Top Biden aides to step down

A key member of President Biden’s economic team, Cecilia Rouse, will leave his administration in the spring, a White House official said Friday.

Rouse took academic leave from Princeton University to serve as chair of Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers, and she plans to return to there. The official spoke to the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity.

The pending departure is the first to be disclosed since the midterm elections as Biden’s term reaches its halfway point, often a time of transition for any presidential administration.

Bloomberg was first to report Rouse’s planned departure, and it said Brian Deese, director of Biden’s National Economic Council, plans to depart next year. The official said there was no timeline for Deese to depart.

Rouse, a labor economist, was the first Black woman to lead the Council of Economic Advisers.