Biden has yet to make his pick for secretary of defense slot
WASHINGTON — President-elect Joe Biden has introduced the bulk of his national security Cabinet, but he didn’t include the Defense Department in his rollout this week amid questions about whether he has settled on longtime defense expert Michele Flournoy as his Pentagon chief.
Flournoy’s name has been considered at the top of Biden’s list to run the nation’s largest security agency, with frequent mention that shewould be the first female secretary of defense.
Her prominence highlighted the absence of a Pentagon nominee during an event in Delaware on Tuesday that included Biden’s picks for secretary of state, intelligence director, chief of homeland security and United Nations ambassador, as well as White House national security adviser.
Biden hasn’t made a decision, and Flournoy remains very much in the running for the job, people familiar with the process said.
Those people also cautioned against reading too much into the absence of Pentagonandcia nominees in the initial round of Cabinet announcements.
Biden’s choice for theu.s. Agency for International Development also is pending.
Tuesday’s focus was on diplomacy and a shift away from Trump administration policies that Biden says have alienated allies and punished immigrants and refugees. But it still was notable that Biden didn’t mention the Pentagon, or the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
“It’s a team that will keep our country and our people safe and secure, and it’s a team that reflects the fact that America is back,” Biden said. “Ready to lead the world, not retreat from it. Ready to confront our adversaries, not reject our allies. And ready to stand up for our values.”
A Biden transition official brushed off the notion that the Pentagon pick was delayed or that the campaign riskeda perception problem by not including a defense secretary now.
“This team has moved quickly across the board, and that includes in terms of the nominations and senior appointments we have put forward,” a Biden transition official said.
The official noted that before Monday the Trump administration had refused to free up federal resources for the Biden transition.
Despite that obstacle, “we have, so far, outpaced the last two administrations in terms of announcing key Cabinet officials,” theofficial said.
According to a report in Politico, another contender for the Pentagon slot is Jeh Johnson, a homeland security secretaryunderobama, who would become the first Black defense secretary.
Tuesday’s announcement included the return of the U.N. job to Cabinet rank and creation of a new Cabinet-rank post focused on climate change.
Flournoy holds centrist policy views that align with most of Biden’s national security platform, although the two disagreed over aspects of the Afghanistan war when she was a senior Pentagon official in the Obama administration and Biden was vice president.
Officials close toflournoy have preached patience about the selection process, citing Biden’s desire for expertise and diversity.
But they also have acknowledged no decision has been made.
Flournoy comes from the same cadre of professionals with credentials from the Obama administration and Washington think tanks as the nominees who were announced Tuesday. She also co-founded a security consultant firm with Antony Blinken, Biden’s choice to be secretary of state.
Flournoy also has ties to the defense industry, making her suspect to some liberal Democrats, but it’s not clear if Biden shares that concern. Blinken will face the same scrutiny that Flournoy would about the secretive client list at their Westexec Advisors firm.