White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield will leave the White House at the end of this month and will be succeeded by Ben LaBolt, a veteran of the Barack Obama presidential campaigns.
Bedingfield led President Joe Biden’s communications team since the start of his presidential campaign in 2019, and then joined the administration at its start as communications director. She had planned to depart last summer, but then changed her plans and stayed on through the midterms. Bedingfield also served as Biden’s communications director when he was vice president, after serving as spokesperson for the Motion Picture Association of America.
LaBolt led communications for the White House on the Supreme Court confirmation process for Ketanji Brown Jackson. He was senior national spokesperson for the Obama-Biden presidential campaign in 2008 and national press secretary for the campaign in 2012. He currently leads a San Francisco-based communications and marketing agency, Bully Pulpit Interactive. He’ll also be the first openly gay White House communications director.
In a statement, Biden called Bedingfield “a loyal and trusted adviser, through thick and thin.”
“Ben has big shoes to fill,” Biden said. “I look forward to welcoming him back as a first-rate communicator who’s shown his commitment to public service again and again, and who has a cutting-edge understanding of how Americans consume information.”
Bedingfield’s exit follows that of White House chief of staff Ron Klain, who was succeeded by Jeffrey Zients. The changes come in advance of a potential Biden reelection campaign, with expectations that he will make another run.
More to come.
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