How Joe Biden should handle White House infighting

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President-elect Joe Biden (REUTERS)
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President-elect Joe Biden (REUTERS)

Summary

  • History suggests that the president-elect should insist on strong decision-making processes and deal firmly with staff misbehavior

As President-elect Joe Biden builds his administration, he has drawn on his long experience in national politics, filling key positions with White House veterans and a sprinkling of newcomers. But the success of Mr. Biden’s administration will depend not just on who gets big jobs but on the thoughtful management of his team. The new president needs a staff and cabinet that are cohesive in debate and unified in action.

Administration infighting is inevitable, but it needn’t be paralyzing. Mr. Biden’s goal should be to manage conflict, not to eliminate it. History points to three primary levers at his disposal: recognizing and managing ideological conflict, maintaining a strong decision-making process and dealing firmly with staff and cabinet misbehavior.

The most frequent White House divisions are along ideological lines. President Ronald Reagan’s administration was plagued by clashes between moderates, led by White House chief of staff James A. Baker, and committed conservatives, led by counselor Edwin Meese. Mr. Baker, in particular, was a master leaker and infighter. Still, when Reagan chose Mr. Baker over Mr. Meese as chief of staff, he directed Mr. Baker to “make it right with Ed." The two joined with deputy chief of staff Michael Deaver to form the “troika" that ran the early Reagan White House.

The lack of trust among the troika members wound up leaving them joined at the hip, reluctant to let each other meet privately with Reagan for fear that the others might use facetime with the president to their advantage. This need to stick together applied even after Reagan was shot in 1981. When the troika visited his hospital bed together, Reagan joked, “I should’ve known I wasn’t going to avoid a staff meeting." Yet getting the perspective of the two main competing ideologies within the GOP helped Reagan to hold on to both sides.

President Bill Clinton also used his ideologically divided staff to his advantage. His team initially pulled his administration leftward with an unsuccessful health care initiative, a tax hike and a push to end the Pentagon’s ban on gay people serving in the military. The liberal drift contributed to the Democrats’ loss of both houses of Congress in 1994. Smarting, Mr. Clinton brought in a secret adviser—whom he code-named “Charlie"—to help moderate his administration. This adviser’s tactics and mysterious identity unnerved liberal White House staffers like George Stephanopoulos and Harold Ickes, who found that progressive decisions made by day would shift to the right overnight.

“Charlie" was soon revealed as the conservative consultant Dick Morris, which enraged many liberal staffers. Mr. Ickes was gleeful when Mr. Morris fell from grace in 1996 over his relationship with a prostitute. But the internal tensions may have been part of the plan. Mr. Stephanopoulos, who loathed Mr. Morris, later wrote that Mr. Clinton had “been playing me off against Morris, taking the best from both of us and turning it into something better." A more moderate Mr. Clinton romped to reelection.

The second lever is process, which determines how information flows, who attends key meetings and when timelines are set for decisions. Poor processes set up administrations for unhealthy forms of dissent, including leaking while in power and score-settling for years afterward.

President Jimmy Carter’s White House was plagued by a bad decision-making process from the start. Mr. Carter initially refused to have a chief of staff, leading to chronic turbulence. On the first day of the administration, White House counsel Robert Lipshutz tried to assert himself by saying, “I guess because I’m the oldest one here. I’ll call this meeting to order." It didn’t work. Mr. Carter’s chief strategist, Hamilton Jordan, was asked how to proceed and said enigmatically, “We’ll have a meeting when there’s something to meet about." Another aide, Mark Siegel, witnessed this and wondered, “My God, what would the KGB think if they could see us now?" Carter speechwriter James Fallows later wrote that “a year was wasted as we blindly groped for answers and did for ourselves what a staff coordinator could have done."

George W. Bush, the first president with an MBA, recognized the importance of process, at least on domestic policy. His political adviser, Karl Rove, said that team members could “go to the Oval Office and advocate a perspective diametrically opposed to the point of view of the person on the sofa across" from them, and even in defeat, “you can link arms and go on, and be certain that your [losing] view won’t appear in the paper." But the same discipline didn’t carry over to foreign policy. Mr. Bush’s State Department, Defense Department and Office of the Vice President were often at odds, as a less disciplined National Security Council process bred leaks and policy dysfunction.

Finally, presidents set the tone for how and whether to express dissent. President Gerald Ford was reluctant to confront troublemakers. His White House became one of the most rivalrous in history, chaotic and leak-prone. “You don’t suspect ill motives of anyone until you’re kicked in the balls three times," Ford’s friend and speechwriter Robert Hartmann told him. “As a human being, that’s a virtue. As a president, it’s a weakness."

President Barack Obama maintained his “No Drama Obama" ethos by making it clear that he disapproved of backbiting and aides who acted out of line. His recent memoir admits to some internal “friction" and “tension," as does the memoir of former White House deputy chief of staff Alyssa Mastromonaco. As she relates, she once took offense at an article describing her as “responsible for overseeing scheduling, personnel and much more." She saw the description as a sexist slight and suspected it came from a colleague, leading her to “reply all" to a senior staff email sharing the offending article “with a very cutting, infuriated response." The next day, she recalls, Mr. Obama summoned her to the Oval Office and greeted her with the admonition, “So, I hear you sent quite an email."

Another time, when White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel “couldn’t help venting to friends around town" (as Mr. Obama writes) about his unhappiness with the administration’s early approach to health care reform, the president called him on the carpet. Mr. Emanuel was contrite, and Mr. Obama forgave him with a condition. “You know what your real punishment is?" Mr. Obama said. “You have to go pass the goddamn health care bill!"

The Biden team has seen both peaceful and tumultuous periods. In the primaries, reports of staff battles during his early losses in Iowa and New Hampshire led to a reshuffling of his top campaign personnel. The rejiggered group proved more disciplined during the general election, with scant public evidence of infighting.

Like so many presidents before him, Mr. Biden will soon be reminded that campaigning is one thing and governing another. As campaign promises give way to policy realities, disagreements quickly become more serious. If the president-elect wants to avoid letting infighting define his tenure, he will need the lessons of history—and the resolve to enforce them.

—Dr. Troy served in 2007-09 as deputy secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. His most recent book is “Fight House: Rivalries in the White House From Truman to Trump" (Regnery).

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