At 1st Cabinet meeting, Biden says team ‘looks like America’
>> President Joe Biden’s first Cabinet meeting looked and felt different from those of his predecessor.
Biden’s full Cabinet met Thursday in the spacious White House East Room, not the comparatively cramped West Wing room that bears the group’s name, to allow for social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic.
Many smaller tables were pushed together to create one gigantic square. Department secretaries and other participants wore face masks. And the portion of the meeting opened to press coverage lacked the overthetop, hail- to- the chief tributes that came to define Donald Trump’s Cabinet meetings.
Biden immediately pointed out the diversity of his Cabinet, which includes the first Black defense secretary in Lloyd Austin, the first openly gay Cabinet member in Pete Buttigieg at transportation, the first Native American secretary in Deb Halaand at Interior and the first female treasury secretary in Janet Yellen, among others.
Vice President Kamala Harris is the first woman, Black person and Indian American elected to her office.
Biden declared the group “looks like America” and added, “That’s what we promised we were going to do, and we’ve done it.”
Thursday’s meeting came a week after the Senate confirmed the final Cabinet member and a day after Biden released his infrastructure plan, which was a major item on the agenda.
The White House allowed press to witness just the opening three minutes, where Biden announced that he had asked five Cabinet secretaries “to take special responsibility to explain the plan to the American public.” He directed Transportation’s Buttigieg, Energy’s Jennifer Granholm, Housing and Urban Development’s Marcia Fudge, Labor’s Marty Walsh and Commerce’s Gina Raimondo to be especially visible to the public and lead outreach on Capitol Hill.
Biden also directed the entire Cabinet to examine agency spending to ensure it follows his “Buy American” commitment.
With the sales blitz for the infrastructure plan just beginning, the focus of the meeting was on how the package can be relevant across government, as well on continuing to emphasize benefits Biden expects from the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill he signed into law this month, said White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates.
Cabinet meetings in the modern era are less about setting administration policy than ensuring that all the government agencies are on the same page, say former officials. The sessions also offer presidents an opportunity to make their priorities and values clear. Deeper debates are generally reserved for smaller, subject- specific gatherings of Cabinet officials and senior advisers, such as the National Security Council and the Domestic Policy Council.
All 16 permanent members of the Cabinet — the vice president and heads of the executive departments, including Yellen, Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken — attended in person on Thursday. So did other Cabinet-rank officials, including White House chief of staff Ron Klain and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines.