelosi bond, either.”