Quote:It’s been a constant flood out the doors from aides fleeing the offices of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. As we previously reported, there have been more than 30 senior staffers who have thrown over Biden and Harris since they started in office.

Add one more to the list. The man who has been, in some ways, the closest aide to Joe Biden is now heading for the exits at the end of the week to a job at the Transportation Department.

Stephen Goepfert has been Biden’s “bodyman” since his 2020 campaign. A “bodyman” is a personal aide who follows him around from morning to night, helping him with anything he might need, carrying anything, and looking out for him. That can be a busy job with a normal person in the office, but if you think about how confused and messed up Biden often seems, it has to have been a nightmare always trying to cover his back.

Goepfert also has to have some stories that must be something, if he ever wanted to spill to anyone in the media. If you’ve worked at the White House but are willing to give it up to go to some undeclared position in the Transportation Department, when usually one works all one’s career to get to the White House, you know that it must have been tough. But we’ve seen this often, when it comes to people who want out of working for Biden and Harris.

“You’re literally at the border of where the President’s privacy and public duties sit — you have to have the right touch and right skill set,” Steve Ricchetti, a counselor to the President, told CNN. “Stephen has had the ability and the willingness to help the President navigate everything he did throughout the day. That ends up being a critical role.”

That’s one way of putting it. Caretaker for someone who should have retired long ago is another.

Biden put out a statement about Goepfert leaving.

“From the campaign to the White House, Stephen Goepfert has been by my side,” Biden said in a statement. “In moments big, small, and extraordinary, he’s been a trusted and loyal confidant who everyone counts on and who always delivers.”

“Jill and I will miss Stephen, but we’re proud that he will continue to serve the American people in his new role in the Biden-Harris administration as he continues his career in public service,” he continued.

Goepfert will be replaced by the White House receptionist, Jacob Spreyer.

They can keep replacing the people surrounding Biden and Harris, but the problem isn’t truly the staff. The problem is Biden, Harris, and the policies. There’s only so much lipstick you can put on the pig. The policies are still a failure–no matter how much you try to replace the staff or retool the messaging.

Quote:A Black lawyer who helped then-candidate Joe Biden attract Black voters during the 2020 election is leaving the White House Monday.

Trey Baker trades his senior White House advisory position for public engagement for partnership in the law firm Barnes & Thornburg.

The Tougaloo College 2006 graduate began working for President Biden in September 2019 as National Director for African-American Engagement, according to his LinkedIn profile. Upon Biden’s inauguration, he was elevated to Senior Advisor for Public Engagement.

Bloomberg further reported:

Black voters are a crucial segment of Biden’s base. The president has frequently credited those voters with resuscitating his presidential primary campaign and catapulting him to the White House. African-Americans voted in higher numbers in the 2020 election than they did in 2016, with Biden carrying 92 percent of the vote, according to an analysis by Pew Research Center.

The 2020 presidential election cycle occurred alongside the most tumultuous period of racial unrest in the US since the 1960s civil rights movement, following the killing of George Floyd by a then-Minneapolis police officer.

“He had to handle some hot potatoes,” civil rights leader Reverend Al Sharpton said in a telephone interview. “Trey was the real connection between civil-rights leadership, the White House and the campaign.”

Sharpton credited Baker with keeping lines of communication open between the White House and the community, particularly during moments of heightened tension like the trials of Derek Chauvin, the police officer convicted of killing Floyd, and of the men convicted of murdering Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man killed while jogging in a Georgia neighborhood in February of 2020.

“Many of us, our policies were a lot more progressive than” Biden’s were, Sharpton said, adding that Baker would help steer groups toward achievable goals

On the campaign, Baker helped develop programs to increase outreach to Black men and small business owners. Part of former President Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign strategy included an attempt to weaken Black voter turnout for Biden.

The latest departure from the administration raises the question of whether staffers are leaving because Biden is not running in 2024 or they believe he can’t win again.