I’m a Ron Klain fan. I’ve had the feeling he took a president potentially nearly as useless as as a president could be and salvaged— as much as it could be salvaged— the first half of his term. Don’t expect anything like that from Jeff Zients, his replacement, who is likely to encourage all of Biden’s worst conservative instincts. This is going to be a dangerous time for America. Zients' background, like Mayo Pete’s, is in ruthless, greed-obsessed consulting… in his case, Bain Capital and then a swirl of companies with initials for names, like DGB and CEB, bringing him a fortune worth over $150 million before his 40th birthday. Obama brought him into public service to to help "streamline processes, cut costs, and find best practices throughout" the government. A year later, he was acting director of the OMB. Heavily involved in Wall Street financial companies, he was co-chair of Biden’s transition team and then coordinator of the administration’s largely failed pandemic response.
Jake Johnson, who endeavored to explain why progressives are concerned about Zients’ new position, knows more about him than I do. He wrote that “Revolving Door Project executive director Jeff Hauser called the elevation of Zients to White House chief of staff a ‘catastrophic decision,’ saying in a statement that ‘the Biden administration has been at its best when it has been on the attack against corporate excesses that wide majorities of Americans find abhorrent. Americans are appalled by profiteering in healthcare— Jeff Zients has become astonishingly rich by profiteering in healthcare,’ said Hauser. ‘Americans are aghast at how social media companies have built monopolies and violated privacy laws— Zients served on the Board of Directors of Facebook as it was defending itself against growing attacks from both political parties.’” On Twitter, Hauser put the announcement like this: “Quite possible this is the day Ron DeSantis became president. Catastrophic decision.”
The Revolving Door Project's Daniel Boguslaw and Max Moran wrote for The American Prospect last year that Zients— who was replaced as Covid-19 response coordinator back in April— has "controlled, invested in, and helped oversee" healthcare companies that "were forced to pay tens of millions of dollars to settle allegations of Medicare and Medicaid fraud."
"They have also been accused of surprise-billing practices and even medical malpractice," Boguslaw and Moran noted. "Taken together, an examination of the companies that made Zients rich paints a picture of a man who seized on medical providers as a way to capitalize on the suffering of sick Americans. In the end, it seems to have all paid off."
"The most egregious violation is documented in a 2015 Justice Department settlement announcement," they added. "Portfolio Logic— the investment firm Zients founded with his own money— agreed to pay almost $7 million to resolve allegations of fraudulent Medicare and Medicaid billing, involving a subsidiary (Pediatric Services of America Healthcare, or PSA) that it purchased in 2007."
Progressives have also been highly critical of Zients' performance in government.
In early 2022, Boguslaw urged the Biden administration to fire Zients over his failure to "provide the materials necessary to improve the U.S. response" to Covid-19 "or the guidance necessary to keep the pandemic under control."
Following news that he would be leaving the coronavirus response post, Public Citizen's Robert Weissman lamented that Zients "refused to pay appropriate attention to global solutions to the global pandemic, because of political concerns or otherwise."
"And the Zients-led Covid response refused to challenge Big Pharma's monopoly control, in the U.S. and globally, over technologies that relied crucially on public support," Weissman continued. "As a result, the United States and other rich countries failed to expand vaccine supply sufficiently to meet global need. Without adequate supply, efforts to bolster low-income country distribution and delivery systems consequently have lagged and been similarly under-resourced."
During his time as pandemic response coordinator, Zients was far and away the wealthiest member of Biden's cabinet, disclosing assets worth at least $89.3 million and as much as $442.8 million.
Citing the Revolving Door Project's work, progressive strategist Murshed Zaheed said Sunday that "Zients as a businessman embodies much of the corporate misconduct the executive branch led by a Democratic Party ought to be cracking down on."
But the Biden White House doesn't appear remotely concerned about Zients' corporate past.
With Biden expected to launch a bid for reelection in the coming weeks, the New York Times reported that "the president could lean on" Zients to "help run the government while other advisers focus on the politics of winning a second term."
Hauser said Sunday that "hopefully Zients will prove us wrong— but unless that unlikely and fortuitous surprise occurs, Biden will need a quick hook."
Expect Zients to bring out all the worst in Biden-- and beyond. Writing for The Nation this morning, Jeet Heer, called Zients a disaster in the making and “a poster boy for corporate predation.” Heer wrote “that the new chief of staff could be someone so closely tied to corporate predation should worry Democrats. It has the potential to be a political disaster. The president’s chief of staff is arguably the most important non-elected position in the White House and one of the most powerful posts in Washington. A chief of staff is both an agenda setter and gatekeeper for the president. A poor chief of staff, such as Rahm Emanuel in the first two years under Barack Obama, can inflict massive damage.”
Heer noted that “The business model Zients’s firms follow seems to be smash and grab— while also being prepared to pay the occasional fine if patients and governments object… The strongest case against Zients is a simple political one. How will Biden be able to present himself as the champion of working Americans when his chief of staff is a plutocrat whose companies have a reputation for preying on Americans in moments of medical emergency? Zients would offer an irresistible target for Republicans. His elevation to the post of chief of staff is an unforced error.”
