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Deconstructed

Biden’s New Chief of Staff Might Be Very Bad News

Deconstructed

The Intercept

News

4.84.7K Ratings

🗓️ 24 January 2023

⏱️ 19 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

President Joe Biden is naming Jeff Zients to be his next chief of staff. Zients, a corporate Democrat, was previously in the White House helping steer its pandemic response and leading vaccination efforts. Previously, Zients helped oversee two health care companies embroiled in Medicare and Medicaid fraud allegations, which they paid tens of millions to settle. This week on Deconstructed, Intercept reporter Daniel Boguslaw and The American Prospect’s Robert Kuttner join Ryan Grim to discuss Zients’s past in the world of for-profit health care. Zients is also a former Facebook board member, worrying progressives pushing for the administration to rein in Silicon Valley. join.theintercept.com/donate/now

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Hi, I'm Ryan Graham, welcome to Deconstructed.

0:08.5

Over the weekend we learned that White House chief of staff Ron Claim will be leaving his

0:12.0

job making way for Jeff Zyntz, who played a variety of different roles in the Obama administration

0:16.8

but has spent most of his time in the private sector.

0:19.7

Now Bob Cutner, writing in the American prospect, described Zyntz like this on Monday, quote,

0:25.0

for starters, Zyntz is from the plutocratic wing of the Democratic Party, having become very

0:29.5

rich from taking two David Bradley Ventures public, the advisory board company and the corporate

0:34.8

executive board.

0:36.0

When he was 35, fortune estimated his net worth at $149 million, unquote.

0:42.2

Now my colleague Dan Boguslaw, back when he was himself at the prospect, wrote a piece

0:46.4

diving deep into Zyntz's background in the world of kind of for-profit healthcare,

0:51.4

and both Dan and Bob are joining me now on short notice, and I appreciate it.

0:56.3

Bob, thanks so much for joining me.

0:58.0

Well, thanks for reconnecting with my old friend Dan.

1:00.5

There you go, and Dan, thank you for joining me on short notice too.

1:04.2

Thanks for bringing in my old friend Bob.

1:06.3

Alright, so Bob, the thrust of your piece is looking forward to the negotiations, or if

1:12.0

there will be negotiations around the upcoming debt ceiling fight, congressional Democrats

1:16.2

are saying there will be none.

1:18.1

But already you've got people like Josh Gottheimer, Joe Manchin, Kiersten Sinema entering into

1:22.4

some talks, despite Hill leader saying, no, we're just going to raise a debt ceiling, we're

1:26.7

not going to talk about it.

...

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