Joe Biden's former chief of staff is spending his post, White House hours doing what he does best, positioning a progressive Democrat for the next presidential race. Ron Klain, now Airbnb's chief legal officer, has been advising Rep. Ro Khanna of California as the congressman lays groundwork for a possible 2028 run, Breitbart News reported, citing sources who spoke to Politico's Playbook.
Klain is reportedly using his personal time to coach Khanna, a detail that suggests the arrangement is informal enough to avoid corporate entanglements at Airbnb, yet serious enough that multiple people familiar with the matter chose to talk about it. Klain declined Politico's request for an interview.
For conservatives watching the Democratic bench take shape three years before the next presidential election, the pairing tells a clear story: the party's progressive wing is not retreating. It is recruiting experienced operatives and testing whether a California congressman who wants to dismantle ICE can sell that platform nationwide.
Khanna has not been shy about his ambitions or his politics. While speaking with Rev. Al Sharpton at the National Action Network Conference in April, Khanna said he would "consider" a presidential run after the November midterm elections. That language, "consider", is the standard euphemism candidates use while they are already running the numbers.
His policy positions leave little room for ambiguity about where he would plant his flag. Khanna recently called to "tear down" U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He spoke out against the Laken Riley Act, the Republican-backed legislation named after a young woman killed by an illegal immigrant. For voters who believe border security and immigration enforcement are non-negotiable, Khanna's record is a flashing warning sign.
The congressman's stance on ICE is worth dwelling on. He did not call for reform, restructuring, or oversight. He used the words "tear down." That language places him squarely in the abolish-ICE camp that emerged from the progressive left several years ago, a position that polls poorly outside deep-blue districts but plays well with the activist base that dominates Democratic primaries.
In a political environment where endorsement politics inside the Democratic Party have grown increasingly fractured, Khanna's willingness to stake out hard-left ground early may be a calculated bet that the primary electorate rewards ideological clarity over electability.
Khanna is not Klain's only project. The former chief of staff has been busy across the Democratic landscape, offering his services to a roster of progressive candidates and incumbents.
In 2025, Klain entered the orbit of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, helping the self-described socialist with debate preparation. He also provided debate prep and general advising for Jack Schlossberg, President John F. Kennedy's grandson, during Schlossberg's New York congressional campaign. Klain is reportedly assisting Xavier Becerra, California's Democratic nominee for governor, and advising Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts on his reelection effort.
Then there is Graham Platner, the Maine Senate candidate described as a close ally of Khanna. Klain signed on to do debate prep for Platner ahead of a planned debate with Maine Gov. Janet Mills, a debate that never happened. The details of why it fell apart remain unclear, but Klain's involvement with Platner further illustrates the overlapping networks connecting the former chief of staff, Khanna, and the broader progressive campaign apparatus.
Klain has described his own approach as "low key." The breadth of his involvement suggests otherwise. When a former White House chief of staff is simultaneously coaching a socialist mayor, a Kennedy heir, a gubernatorial candidate, a sitting senator, and a would-be presidential contender, that is not a hobby. That is a political operation.
Klain's progressive bona fides are well established. Before Biden named him chief of staff after the 2020 campaign, Klain served as Barack Obama's White House Ebola Response Coordinator. By 2021, he was telling the Daily Beast exactly where his loyalties lay inside the Biden administration.
"Progressives are a big part of our party and making sure their voices are heard here at the White House is a big part of my job."
By 2022, Politico ran a headline that captured the dynamic: "Progressives, once skeptical of Biden, rally around his chief of staff." Klain had positioned himself as the bridge between the Biden White House and the party's far-left faction, a role that earned him trust from activists who viewed Biden himself as insufficiently progressive.
Now out of government, Klain appears to be leveraging those same relationships. The question is whether voters outside the progressive base will find the product appealing. The Biden administration's record on the economy, the border, and foreign policy gave Republicans their largest governing mandate in years. Building the next Democratic presidential campaign on the same ideological foundation, and staffing it with the same operatives, is a choice that deserves scrutiny.
The broader landscape of high-level political shakeups across both parties makes the early jockeying for 2028 all the more significant. Whoever emerges from the Democratic primary will face a Republican field shaped by the Trump era's emphasis on border enforcement, economic nationalism, and institutional accountability, issues where Khanna's record puts him on the defensive.
A Khanna presidential campaign would ask American voters to embrace a candidate who wants to abolish the federal agency responsible for deporting illegal immigrants, who opposed legislation honoring a murder victim, and who built his political identity in one of the most left-leaning congressional districts in the country.
California's 17th district, which Khanna represents, is not a proving ground for national electability. It is Silicon Valley. The political instincts that win there, tech-friendly progressivism, open-borders rhetoric, deep skepticism of law enforcement, do not translate easily to swing states where voters worry about fentanyl, rising crime, and the cost of groceries.
Khanna's alliance with Sharpton and his appearance at the National Action Network Conference signal the kind of coalition-building that matters in a Democratic primary. But primaries and general elections are different animals. The same positions that excite progressive donors and activist groups tend to generate devastating attack ads in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
Meanwhile, the political world continues to produce surprises that reshape races overnight. The unexpected twists in campaigns across the country remind voters that early frontrunner status means little when the fundamentals are weak.
What makes the Klain-Khanna partnership worth watching is not the advising itself, political figures seek experienced counsel all the time. It is what the partnership reveals about the Democratic Party's direction. Rather than moderating after consecutive electoral setbacks, the party's operative class is doubling down on progressivism and hoping a polished candidate can make the medicine go down easier.
Klain is not some freelance consultant picking up clients. He is the man who ran Biden's White House. His decision to invest personal time in Khanna's future is a signal about where he believes the party's center of gravity has shifted, and where he intends to push it further.
Questions about institutional accountability and political security have dominated recent headlines, and voters across the spectrum are demanding transparency from their leaders. Whether Khanna can meet that standard while running on a platform built around dismantling enforcement agencies remains an open question.
Khanna has not formally declared. Klain has not gone on the record. But the machinery is moving, the networks are connecting, and the ideological commitments are already locked in. Voters deserve to know what is being assembled, and by whom, long before the first primary ballot is printed.
When the architects of one administration's failures start building the next campaign, the least the public can do is pay attention early.