December 4, 2024
‘They just took them off his schedule months ago, and no one knows why.’
Former White House staffers are reportedly miffed about changes to a long-running tradition of outgoing presidents at the White House taking photos with staffers and their families, according to a number of staffers who spoke to Politico.
As an anonymous former Biden administration official who left the White House in 2022 explained to Politico, the photos are “the one thing you can sort of count on as a reward for all of your service, and it’s parents feeling fulfilled, too, for all of their work and getting you to this place.”
But the former official also noted that the removal of the option to take photos with the outgoing president could be a bad sign.
“They just took them off his schedule months ago, and no one knows why,” the former official told Politico. “Of course the culture is bad over there if they’re not doing the little things.”
In a departure from the removal from the president’s schedule hinted at by the official, the Office of Management and Administration’s employee engagement team told managers in an email sent during the week of Nov. 29, which Politico obtained, that it was “pleased to invite all current EOP political appointees for a departure photo to celebrate your time and work while at the White House.”
However, the next line in the email became another cause for consternation among the staff, as it indicated that the photos did not extend to family members, such as parents of staffers. According to the email, the photo sessions are being scheduled “on a rolling basis” during Biden’s final two months in office.
In a lengthy letter to colleagues, one former official expressed their frustratin with not getting a formal farewell from the president.
“These are the staffers who stood with Biden since Day 1, many since the lowest ebbs of the campaign,” the former official wrote. “The staffers who gave everything to this President, who missed anniversaries, birthdays, their own doctors appointments, knowing democracy itself was on the line, deserve at the very least a proper goodbye from the man who says he owes them everything.”
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