According to a Wednesday report, Kate Bedingfield, the director of communications for the White House, will depart the Biden administration at the end of this summer.
The Wall Street Journal first reported Bedingfield’s resignation, which is the most recent in a string of well-known employees to quit their jobs recently.
Later, Politico reported that she could leave in the coming weeks.
As the November midterm elections approach, it comes at a crucial time for President Joe Biden and the Democrats.
Multiple polls have suggested Republicans are set to win the majority of seats in the House of Representatives, and mounting reports indicate that the president’s allies are frustrated with his own low approval numbers further dragging the party down.
Bedingfield has a long-established working relationship with Biden, dating back to his time as Barack Obama’s vice president.
She was also one of the president’s senior advisers behind his successful 2020 campaign.
Biden’s Chief of Staff Ron Klain said without Bedingfield’s ‘talent and tenacity, Donald Trump might still be in the White House’ in a statement to the Journal.
‘She played a huge role in everything the President has achieved—from his second term as Vice President, through the campaign and since coming to the White House,’ Klain told the outlet.
The latest indication of dissatisfaction in the president’s press office is Bedingfield’s resignation.
The White House officially confirmed in early May that former Press Secretary Jen Psaki will be leaving her position at the end of the month.
However, speculation about Psaki’s exit and now-confirmed new television position at MSNBC started to circulate as early as April.
When Psaki was absent from the podium due to COVID-19 illness at the time, Bedingfield was promoted in the media as a prospective alternative.
It’s important to remember that while though the press secretary position has far greater interaction with the public, it is still officially beneath the communications director in the executive office hierarchy.
A number of other mid- and lower-level press staffers have also left in recent months, according to Politico.
Psaki ended up being replaced by current Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre, who is the first black woman and first LGBTQ person to serve in the role.
Veteran political operative Anita Dunn was recruited by Biden to shake up his communications strategy earlier this year, amid reports of Republican lawmakers gearing up for a slew of investigations targeting his administration after the midterms.
Among Dunn’s duties will be to craft responses to the GOP’s probes, the Washington Post reported in April.