Max Rose to serve as COVID adviser in Pentagon

January 20, 2021 Jaime DeJesus, brooklynreporter.com

Max Rose has been named special assistant to the secretary of defense. ebrooklyn media/file photo by Corazon Aguirre

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Former U.S. Rep. Max Rose (D-Southern Brooklyn-Staten Island) may have lost his recent bid for re-election, but he now has a new role as part of President Joe Biden’s new administration.

Rose was named special assistant to the U.S. secretary of defense (senior adviser, COVID), in an announcement first reported by Defense One, a military-oriented website.

Rose has a long association with the military. He served nearly five years of active duty with the U.S. Army, and he was a first lieutenant platoon leader during the war in Afghanistan in 2012-13. He currently serves as a company commander in the New York Army National Guard.

In December, after losing to then-Assemblymember Nicole Malliotakis, a Republican, the previous month, Rose announced tentative plans to run for mayor of New York City in December.

“We can’t afford another four years like the past seven,” said Rose, who called his fellow Democrat, Mayor Bill de Blasio, “the worst mayor in the history of the city of New York” in a campaign ad last year. “Look – this is going to be hard. I’m the underdog by every meaning of the word,” Rose continued, talking about his mayoral bid.

But on Sunday, Jan. 3, he announced his decision to stay out of the crowded contest.

“People are scared and unsure if the New York they love will still exist in the years to come,” he said. “The next mayor can’t just balance the budget, he or she must build a social contract that leaves no one behind. New York City can set the governing example for the rest of the world.”

In his concession statement, Rose said his accomplishments include permanently funding the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund, making progress to combat the opioid epidemic, securing money to improve commutes, working to enact split-tolling on the Verrazzano Bridge and cutting through red tape to begin construction of the East Shore Seawall off Staten Island.

During his one term as a congressmember, Staten Island was the first borough to receive a COVID-19 drive-thru testing site. Rose also voted to pass $484 billion to assist businesses, nonprofits, hospitals and testing in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Rose grew up in Park Slope; went to Poly Prep Country Day School in Dyker Heights; where he captained the wrestling team; obtained several college degrees; and after his active military service served as director of public engagement for the late Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson.

As recently as April 2020, he deployed with the National Guard to “help set up field hospitals in Staten Island and other parts of New York,” according to Defense One.

Additional material by Raanan Geberer