Biden set to nominate Caroline Kennedy as US ambassador to Australia: report
- President Biden is set to nominate Caroline Kennedy as ambassador to Australia, per a CNN report.
- Kennedy served as US ambassador to Japan under then-President Barack Obama from 2013 to 2017.
- She is a longtime friend of Biden, who served in the Senate with her uncle, the late Ted Kennedy.
President Joe Biden is set to nominate Caroline Kennedy to become the next ambassador to Australia, according to a CNN report.
Kennedy, the daughter of former President John F. Kennedy and former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, served as ambassador to Japan from 2013 to 2017 under then-President Barack Obama.
She is a longtime friend and political ally of Biden, and spoke during the Democratic National Convention last summer.
A White House spokesperson declined to comment on the nomination, saying that additional ambassadors would be revealed once the vetting process was finished.
Kennedy's appointment would highlight the Biden administration's continued emphasis on Asia-Pacific relations, especially as China continues to flex its muscle on the international stage.
The US and Australia long have maintained a robust diplomatic relationship, accentuated by close trade ties between the two countries.
During her stint in Tokyo, Kennedy worked on economic and trade affairs, among other issues.
Before joining the Obama administration, Kennedy, an author and attorney, worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and served as director of the Office of Strategic Partnerships for the New York City Department of Education.
She has also sat on the boards of numerous nonprofits, and serves as the honorary president of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation.
Biden's relationship with the Kennedy family runs deep.
The president served in the Senate with Caroline's uncle, Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, throughout his entire 36-year tenure in the upper chamber.
Biden has also nominated Sen. Kennedy's widow, Victoria Kennedy, to become the next ambassador to Austria.
He has spoke of the pivotal roles that John F. Kennedy and Ted Kennedy played in his life, reflecting on their Irish Catholic upbringing and their legacy of public service.
During a dedication for Sen. Kennedy in 2015, Biden said that without the senator's support, he would have walked away from his political career after losing his wife and daughter in a 1972 car accident shortly after his election to the Senate. The accident also resulted in severe injuries to his two sons, Beau and Hunter.
"It's close to certain I would have never been sworn in as a United States senator if not for your father, your father's encouragement," Biden told the Kennedy children at the time. "I didn't show up the day I was to be sworn in. It was your father, your father, who along with [Democratic Sen.] Mike Mansfield [of Montana], sent the secretary of the Senate to a hospital in Wilmington, Delaware, to swear me in with my boys."