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00:00This is my kitchen table and also my filing system over much of the past three decades. I've been an investor the highest quality of mankind. I've often thought as private equity. And then I started interviewing Oh I watch your interviews because I know how to do it. I've learned in doing my interviews how leaders make it to the top. I asked him how much he wanted. He said to 250. I said fine I didn't negotiate with him. I did no due diligence. I have something I'd like to sell and how they stay there. You don't feel inadequate now because the only the second wealthiest man. Was that right. Perhaps the toughest job in Washington is not being president United States. It's actually being chief of staff to the president of United States. The average chief of staff to the president of United States lasts about 18 months. I sat down recently with Ron Klain the current chief of staff for the president states and ask him what this job actually entails and why it's so difficult. For those who don't know Ron's background it's quite amazing. He's actually served his country for many many years. Among those positions are chief counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee under then Chairman Joe Biden associate counsel for judicial selection under President Clinton chief of staff and counselor to the Attorney General Janet Reno. Staff director of the Senate Democratic Leadership Committee under Leader Tom Daschle. And Chief of Staff to Vice President Al Gore. In addition he also served as assistant to president and chief of staff to Vice President Biden in the Obama administration and returned after serving several years in that position to serve as the White House Ebola response coordinator. I think you've got the perfect resumé for this job. But my question is you know so much about being chief of staff to people and you know so much about the White House. Don't you know that being chief of staff to the White House president United States is a difficult job to do and usually that tenure is about 18 months. So when you were offered the job did you say I know I'm only gonna be able do this for about 18 months. Or do you say I'm going to make it all four or eight years. Well David thanks. Thanks for that very generous introduction. I appreciate it. Look I was honored and flattered and humbled when President Biden and President Biden asked me to come do this. It is a grueling job. There's no question about it. I think it's easy to understand why the average tenure in the job is 17 18 months. You know I'm here every day working away. I'm honored to be part of this team. I have I'm very lucky. I have probably the most experienced a group of colleagues who've ever served at the senior level in the White House. I have people who carry a lot of the load every day. It makes the job a lot easier than it would be. We're facing a lot of hard challenges no question about it. Difficult situations on the international front a lot of challenges here at home. But I'm really lucky to be part of a of an eight plus team that's tackling these challenges every day. So let's talk about the job of being chief of staff and how the White House works. So the president does he get up early in the morning and call you at home and say what's going on or do you get in. What time what time does he get in and what time you meet with the staff people and what time you see him and then beginning and the end of the day how does that work. So I'm usually in the White House every day by six forty five and I talk to the president early in the morning by phone from the residence. We have our morning staff meetings before the president comes downstairs. We have a number of different kinds of alignments of meetings depending on the day of the week and whatnot where we kind of go over what's going to happen that day what's going to what the key questions are that need to be put to the president. What are the key things we need to resolve that day as a team. As I said this is a I've worked in the White House many times before but I think this is the most team oriented staff I've seen. Usually the president comes downstairs Ron 9:00. I'm his first meeting the day every day I kind of go through where things are and some key priorities get his reaction to the materials he's been reading over night. President takes with him upstairs every evening a thick binder of materials to read decision memos and briefing memos. Those he usually comes in with questions. I try to come in with answers and we have a conversation. Then he proceeds to a number of different staff meetings. I see him a number of times during the day for different kinds of meetings that are going on whether they're national security meetings or domestic policy meetings. And then usually at the end of the day I come in and kind of wrap with him on what are the key outstanding things. One of the things he's going to see in his book that night that he really needs to focus on. What are the big decisions he's going to have to make. Some of the meetings is going to have the next day and today. Q Does anybody have the right or the senior staff who has walk in privileges. Are you the only one that can walk into the Oval Office without an announcement or are there a couple of people that can do that. No. Any of the president's senior advisers senior policy advisers can come in and see him. Obviously you know it's got to not be in another meeting or whatever. But but I. We run a White House here where a lot of people have access to the president and a lot of people are able to talk to him straight and directly about what they think without having to go through me. So the president seems like an even tempered person. But you know everybody gets upset from time to time. Does he yell and scream or he's not a yeller and screamer. How does he show his displeasure at something. You write a note to him or he or to you or how does he show say he's not happy. I think one of Joe Biden's great strengths as president is that he hasn't lived a life filled with incredible triumphs and incredible tragedies and people know his biography. They know his background. They know the successes he's had. They know the grave personal setbacks he's suffered. And one thing that is true is there is never a morning. I go in there with news. That's as bad or worse than the news someone else has had to deliver to him at other points of time in his life. And I think that gives him a very even keel. I think when things are going well he doesn't get too hyped up when when we're having tougher days. He maintains that composure that demeanor. And I think that's one of the hallmarks of his temperament. One of the things he brings to the office that that steadiness of that experience and and a life that has been as I say filled with triumph and tragedy that's seasoned him and prepared him for this moment. Some people say he is you know it's 79 years old. That's old to be prez United States. Do you see signs of his age. Is he in better shape than you are in terms of exercising. Or how do you deal with the fact that he's you know older than anybody's ever been to be president. States. Well he's a definitely in better shape than I am. That's for sure. It's very fair. He works out almost every day in the morning before he comes down to the Oval Office. And I think the American people saw for themselves last night and Presidents Day and to give an hourlong address that was filled with passion and power and wisdom and energy. They saw him hold the longest press conference in the history of presidents. A couple weeks ago I just started the year a two hour press conference. We took questions from all kinds of reporters. So I think his fitness his vigor is beyond question. People see him on the job every day. And then what they see as a person who's fully capable of doing the job fully vigorous and great mental and physical health and taking on the burdens of the office and executing them well. So today you would say the president enjoying the job or does he say geez I wish I hadn't really done this. Well I don't know that enjoying is the way you describe tackling the responsibilities of being the president and states and politically now where he I think he has emerged as the leader of the free world is the person who's leading this coalition that's confronting Vladimir Putin. But I think he's very glad he ran for president. I think he is. You have been well-prepared for the challenges he's tackling. I think more importantly I hear from people all around the country Democrats and Republicans that they're very glad he's the person in the Oval Office right now that he's the person with the background the experience the judgment to tackle these hard problems. And so I think there's a lot of confidence in him as the person who should be where he is. Is the build back better bill likely to ever see the light of day in the Senate. Are you now committed to breaking it up and passing individual pieces of it. Well I think what we're going to try to do is get as many of the president's initiatives enacted as possible in the best way possible. Think about intelligence for a moment. Usually the intelligence that comes into the CIA is not declassified and given to reporters in a public way. Clearly in this process somebody I assume the press United States thought was a good idea to declassify the satellite photos and to declassify the information we have about what Putin was thinking or saying. So was that a difficult decision to come to and do you think it worked or didn't work yet. David I think it was the right decision given the kind of environment we were facing. We knew that President Putin had a reputation for disinformation. We've certainly seen that all around the world. And we knew that his most likely approach here would be to create some kind of disinformation campaign a false flag attack potentially a false provocation out and out lies to justify his invasion of Ukraine. As it became clearer and clearer to us that that was what he had planned we thought it was more and more important to strip him of that advantage by making clear what we knew his plans were and making it clear to the world what we thought would happen. And I think that decision by the President Biden in conjunction with our NATO allies or other allies that are part of the coalition a shared decision to proceed this way has been one of the reasons why there has been such a unified and uniform ruled reaction to what President Putin has done. There's no ambiguity about who is the aggressor here. There's no belief in any of the false stories about what quote unquote provoked this invasion. I think that transparency that sophisticated use of intelligence and a modern information warfare context has served the allies very very well. I also think it stripped President Putin of any element of surprise in the attack and helped the Ukrainians be ready for what. What has hit them. So how do you respond to the critics that you have and you have some critics sometimes. I'm sure you know who say you should have sent armaments to the Ukrainians before the invasion. So they were better armed than they are now that we're now sending them after the invasion and and that you should have imposed the sanctions before the invasion occurred. What do you respond how do you respond to those kind of criticisms. Here's what we did. Send armaments to the Ukrainians before the invasion. We sent more arms more military assistance to Ukraine in the past twelve months than any year since 2014. So we did send a variety of kinds of military assistance to the Ukrainians. That assistance continues to be to come into the country. But we did send plenty before this happened in terms of the sanctions. We thought that the best way to make sure we'd have the most unified and powerful set of sanctions was to make it clear that those sanctions would take effect when and if President Putin invaded. The results that we've seen illustrate that. David you've seen there's never been a effort to impose sanctions this stringent on a country as large and as complex and as interconnected to the world economy as Russia. It's really kind of astonishing effort that you're seeing underway here. And the impact of those sanctions has been devastating. They're devastating because they're such a powerful group of countries a unified in their application. And I think doing it the way we did is what's made all that possible when you impose sanctions. Let's suppose the offending party let's say Russia says OK we made a mistake we're sorry we're pulling back that the sanctions go away or are there penalties that are subsequent to the withdraw. Other words are there ongoing penalties. Are there were in effect reparations for having done these bad things or are the sanctions just go away or is that not decided yet. Hasn't been decided yet what would happen if the Russians withdrew again that be part of whatever kind of diplomacy would unwind the crisis in Ukraine. Sadly this is this as you say is a hypothetical question. We see no signs unfortunately that the Russians have any intention of withdrawing right now. And indeed their military operations in Ukraine continue to escalate. They continue to attack more civilians more civilian sites. The fighting continues to get more and more fierce. So we offered President Putin a number of diplomatic off ramps in the run up to this invasion. We offered him a number of different arrangements never dreamed of possible ways in which he could meet with members of the coalition and the Ukrainians. A number of different kinds of structures to do that. At every juncture President Putin rejected the path of diplomacy continued on the path of invasion. And that's what we're seeing unfold right now. Let's talk about build back better. I wondered who came up with that tongue twister. It's hard to say that quickly. Was that something that you came up with or who came up with that. I don't know who came up. It was certainly was the principal slogan for the president's campaign in 2020 was the slogan for most of his policies was the umbrella under which most of the policies that he ran on build back better. It's actually gained some traction around the world. A number of European countries have now adopted build back better initiatives. So I think it's a slogan that's resonated with people. It is a bit of a tongue twister but I think it does have some residents and it comes from the campaign. So is the build back better bill that passed the House likely to ever see the light of day in the Senate. Are you now committed to breaking it up and passing individual pieces of it. Well I think what we're gonna try to do is get as many of the president's initiatives enacted as possible in the best way possible. The Senate has the option to do. Reconciliation is a procedural device that takes only 50 votes to pass a bill that has tax changes and other kinds of economic changes in it. And that would probably be the vehicle we use to move some legislation like this through the Senate. We're obviously in conversations with a number of senators about what elements have the most support what elements are the most effective to get passed the Senate. You're the president. Talk about a number of those last night. David I think people are very concerned about inflation and very concerned about what inflation means to everyday families. And that means they pay too much for things. And so key parts of the build back better plan address that directly bring down the cost of childcare bring down the cost of prescription drugs bring down the cost of elder care bring down the cost of health care. So we're looking for. And most importantly in some ways are equally important I should say bring down the cost of energy by moving us to more of a clean energy economy. So you look at those proposals there are proposals that meet the moment of higher costs. And we're going to continue to work with the Senate to find a formula that moves that agenda forward. So Ron you have been criticized by some for saying that you are so powerful that you really are effectively running the whole government. How do you respond to that. You're like you're the prime minister. It's ridiculous. I'm a staff person. I've been to staffers my whole life. I've never run for anything. I've never been elected to anything. I've been proud to work for some distinguished public servants. President Biden being one of them at several points of time in my career. President Obama of course President Clinton. That's that's who I am. And at the White House I'm not only I'm a staff person I'm a staff person who works with a number of other enormously talented staff people. So this is a real team effort here. Team on the policy side. Team on the strategy side. My job is just to help coordinate those people get that advice to the president. So that's how I see my role. How do you respond to the other criticism that some people have had not necessarily of you but of the president that he governed as he campaigned as a moderate but he's governing more to the left than people expected. And what is your response to that criticism that some have made. Yeah. Look I think that that criticism wipes out the history of the 2020 campaign. There's nothing that the president sent to Capitol Hill that he did not put before the voters in the 2020 campaign. Our economic agenda is the economic agenda he ran on and eighty one million Americans voted for when they elected him. In fact if anything we've trimmed that agenda back. The build back better plan that we sent to Capitol Hill was significantly smaller than even the one we campaigned on the infrastructure bill something he campaigned on the voting rights bill something he campaigned on and Covid relief package that we started the administration with. Again is something he endorsed in the campaign. So he was very straightforward voters about what he would do if he were president. And that's what he's done. And look in the proposals we put forward are substantial. Why. Because the problems we inherited were substantial. It's not any vision and not a grandiose vision. We inherited an economy that was dead in the water 50000 jobs a month just 50000 jobs a month. The three months before we got here virtually dead economy. The government had even bought enough vaccinations to give one vaccine to every American let alone two vaccines to every American let alone booster shots. We had no system to really massively distribute and administer those vaccines. We face a climate crisis. We face all kinds of other challenges. Now obviously this challenge over in Europe. So we've put together proposals to meet the moment not out of some effort to kind of do something bigger than we should but because we inherited very big problems. And you see a lot of progress. We obviously then went and created more jobs in one year than any administration in history or any administration since 1939 according to a New York Times fact check. So any administration since 1939 we have seen the fastest economic growth in 40 years. I was the first time in 20 years our economy grew faster in a year than China's economy. So we put in place the kind of recovery measures that were needed. We vaccinated over 220 fully vaccinated over 2 1 in 20 million Americans. You know these are big tasks. We took on this year. And I'm proud of what we've done to achieve them. So usually in the after the first year of an administration you see some turnover in a cabinet or something but you haven't had any turnover. And I haven't had any scandals either. So how come you haven't any scandals and how come you haven't had a turnover. Well I think the president did a very good job of picking a cabinet picking senior officials and I think the lack of scandals reflects that. I think the lack of turnover reflects the fact that these are men and women who are very eager to serve who are doing a great job who are making a difference as the most diverse cabinet history. It's the first time in history the cabinet but evenly divided between men and women the first time in history that a majority of the cabinet isn't white. And it's a diverse cabinet. It's a incredibly talented cabinet. And we're very lucky to have their service. The president's favor ability ratings are not as high as I assume you would like. And I wondered how do you win the White House. Deal with that. Well I think the most important thing is the president do the right thing. And I think that what you're seeing right now is a mood in the country that's impacted by the fact that this pandemic has lasted longer than anyone thought it would. That while we've had tremendous growth on the economy and jobs we're having a problem with inflation. And I think those things contribute to a generally a mood in the country that's not as upbeat or confidence as we would like. What I think in the case of President Biden is made a lot of hard decisions in 2021 to put in place a new economic strategy. You heard the president talk about last night in the state in a new Covid strategy that we're again updating again today with new steps on Covid. And those hard decisions I think are starting to show results. I fully accept the fact that the American people are more show me not tell me what they want to see as they want to see that we really have reached a new way of managing Covid. They want to see we really have not just created jobs but the jobs are going to stay the wages are going to go up. They want to see that these economic recovery is real and sustained. I think the political credit will follow from that. When I was here both with President Clinton and President Obama we saw the recovery ahead of the politics. And I think you're seeing that now too. And so I do think our approval rating will go up in the months ahead as the economic recovery the progress on Covid become more permanent more lasting and internalize more by the voters. Now one of my former partners at Caroline Hyde was Jim Baker and he was considered maybe up until you the gold standard of how to be chief of staff. But he didn't actually like the job that much. And he wound up as secretary of treasury eventually and as secretary of state. So do you have any aspirations to any of those jobs or something like that. I don't think so. I think when I finished my tenure here I'll go back and fish my tenure here. I mean I'd like take a month and sleep and I'll figure out what I'll do next. You know Secretary Baker got to know him a little bit during the Florida recount when we were on opposite sides of that. He has been unbelievably gracious. He suddenly the the kindest note when I got this job he sent me a couple of the notes since then. He's just such a you know he's just been he's just such a wonderful person. And and he is the gold standard of doing this job. I couldn't even aspire to that. I just tried to do the best I can every day. So whenever you do finish this position as chief of staff and a friend calls you subsequently and says I've been offered the job of chief of staff to the president states would you tell him to take her to take that job or not. I would definitely tell anyone to take this job. It is a hard job but it's a unique opportunity to work with. First of all an incredible president and vice president of course at a time. It's very important to our country and to work with an amazingly talented group of people here in the White House throughout the agencies. They just blow me away every day and I learn something new every day. It's been the culminating experience in my career. And I I just couldn't be more grateful for the experience and whoever replaces me in this job whenever my type in the job ends. I hope this has the same kind of experience.

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The David Rubenstein Show: Ron Klain

Ron Klain, White House chief of staff, talks about the war in Ukraine, President Joe Biden's economic agenda, and what it's like working in the White House every day. He's on "The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations." This was recorded March 2 for an Economic Club of Washington, D.C. event. (Source: Bloomberg)

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