He will be Special Presidential Envoy for Climate and will serve on the White House national security counsel. 'For the first time ever, the United States will have a full-time climate leader who will participate in ministerial-level meetings — that's a fancy way of saying they'll have a seat at every table around the world,' Biden said in his remarks. He touted Kerry's credentials for the job and their close, personal relationship. 'The world will know that one of my closest friends — John Kerry — is speaking for America on one of the most pressing threats of our time,' he said. Kerry praised Biden for his commitment to the environment and for his pledge to return the United States to the Paris Climate Accord on the first day of his presidency. 'You're right to rejoin Paris on day one, and you're right to recognize that Paris alone does not get the job done,' he said.
He plays in a Parisian jazz band and is married with two young children. In his remarks, Blinken thanked his family, including his father Donald, the former U.S. ambassador to Hungry, and his mother Judith Pisar, who was a major figure on the New York arts and social scene. And then he told the story of his step-father, a Jew who survived a concentration camp as a child. 'My late step-father, Samuel Pisar, was one of 900 children in his school in Bialystok, Poland, but the only one to survive the Holocaust after four years in concentration camps,' he said. 'At the end of the war, he made a break from a death march into the Bavarian woods. From his hiding place, he heard the rumbling sound of a tank. Instead of an Iron Cross, he saw a 5- pointed White Star.' 'He ran to the tank. The hatch opened. An African American GI looked down at him. He fell to his knees and said the only three words he knew in English that his
Kerry's new position does not require Senate confirmation.
Secretary of State
Biden noted Blinken, one of his longtime advisers, comes from a family of 'immigrants and refugees' that include 'a Holocaust survivor who taught him to never take for granted the very idea of America as a place of possibilities.' Blinken worked for Vice President Biden before moving over to become Barack Obama's deputy national security adviser and then the administration's deputy secretary of state.
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