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FOX Business host Larry Kudlow argued the timing of Ron Klain’s reported departure as Biden’s chief of staff is “curious,” as the president faces backlash over another round of newly-discovered classified material.
Kudlow joined “Fox & Friends Weekend” to discuss the report and why he believes there may be more than meets the eye to Klain’s looming exit.
“It’s odd to me, that if The New York Times article that Chief of Staff Ron Klain is leaving, if that article is correct, the timing of all this is so curious to me,” Kudlow said on Sunday. “We learned late last night that the FBI was in the Wilmington House all day on Friday… And that’s the reason that President Biden was going to go to Rehoboth.”
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“Ron Klain has allegedly been the mastermind,” Kudlow said. “They called him the prime minister. He’s been deeply involved in every single policy issue, calling the shots for the most part… going all the way back to… 2021. What was Ron Klain’s role in the Afghanistan catastrophe? What is Ron Klain’s role been in the immigration Mexican border catastrophe? Ron Klain was the guy who said there was… no inflation and that he… tweeted out that inflation is only a rich man’s problem.”
Klain has served as Biden’s chief of staff since he took office two years ago. He was also his chief of staff while Biden served as vice president under Barack Obama.
The longtime political operative has been the longest–serving chief of staff to a Democratic president.
The reports of his alleged departure come as more classified documents were discovered at Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, during an FBI search.
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Officials from the Department of Justice recovered “six items consisting of documents with classification markings” during a “planned” and “consensual” search on Friday.
“He has been a very key figure, and… I’m just saying it’s curious that with this FBI latest, the FBI investigation of the classified documents, all of a sudden Ron Klain is announcing his retirement, if, in fact, that’s true,” Kudlow said.
But former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee pushed back on those assertions, explaining the “shelf life” of any high-level White House official is around 18 months, and his potential resignation does not necessarily signal anything more than what’s “typical.”
“People felt like that Ron Klain was really Ron Brain, he was the one that was running things,” Hucakbee said during his own “Fox & Friends Weekend” appearance on Sunday. “And if that’s the case, and he had to also get the mop and broom and clean up after Joe’s every moment at the podium, he’s probably just ready to say, ‘that’s it, I’m done. I got to get out of here and get my life back together.'”
“So I don’t think this is tied to anything other than the typical normal cycle of a chief of staff after about 18 months to two years packing it up and doing something different,” he continued.
The New York Times has reported a number of candidates are under consideration to replace Klain, including Labor Secretary Martin J. Walsh; Steven J. Ricchetti, the counselor to the president; Jeffrey D. Zients, the former White House coronavirus response coordinator; and Susan Rice, the White House domestic policy adviser, among others.
Fox News’ Bryn McCarthy and Chris Pandolfo contributed to this report.
