Biden appoints senior adviser to president who has been under fire for praising Mao Zedong

President-elect Joe Biden appoints Anita Dunn (right) as senior adviser to the president.

On Friday (Jan. 15), President-elect Joe Biden named Anita Dunn as a senior adviser to the president. Dunn resigned from the Obama administration in 2009 after controversy over her praise of Chinese Communist dictator Mao Zedong.

Dunn was a senior adviser to Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign, and last September became co-chair of the Biden-He Jinli transition team.

After being appointed as a senior adviser to the president, the transition team described in its official website that “Anita Dunn brings decades of experience managing and winning political initiative campaigns and advising our nation’s leaders at the highest levels of government.”

The website also shows that Dunn served as chief strategist for Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign and later as White House communications director; in 2012, she helped Obama prepare for the presidential debates; and she has worked “inside and outside of government for former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle and former Senator Bill Bradley (R-Ariz.)”.

But in 2009, Dunn had made public comments about admiring Mao, leading to her eventual resignation as White House communications director.

In June of that year, she said in her commencement address at a Maryland high school that her two favorite political philosophers were former Chinese leader Mao Zedong and Mother Teresa.

Current affairs talk show host Glenn Beck, whose video of the speech aired on Fox, lambasted Mao as a murderous dictator who “believes in Marxism that will destroy our country.

Baker said, “O Americans, just how many radicals do you have to surround the president to understand that when Obama says he wants to change America, the so-called reformist progressives don’t care what you think, they will force you into reform if they have to. And we’re not just talking about those people anymore, but revolutionaries who idolize Mao!”

Dunn later responded that the reference to Mao was a satirical attempt, but it failed.

Also according to the New York Times, Hollywood movie mogul Harvey Weinstein previously sought advice from Dunne when he was accused of sex crimes. Dunn reportedly helped Weinstein develop strategies without charging a fee.