With less than a month until Inauguration Day, President-elect Joe Biden has yet to announce his picks for several Cabinet and top-level roles for his incoming administration.
As Biden builds out his administration, it is no secret that the president-elect is aiming for historic diversity in the White House. His team so far highlights Biden’s delicate balancing, seeking to diversify his picks and reward the coalitions that helped elect him while also following his instincts to surround himself with close allies who served in the Obama administration.
Should they be confirmed, several Obama-era staffers will reappear in Biden’s White House. Biden’s nominee for Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, for example, held the position during both of President Barack Obama’s terms; Denis McDonough, Biden’s pick for Secretary of Veteran’s Affairs, served as Obama’s White House chief of staff during the former president’s second term in office.
Other administration hopefuls will be newcomers to the White House — Biden’s pick for Secretary of Education, Dr. Miguel Cardona, was appointed to the top education post in Connecticut just months before the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in March.
It’s unclear why Biden is waiting to announce the rest of his administration, in which there are five Cabinet or otherwise high-level positions still open. Biden on Tuesday said he may make more staffing announcements between Christmas and the New Year, but did not specify to which positions he was referring.
Here are the remaining top-level and cabinet positions in Biden’s administration and who he might tap to fill them out:
A position held by William Barr until Wednesday, when he was replaced by Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, many are curious who Biden will tap to act as the nation’s leading law enforcement officer.
On Tuesday, Biden seemed to imply he was still on the hunt for a candidate who can satisfy his desire for a diverse administration, telling reporters there is “not an obvious choice in my mind.”
“As you know, there’s been a great debate about, in every single appointment, whether or not there are enough African Americans, enough Hispanics, enough Asian Pacific Americans, enough people who are new and young,” Biden said Tuesday. “So we’re just working through it. It’s not by design. There’s not an obvious choice in my mind.”
In light of Biden’s comments, two oft-considered frontrunners for the job may be out of consideration: Judge Merrick Garland and Sen. Doug Jones are both white men.
Biden’s commerce secretary will inherit an economic downturn and will be tasked with proving the administration can work effectively alongside the business community.
Two businesswomen are reportedly top of Biden’s mind to head the department: Meg Whitman and Mellody Hobson.
Whitman would likely face pushback from progressive groups, as she is currently a member of the Republican party. Whitman worked as a senior member of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaigns in both 2008 and 2012, and launched a failed bid for California Governor as a Republican in 2010. She did, however, voice support for both Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden in the 2016 and 2020 elections, respectively.
Whitman’s resume in the business world is robust. She served as president and CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise beginning in 2011, later working as CEO of Quibi until it closed this year.
Hobson would likely be a more welcome candidate among Democrats. Hobson, co-chief executive of Ariel Investments and former chair of DreamWorks Animation, became one of the highest-profile Black directors in corporate America when Starbucks Corp. tapped her to chair its executive board in late 2020.
Biden’s push for a diverse Cabinet may impact his pick for Labor Secretary. Politico on Wednesday reported the president-elect is heavily considering Boston Mayor Marty Walsh to head the department, adding Biden is "sensitive to the diversity concerns.” Walsh is a white man.
But Biden’s personal relationship with Walsh dates back decades, with both men heavily involved in labor unions. In mid-November, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka threw his weight behind Walsh’s potential nomination.
Several sitting lawmakers, including Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Rep. Andy Levin of Michigan, have made plays for Labor Secretary. Both are unlikely candidates for the job, as Biden has made clear that it would be a hard decision to take a member out of the Senate or the House with voting margins close in both chambers of Congress.
Biden has been mum on who he may tap as Small Business Administrator. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus on Dec. 19 sent a letter to the Biden transition team urging him to pick Stacie Olivares, who is currently serving her first appointment on the board of California Public Employees' Retirement System.
The caucus wrote Olivares’ “years of leadership at the state level in California, where she has been integral in the management of millions of taxpayer dollars position her well to take on this key federal agency.”
Regardless of who Biden picks, the next Small Business Administrator will face a series of herculean tasks.
Small businesses have been especially hard-hit amid the coronavirus pandemic. Tens of thousands of businesses have already closed or may have to soon, a consequence of a pandemic that has kept away diners, shoppers and customers since early spring. The National Restaurant Association, for example, estimates that 110,000 U.S. restaurants — 17% — have shut down indefinitely or for good, doomed by restrictions on their hours or capacity and by Americans’ reluctance to eat out.
Many small and independent retailers are in jeopardy, too. They typically collect an outsize proportion of their annual revenue during the holiday shopping season. But government restrictions are limiting how many customers can be in a store at one time. Even apart from such restrictions, many consumers are staying home anyway as a precaution against the resurgent virus.
Especially vulnerable are small independent shops, many of which are barely hanging on and will likely close their doors after the holidays — joining more than 8,600 retailers that have already gone out of business this year, according to market researcher CoreSight.
One of Biden’s potential picks to head the CIA has already faced intense pushback from progressive groups: Mike Morell, who was CIA analyst under George W. Bush and Acting CIA Director under Barack Obama.
Morell’s consideration has been slammed by CODEPINK, an international NGO supporting peace and human rights initiatives. A group of torture victims and their advocates penned a letter in opposition to Morell, saying his history of support for “enhanced interrogation” techniques should disqualify him from the role.
Biden’s CIA Director may well be tasked with an ongoing cyber threat, one that experts say has been ongoing since as early as 2019. Several federal agencies, including the Treasury Department, have said they were targeted.
Biden on Tuesday said he would work with allies to set up international rules to hold nation states accountable for cyberattacks and vowed that his administration would make cybersecurity a top priority.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.