New Chief of Staff

2004-2023 | 19 years

The episode Liftoff is full of new beginnings, as not only are two more cast members introduced (Jimmy Smits and Kristin Chenoweth as Congressmen Matthew Santos and Annabeth Schott), but former Press Secretary C.J. Cregg is made the new Chief of Staff. Although the Chief of Staff often isn’t someone the American people know much about, they can wield tremendous amounts of power and influence. The Chief of Staff is not elected, but rather hired by the President, and is the head of the Executive Office of the President of the United States. He serves as the President’s right-hand man, gatekeeper, and advisor. Practically everything the President does first goes through the Chief of Staff, who is essentially responsible for keeping the Executive branch running.

President Biden recently appointed a new Chief of Staff, Jeff Zients, to replace his former Chief of Staff, Ron Klain. Zients, like C.J., has a background in the private sector, rather than politics. And Klain, like Leo, had been a long-time political insider. Some progressive Democrats are opposed to Zients due to his corporate background, while others have brought up the fact that the Biden Administration missed the chance to appoint the first-ever Woman Chief of Staff. Although The West Wing is sometimes criticized for its lack of female characters in high-powered positions, the West Wing has had a woman Chief of Staff, C.J. Cregg, while indeed, in the real world, there have been none.

Because the Chief of Staff is such a powerful position, some have called the choice of who it will be the “single most important personnel decision” that a President makes. The job is very demanding, as illustrated in the show with Leo’s divorce and heart attacks. Chiefs of Staff, on average, only last about one or two years before moving on. President Trump had four Chiefs of Staff while in office, and Zients is President Biden’s second since his term started. The job is hard enough for those who are long-time political players, let alone those, such as Zients and C.J., who don’t have a long history in professional politics. This can make it hard for them to perform their job, as shown throughout the rest of the series as C.J. tries to serve the President in this capacity. For example, on her first day, C.J. didn’t even know how to get into the situation room, let alone how to deal with her foreign policy duties, which she had never had as press secretary. It is also hard for the whole White House staff, as they come to work under a whole new personality who runs things differently. C.J. also ends up having to deal with much more, as the opening scene of the episode is her getting assigned secret service and told what to do in the event of a nuclear attack, expressing just how much a person’s life can be impacted by taking this job. These are all things that Zients will have to deal with as he navigates this new role.