Meet Biden’s Covid ‘wunderkind’
Presented by ACLI, Finseca, IRI, NAFA and NAIFA
With help from Allie Bice and Daniel Payne
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When SYLVIA MATHEWS BURWELL moved from being director of the Office of Management and Budget to Health and Human Services secretary in 2014, she only brought one staffer with her: a mid-twenties, low-key policy wonk who had just graduated from college two years prior.
SONYA BERNSTEIN went on to serve as Burwell’s deputy chief of staff and then as a senior official at NYC Health + Hospitals, which runs New York City’s public hospitals, when Covid-19 hit. Since joining the Biden transition team in December, Bernstein has quickly become one of the most influential forces shaping the nation’s vaccine and pandemic policy as a senior policy adviser on JEFF ZIENTS’ Covid team based out of the White House.
Bernstein played a leading role in designing and then implementing the administration’s program enlisting more than 40,000 pharmacies to receive and administer vaccines and standing up the more than 900 federally-supported vaccination sites with FEMA, according to the administration.
Her former bosses and colleagues refer to her as something of a prodigy who also doesn’t fully believe she is one.
“Part of being a wunderkind, the good ones, is that they don’t always appreciate how good they are and she’s one of those people,” said LESLIE DACH, a senior counsel to Burwell who worked with Bernstein.
“She’s zero ego,” said NATALIE QUILLIAN, Zients’ deputy, who described Bernstein as an “all-star.”
Bernstein declined to be interviewed for this story. “If you wanted to talk about the throughput of the pharmacy channel then she’d talk, but not about this,” said White House spokesperson KEVIN MUNOZ. She’s in her early 30s but she didn’t allow the administration to disclose her exact age.
Bernstein’s influence over the country’s response to Covid-19 reflects the power of Zients’ team of roughly 30 people, who have coordinated the federal government’s largest vaccination program ever. Biden’s team was so impressed with the unit that they recently expanded its mission to include managing the U.S.’ global vaccination effort. The team is a mixture of former state and city health officials, congressional aides and Obama administration alumni, some of whom have more robust health backgrounds than others.
Bernstein was one of a handful of Biden aides who were tapped to work on three separate agency review teams during the transition: HHS, the Defense Department and the Department of Homeland Security.
Former colleagues said they were impressed with Bernstein early on, given her ability to measure up to even the high standards set by Burwell, who, like many Cabinet secretaries, is known as being a demanding boss, according to Dach and other HHS veterans. The fact that “Sonya can be successful staffing someone like Sylvia says a lot about Sonya‘s capabilities,” one former colleague said.
Burwell recalls that she first stole Bernstein away from GENE SPERLING when she became OMB director. “I could not be happier for her or happier for our country and now our world because the remit has been broadened,” she said in an interview, also recalling that her kids call Sonya “Dr. Bernstein” after seeing her dressed up as a doctor one Halloween.
”In terms of her age, the level of responsibility and impact that she’s having, I think is tremendous,” she said.
Bernstein has a unique resume on Zients’ team as a former HHS staffer who was also on the front lines of New York’s efforts to combat the virus during the early days of the pandemic. “Sonya saved a lot of lives during Covid and I can say that unequivocally,” says MATT SIEGLER, her supervisor at NYC Health + Hospitals.
“The work of managing the ambulance fleet and getting patients from our hardest-hit hospitals to hospitals with a bit more capacity was operationally something that Sonya really drove...that was her life through COVID,” said Siegler, recalling getting emails from her up until 4 a.m. and then as early as 6 a.m. the next day.
Colleagues say she continues to bring that mentality to the current job. She got married in a small ceremony last month, and one administration official recalled that she “couldn’t even tell me the time they were getting married. But she could tell you how each pharmacy performs on equity. Or what FEMA sites are seeing dropping demand.”
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PRESIDENTIAL TRIVIA
Which president was nicknamed “Elegant” because of his classy fashion sense?
(Answer at the bottom.)
The Oval
IMMIGRANT SONG — June is a big month: National Ocean Month, National Homeownership Month, National Caribbean-American Heritage Month, LGBTQ Pride Month, Black Music Appreciation Month and Great Outdoors Month according to the presidential proclamations Biden issued on Tuesday.
It’s also National Immigrant Heritage Month, which the White House marked with a proclamation as well as personal testimonials from within its own ranks — nearly a third of the Biden administration’s appointees are immigrants or the children of immigrants, according to statistics the White House released at the end of Biden’s first 100 days.
CRISTÓBAL ALEX, the White House deputy Cabinet secretary, revealed on Twitter that his father, a German immigrant, met his mother, a Mexican immigrant, “at a club (!) when they were 19” and that his mom made fun of his dad for wearing sunglasses indoors.
EMMY RUIZ, the White House political director, posted a faded but glamorous photo of her Mexican immigrant parents on their wedding day. And GAUTAM RAGHAVAN, the deputy director of the Office of Presidential Personnel; AUDREY LOPEZ, the director of Hispanic media; and White House spokesman VEDANT PATEL also tweeted photos of themselves as young children with their immigrant parents or grandparents.
ANNALS OF TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES: Even the White House isn’t immune from Zoom glitches, which seemed to strike at the end of today’s Covid briefing. “Should we try to do one more question, Kevin?” Jeff Zients asked Kevin Munoz.
Munoz told him it was time to wrap up, but Zients didn’t seem to be able to hear him and continued to look straight ahead for almost 10 seconds. “Jeff, we can wrap up,” Munoz said. Still nothing. So that was the end of the briefing.
Filling the Ranks
The White House announced another slate of nominations today:
NEIL McBRIDE, who was Biden’s former Senate counsel, to be Treasury’s general counsel.
CARAL SPANGLER as assistant secretary of the Army for financial management and comptroller — the latest in a 39 year career in the DOD.
PALOMA ADAMS-ALLEN for deputy administrator for management and resources and ISOBEL COLEMAN for deputy administrator for policy and programming at the U.S. Agency for International Development.
GRANT HARRIS, who was special assistant to the president and senior director for African affairs in the Obama administration, as assistant Commerce secretary for industry and analysis.
JULIETA VALLS NOYES as assistant secretary of State for population, refugees, and migration.
DAVID WEIL as wage and hour administrator at the Department of Labor.
Agenda Setting
BIDEN BEEFS UP A TRUMP-ERA POLICY — Biden signed an executive order today that administration officials said would bolster a Trump-era ban on investment in Chinese companies deemed national security threats to the United States, KELLIE MEJDRICH reports.
What We're Reading
When will Harriet Tubman adorn the $20 bill? (The Post’s Annie Linskey)
Why Harris wanted to work on voting rights (NYT’s Katie Rogers and Nicholas Fandos)
Biden called Larry Summers late last month (so did we TBH) (The Post’s Tyler Pager and Jeff Stein)
Biden opposes presidential commission to investigate Jan. 6 (Axios’ Hans Nichols)
Where's Joe
He and first lady JILL BIDEN are in Rehoboth Beach, Del., celebrating Jill’s 70th birthday.
Where's Kamala
She gave remarks on broadband access in the South Court Auditorium, along with Interior Secretary DEB HAALAND and Commerce Secretary GINA RAIMONDO.
The Oppo Book
The White House’s director of digital strategy, ROB FLAHERTY, used to have aspirations to work for “Saturday Night Live,” at first intending to major in television and radio at Ithaca College.
Everything changed on his sophomore winter break, however. He began binge-watching “The West Wing,” the fast-talking, idealistic show that valorized White House staffers like, say, a slightly senior comms official.
“In the political campaign world, to say you were inspired by ‘The West Wing’ is a cliché to the point of deserving mockery,” he told Ithaca College News in January of this year. “But I started watching it and thought, this could be a career option.”
Is Rob more a Josh, a Toby, or a Sam? Perhaps a composite?
Trivia Answer
CHESTER ARTHUR, was nicknamed “Elegant Arthur,” because he was known for his sleek fashion sense, according to History.com. He also, apparently, owned 80 pairs of pants.
AND ABOUT WEDNESDAY’S TRIVIA: Some readers tried to play “gotcha” on yesterday’s trivia question on how many presidential memorials and monuments are on the National Mall. Some argued that we undercounted by not including the other monuments and memorials on U.S. Capitol grounds.
Well, dear readers, we think you’re wrong. We defined the “National Mall” as the lands administered by the National Park Service and NPS only has the six monuments we mentioned. Other presidential monuments likethis oneof JAMES GARFIELD are maintained by the Architect of the Capitol so we didn’t include.
We want your tips, but we also want your feedback as we transition to West Wing Playbook. What should we be covering in this newsletter that we’re not? What are we getting wrong? Please let us know.
Edited by Emily Cadei
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