Sources tell the New York Times that President-elect Biden will nominate Antony Blinken, one of his closest foreign policy advisers, for Secretary of State. The Times writes:
Mr. Blinken, 58, a former deputy secretary of state under President Barack Obama and a guitar aficionado, began his career at the State Department during the Clinton administration. His extensive foreign policy credentials are expected to help calm American diplomats and global leaders alike after four years of the Trump administration’s ricocheting strategies and nationalist swaggering.
He has been at Mr. Biden’s side for nearly 20 years, including as his top aide on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and later as Mr. Biden’s national security adviser when he was vice president. In that role, Mr. Blinken helped develop the American response to political upheaval and ensuing instability across the Middle East, with mixed results in Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Libya.
Bloomberg reports in addition Jake Sullivan, a former aide to Hillary Clinton, will be named national security adviser. Bloomberg reports, “Both Sullivan, who is 43, and Blinken, 58, served stints as Biden’s national security adviser when he was vice president.”
The Times notes that Blinken grew up in New York and Paris, “graduating from Harvard and Columbia Law School. He is also the stepson of a Holocaust survivor and has often spoken of the moral example the United States sets for the rest of the world.”
