Photo illustration by Joelle McKenna
Former Rep. Max Rose tapped by Biden as senior Pentagon advisor
The news about the Park Slope native comes days after he bowed out of a short-lived run in New York City's mayoral race
As President-elect Joe Biden swears in to office on Inauguration Day, South Brooklyn will also be stepping up. Former Congressman Max Rose will reportedly be appointed as a senior advisor in the Pentagon over the management of the coronavirus pandemic.
The news about Rose, a Park Slope native, comes after he recently bowed out of a short-lived run in New York City’s mayoral race. He will serve as the special assistant to the secretary of defense and as a “senior advisor” on Covid-19, according to Defense One.
Rose, a 34-year-old Afghan war veteran and Army reservist, lost his congressional seat representing South Brooklyn and Staten Island to Republican challenger Nicole Malliotakis, a state assemblywoman who days after swearing in to national office doubled down on the lie that the 2020 election was fraudulent.
On Dec. 9. about a month after the loss of Rose’s congressional seat, it was widely reported that he filed paperwork with New York’s Campaign Finance Board to join the crowded field in the mayoral race. He bowed out Jan. 3, a whiplash move that prompted retrospective speculation this week that it was in order to take on his new Pentagon role.
The mayoral race, which will effectively be decided in the primaries because there are no real viable Republican candidates, is already a crowded field that includes Andrew Yang, the entrepreneur and 2020 Democratic candidate, Comptroller Scott Stringer, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, former Wall Street executive Ray McGuire, former de Blasio adviser Maya Wiley and former Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia, among others.
