Anita Dunn: What to know about Biden’s senior adviser

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Veteran Democratic operative Anita Dunn will be joining the White House temporarily as a senior adviser to President Joe Biden.

Dunn, 63, has held a number of prominent positions working for Democrats on the campaign trail and later in office.

She advised former President Barack Obama during his first campaign and later served in his administration as a senior adviser and communications director.

Anita Dunn, Fmr. White House Communications Director, appears on "Meet the Press" in Washington, D.C., Sunday, May 4, 2014.  (Getty Images)

Dunn also served as a senior adviser on Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign. A source close to the campaign told Fox News last week that she has been widely credited with having steered the campaign "so ably" after Iowa and New Hampshire.

Dunn, who will be on leave from the political consulting firm SKDKnickerbocker, is not expected to remain in the White House for long and is joining on a "temporary basis."

Dunn garnered controversy during Obama’s first year in office, for comments she made regarding her admiration for Chinese Communist dictator Mao Zedong.

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"The third lesson and tip actually come from two of my favorite political philosophers: Mao Zedong and Mother Teresa," Dunn said during a June 2009 commencement address at St. Andrew’s Episcopal High School in Washington, D.C. "[They're] not often coupled with each other, but the two people that I turn to most to basically deliver a simple point, which is, you're going to make choices, you’re going to challenge, you’re going to say why not. You’re going to figure out how to do things that have never been done before."  

Dunn later said her comments were intended as "irony," and something she picked up from the famous Republican political strategist Lee Atwater. She resigned from her position in the Obama administration later that year.

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Dunn is one of many Obama administration officials to be joining the Biden administration. She is expected to work closely with White House communications director Kate Bedingfield and press secretary Jen Psaki.