President Joe Biden has tapped longtime friend Victoria Reggie Kennedy, the widow of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., to serve as ambassador to Austria, the White House announced Wednesday.

What You Need To Know

  • President Joe Biden is nominating longtime friend Victoria Reggie Kennedy, the widow of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., to serve as the U.S. ambassdor to Austria

  • The president is also reportedly considering Caroline Kennedy, daughter of former president John F. Kennedy and neice of Ted, is under consideration for ambassador to Australia

  • Biden delivered a powerful eulogy for the late Massachusetts senator, known as "the Lion of the Senate" during his nearly 47-year term in the chamber; they served together for 36 years

  • The president also tapped Comcast executive David Cohen, former chief of staff to Biden ally Ed Rendell and an early Biden backer, to serve as ambassador to Canada and Jamie Harpootlian, an influential South Carolina Democrat, attorney, and wife of Biden ally state Sen. Dick Harpootlian, to serve as ambassador to Slovenia

Kennedy works as Senior Counsel in the corporate and securities practice group at Greenberg Traurig, LLP, and serves as president of the board and co-founder of the non-profit Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate, which educated the public about the U.S. Senate. She is also head of the education committee of the board of trustees for the Kennedy Center in Washington.

Biden delivered a powerful eulogy for the late Massachusetts senator, known as "the Lion of the Senate" during his nearly 47-year term in the chamber. Then-Vice President Biden said that Kennedy encouraged him to stay in politics following the 1972 car crash that claimed the lives of his first wife, Neilia, and infant daughter Naomi, calling him a "big brother."

"He crept into my heart, and before I knew it, he owned a piece of me," Biden, who served alongside Kennedy in the Senate for 36 years, said at his memorial service in 2009. “I wouldn’t be standing here were it not for Teddy Kennedy."

Victoria might not be the only Kennedy being considered by Biden for a key diplomatic post, according to a report from Axios, which says that Caroline Kennedy, daughter of former president John F. Kennedy and neice of Ted, is under consideration for ambassador to Australia. Caroline Kennedy served as former President Barack Obama's ambassador to Japan from 2013-17, after she and her uncle endorsed Obama early on in the 2008 Democratic primary.

Biden also tapped Comcast executive David Cohen, former chief of staff to Biden ally Ed Rendell and an early Biden backer, to serve as ambassador to Canada, Jamie Harpootlian, an influential South Carolina Democrat, attorney, and wife of Biden ally state Sen. Dick Harpootlian, to serve as ambassador to Slovenia and John Bass, a career foreign service member, to serve as Senior Advisor at the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute.