Chief Legal Officer, Airbnb
Ex-Biden Chief Of Staff Ron Klain Admits Meetings Could Be Scrapped Due To A Biden 'Yelling Mood'
During his testimony before the House Oversight Committee, former Biden White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain asked about the ...
About Ronald Klain
Ron Klain, the chief legal officer at Airbnb, appeared on the Photon Podcast in April 2026. He discussed his career transition, stating that he was contacted by a former client who was retiring as general counsel of Airbnb and asked if he wanted to be considered for the role, which he accepted. Klain described his leadership style as inclusive and focused on listening and learning, and said that success for him involves spending time with his family. Klain also commented on past events. He described the 2000 presidential election in Florida as very close, with an initial tally separating the candidates by about 500 votes out of 12 million cast, and noted irregularities in various counties. Regarding the early response to the COVID-19 epidemic, Klain said it was not particularly effective and stated that data appears to show the disease started in China but came to the United States from Europe.
Transcript (50 segments)
I
Interviewer0:00
And there was a lot of talk from former President Obama, from various people you have mentioned today, the POS of America guys, all sorts of people about a more open process, a rushed primary process. My not being an expert in DNC internal workings, my understanding is that would have been rather difficult. Is that yours as well?
R
Ronald Klain0:26
Well, of course, primaries are set by state law, and you would have needed states to set up such primaries. Many of the state legislatures were controlled by Republicans, and it wasn't clear to me that Republican legislators were going to create and fund additional primaries. We had run a primary process. President Biden had won the primaries on the Democratic side. The idea of going to states and asking them to spend public funds to set up an additional primary in August, who would show up, not clear, struck me as more kind of political theater than actual reality of how this worked.
I
Interviewer0:55
Did anyone with the vice president approach you about working on her campaign?
R
Ronald Klain1:00
No.
I
Interviewer1:14
I want to introduce as exhibit six a Wall Street Journal article by Annie Linsky among others entitled 'How the White House Functioned with the Diminished Biden in Charge.' It's a rather lengthy article. We can go off the record for you to read it or I can just direct you to some specific areas and I'll ask some questions.
R
Ronald Klain1:47
Why don't you ask me what you want to ask me about this and we'll pause and read the sections you want to ask me.
I
Interviewer1:57
On page three, I'm going to read the second paragraph from the bottom. It's under the subheading called 'Good Days and Bad Days.' I'll read from the article: 'Biden, now 82, has long operated with a tight-knit inner circle of advisers. The protective culture inside the White House was intensified because Biden started his presidency at the height of the COVID pandemic. His staff took great care to prevent him from catching the virus by limiting in-person interactions with him. But the shell constructed for the pandemic was never fully taken down and his advanced age hardened.' Did I read that correctly?
R
Ronald Klain2:49
Yes, you did.
I
Interviewer2:51
Do you agree with that report?
R
Ronald Klain2:53
I do not.
I
Interviewer2:55
You have worked in three White Houses?
R
Ronald Klain2:58
Yes, I have.
I
Interviewer3:00
Do you agree that President Biden was staffed more closely and by a smaller group of people, trusted people, than either President Clinton or President Obama?
R
Ronald Klain3:18
No, I do not agree with that. That was not my observation or my experience.
I
Interviewer3:22
Have you ever heard the term 'Politburo' to refer to a small group of advisers?
R
Ronald Klain3:26
I did not hear it while I worked at the White House, but I've certainly read it in some of these accounts of some of these books that have come out now.
I
Interviewer3:34
And you've probably read that that Politburo was seen to have consisted of Bruce Reed, Steve Ricchetti, and Mike Donilon. Is that correct?
R
Ronald Klain3:46
I've read press accounts to that effect. Yes.
I
Interviewer3:48
Have you heard other shorthand to refer to that group of people? Recognizing that you have not heard 'Politburo,' have you heard other shorthands?
R
Ronald Klain3:57
No.
I
Interviewer3:59
You never heard the term 'Gray Hairs' referred to a certain group of people?
R
Ronald Klain4:07
Not that I recall. No.
I
Interviewer4:08
You never heard the term 'Pubas' to refer to a certain group of people?
R
Ronald Klain4:15
Pubas? No.
I
Interviewer4:21
I'll continue reading from the article. The structure was designed to prevent Biden, an undisciplined public speaker throughout his half-century political career, from making gaffes or missteps that could damage his image, create political headaches, or upset the world order. I read that correctly?
R
Ronald Klain4:41
Yes, you did. You missed one word, but it's not consequential.
I
Interviewer4:50
You disagree with that reporting?
R
Ronald Klain4:53
Again, I disagree that there was some structure that restricted people's access to the president, at least during the two years I was there as chief of staff.
I
Interviewer5:00
Do you concede that Annie Tomasini, Anthony Bernal, Ashley Williams created a sort of cocoon around the president?
R
Ronald Klain5:12
I do disagree with that. Yes.
I
Interviewer5:16
I'll keep reading on the next page. The system put Biden at an unusual remove from cabinet secretaries, the chairs of congressional committees, and other high-ranking officials. It also insulated them from the scrutiny of the American public. I find that internally inconsistent with the earlier paragraph in the article right under 'Good Days and Bad Days.' It says the president's slide has been hard to overlook. So if it's been hard to overlook, whatever she thinks about all this must have been transparent to the public. Do you concede that? Do you agree that the president had good days and bad days?
R
Ronald Klain5:52
I'm not sure what that means, but I think the president, as far as I know, was mentally acute to govern at all times. And I also disagree that the president had an unusual remove from cabinet secretaries. I don't think there's a president in history who's met with his defense secretary as much as President Biden met with Secretary Austin.
I
Interviewer6:08
But there are other members of the cabinet. Correct.
R
Ronald Klain6:10
There are other members of the cabinet.
I
Interviewer6:11
Do you know if other members of the cabinet ever expressed frustration at not being able to see the president enough?
R
Ronald Klain6:18
I'm sure they did. I don't recall specifically, but cabinet members always complain they don't have enough access to the president. Every White House I've ever worked in, that's been a complaint: the secretary of the interior, the secretary of whatever, they don't get to see the president enough.
I
Interviewer6:29
Do you know if other cabinet members have spoken to the media about their lack of ability to contact the president, specifically Mr. Kapper and Mr. Thompson or any of the other authors of the books that we've been talking about?
R
Ronald Klain6:43
I'm not aware of any such communications, but I haven't read the books. But again, every White House I've been in, the cabinet secretaries feel like they don't have enough access to the president.
I
Interviewer6:55
I'll go to page five of this article, the next page. If the president was having an off day, meetings could be scrapped altogether. On one occasion in the spring of 2021, a national security official explained to another aide why a meeting needed to be rescheduled. Quote, 'He has good days and bad days, and today was a bad day, so we're going to address this tomorrow.' End quote. The former aide recalled the official saying. 2021, spring of 2021, you were there.
R
Ronald Klain7:28
Yes, I was.
I
Interviewer7:32
Do you remember this incident?
R
Ronald Klain7:34
I do not.
I
Interviewer7:35
Is it your testimony today that meetings were not scrapped because the president was having a bad day?
R
Ronald Klain7:42
A meeting might have been scrapped because the president had a highly negative reaction to the proposed recommendation coming in on the meeting. So I can imagine a meeting where the proposal from the relevant cabinet agency was 'let's do X' and the president read the memo in advance and said this is ridiculous and this is wrong, and someone said, 'Well, we don't want the cabinet official to get yelled at, so let's do this meeting another day when he's not in a yelling mood.' But I think temperament is different than acuity.
I
Interviewer8:19
Did you notice a change in the president's temperament over the time that you've known him?
R
Ronald Klain8:25
He became more subdued as he got older and less inclined to snap at people.
I
Interviewer8:37
What would in your experience set the president off to snap at people?
R
Ronald Klain8:45
Like all people, he has a certain number of pet peeves. One of them was an excessive use of jargon in draft remarks to be delivered publicly or an excessive use of acronyms. He wanted his remarks to be very publicly accessible. So if he got a draft that had a lot of acronyms or jargon, he would say, 'I've told people a thousand times, I don't want to give speeches like this.' He also had strong views about certain policy matters, and if he thought people were trying to undo his direction or approach, he would react negatively to that.
I
Interviewer9:23
Stepping back, I asked you a few hours ago if when you arrived at Camp David, you thought that President Biden was out of it because he was being insulated by his staff, and you said no. I'm just struck because it seems to me that the reporting is pretty unanimous that President Biden did have this cocoon of people who helped him through the day. You reject that report?
R
Ronald Klain10:02
I don't know what you mean by cocoon. The president was staffed as all presidents have been, and the purpose of the White House staff is to help the president go through his day. He was less insulated from a wide variety of points of view than President Obama was, who had six specific senior advisers who met with him every single day for long stretches of time and every decision went through that group. President Biden met directly with the secretary of defense, the secretary of state, the national security adviser, and the director of the CIA almost on a daily basis, and had weekly meetings with the secretary of treasury and his senior economic advisers. So I found him open to a wide array of advice, and he met a lot directly with members of the Senate in particular. He negotiated one-on-one with Senator Manchin twice on big legislative packages and did so effectively that after the second negotiation, Senator Manchin said he would not negotiate with the president again because the president had taken advantage of negotiations and was able to get Senator Manchin to agree to things he didn't want to agree to. That sounds like someone who's very sharp at the top of their game when you can get your negotiating opponent to agree to things and the negotiating opponent says, 'No more. I can't do this anymore.'