Significantly. A typical aircraft squadron might have 85 fully operational. More investments are being made and stealthy, longrange aircraft, Unmanned Systems in the air or under sees hypersonic missiles, small satellites and artificial we will be leaving this here and take you to a live discussion on president ial transition and National Security hosted by the university of virginia plus Miller Center. To moderate todays conversation. It is a real pleasure to be with you all and have these terrific guests. The president ial transition act was stopped by congress in 1963 to provide important statutory framework for the peaceful transfer of power. It has been updated several times since then and today we will discuss some of the important issues coming out of that in the current transition and transfer. It has been almost a week since most Major Networks designated joe biden as president elect. The biden team has been moving forward on a transition and selected a new white house chief of staff have launched a Pandemic Task force, and soon will be announcing other white house and cabinet level positions. They started conversations with foreign heads of state and a number of american political leaders. A small but growing number of senior Republican Leaders have acknowledged the outcome of the election, including former president bush, andy card, counselor karl rove, and a handful of republican senators. Had a still have not formal concession by President Trump. That may be a personal matter of his continuing to file legal claims in a number of states, but by not conceding, he has held up a formal ascertain should that at the beginning of trip ascertainment of when the beginning of transfer of power should begin. President trump and his administration not transferring knowledge and knowhow and technology and real estate to the incoming chief. How big a problem is this . How important is it that this happens now . When should it start by law and what are the consequences of delay . Those are some of the questions we will address today with a terrific panel. We are joined today by Michael Chertoff, who served as secretary of Homeland Security under george w. Bush. Before heading up dhs, mr. Chertoff served as a federal judge on the u. S. Court of appeals for the third circuit. Casesested and prosecuted of political corruption, organized crime, corporate fraud , and terrorism, including the investigation of the 9 11 terrorist attacks. He is now the founder of the a Risk Advisory service. Janet napolitano is professor of Public Policy at the Golden School of Public Policy at uc berkeley. She served as the 20th president of the university, the nations largest Public Research university. That, professor napolitano served as secretary of Homeland Security from 2009 2 2013. Shes a former twoterm governor of arizona and former u. S. Attorney for arizona. Napolitano published how safe are we Public Security since 9 11. She earned her law degree from the university of virginia. Anally, dave mar check is retired executive from the Carlyle Group who worked at the state department. He is serving as director for the center of president ial adjunct atand is an the tuck school of business at art must. He spent 12 years at the Carlyle Group where he served as managing director and global led of external affairs and carlyles regulatory and Government Affairs and branding and sustainability efforts. We are delighted to have this terrific group. Stalledtart with this gsa determination or the ascertainment. What is that and why does it matter . Theme start with dave since president ial transmission plays a role in connecting transitions for a couple of cycles. Give us a sense of what this ascertainment is and what happens when it happens . You, bill and thank you to the Miller Center. Let me give a salute to Michael Chertoff who i have known from and also tot museum secretary napolitano. I wish you were still president of the university of california and my daughter is at berkeley and i would like her to check in on how her studies are going. Maybe she still has that influence. You struggled with the word ascertainment because it is not supposed to be a word that is commonly known because the issue of ascertaining the winner of an election has never been controversial, never been politicized. In the 1963rovision president ial transition act which gives the gsa administrator the responsibility of ascertaining the outcome of the election. Other Government Agencies that have similar responsibilities to act when president elect. The secret service significantly expanded their protection around president elect biden because he was going to be president elect biden. That was not a politicized decision, the secret service dished just did that. Unfortunately, even the most noncontroversial ministerial acts in this world, in this town are being politicized today and this is one of them. The criteria is that basically the outcome is clear and the outcome is clear. All the networks have called the election, as you said in your piece from last sunday, four states would have to be turned over, the likelihood of a recount changing the outcome is almost zero. Even president bush stated in his own statement that the outcome is clear and so, we will get into this but the gsa should make this ascertainment and then the biden team should be able to get access to all the support which we can talk about some more. Bill let me bring in mr. Chertoff and miss napolitano into this conversation. The first thing that should be on everyones mind is who is watching the home front . Is there something in these two months that poses a threat to the American People and how is that being managed in this cap . Does the ascertainment hold the American People up . Sec. Chertoff i think there are two things creating risk from a security standpoint. First of all, having a transition, it begins right away. Vetting clearances for the incoming team, giving president elect access to current intelligence, these are all part of the process of preparing so that when the new administration comes in, they can hit the ground running and not have to then figure out what the threats are and what they capabilities to respond are. We can talk a little later about how we did the handoff from the Bush Administration to the Obama Administration because that was very much in the front of our minds and we worked very cooperatively, of course both the outgoing and incoming folks, to make sure we fully briefed the people coming in with how they hadma, access to intelligence information and we even ran an exercise about a potential pandemic so they could get a feel for how things would work in the levers of government. There is another compounding problem where we are seeing a purge of security personnel. Ofhave seen the Department Defense decapitated. There is rumor about dhs having people fired or being forced to resign and that exacerbates the problem because it means in this window of time when our foreign and domestic adversaries could perceive weakness and opportunity, we are signaling we are dropping our guard and that is a very risky thing to do and it holds the American People hostage. I dont haveno much to add. I was going to emphasize first the need to have a smooth handoff from a National Security anypective and not to have kind of a gap. We are fortunate that the president elect has so much experience that even with this delay, he will be able to catch up quickly, but nonetheless, this is an unnecessary risk that President Trump is putting on the country. Comment, michaels about the removal of department of defense personnel and their replacement by political trump, twopresident key personnel at the department resigned security yesterday according to the washington post. These are troublesome moves from key departments necessary to protect the security of the American People. Me whatswere to ask the greatest risk factor confronting the United States today, i would say the greatest risk factor is actually President Trump. I would like to pivot off that to focus on when we might get the ascertainment so the biden team can have access to intelligence and can start processing security clearances. Typically, as we saw in the last transfer to President Trump or, as secretary chertoff mentioned, the transition from bush to obama, the ascertainment happened relatively quickly. In 2004, it didnt happen right away, it only happened after the florida recount stop im curious to get from you and to hear from secretary chertoff and napolitano what might trigger the ascertainment in the days ahead . Mounting callse from Republican Leaders and legislators . Is there something that can happen in the counting of ballots and certification of the states . Its a little unclear to me what the trigger will be. The trigger should have been made last week when the outcome was clear. That is the standard under the law. There is a significant shifting of political opinion on this and growing,hat snowballing impact will have an impact. You are seeing more and more republicans in the senate and in the governors saying we should get this going. In the last few days, you had governor dewine, governor hutchinson, evan or sununu these are not never trumpers. Obviously, dewine comes from a state, secretary napolitano knows politics better than i will ever learn but he comes from a state trump has dominated and is not a never trumper. Obviously, in arkansas, trump has been very popular and having governor hutchinson say what he said i think is very important. In congress, i think you see republicancern from senators, particularly on the Armed Services and intelligence committees. I also think there is growing awareness of the nonSecurity Risks, which i think is greatest which i think michael and janet articulated the Security Risk. But to me the most important thing in the world is the pandemic. The Trump Administration should for developing something called operation warp speed, the joint effort to develop and distribute the vaccine. One would think every american would want the incoming biden startingave access and to coordinate with the people responsible for operation warp speed so that when the biden team takes office on january 20, they can move forward to get that vaccine in the arms of 300 million people. That is not a policy issue, that is a logistics issue and one would think that makes sense. I think there is a growing, snowballing effect because people are being educated, the risk of not moving forward and grow every day and i am hopeful this can move in the right direction very shortly. Im going to ask our team to put up a slide here developed Public Service and to get secretary chertoff and napolitano i dont know if you knew this was coming but this is an assessment in year number four of the Trump Administration of the various cabinet agencies and how many key positions have been filled. The darker turquoise line lists how many confirmed officials in key slots. There is a slightly lighter shade of turquoise which is how many have been nominated. The farn blue boxes assessment of the five key agencies if there is a National Security crisis and there is a sixth agency which is equally critical but we highlighted it in red because in the current moment, it is so understaffed. I would like to get reflections from you, how important is it to fill these positions quickly, particularly when there is a crisis that is ongoing. How do these agencies Work Together in addressing the Coronavirus Crisis . What does the next few months look like in terms of filling these positions . Sec. Chertoff ironically, the problem is usually people who are confirmed leave go on to their next job, so you often find vacancies in the last month or two. The irony here is the positions were never filled. So its not a question of leaving, its a question of people not arriving. We have seen particular with Homeland Security is the actions of confirmed positions have made it very difficult for the agency to carry out its mission. It difficult for the agency to deal with the pandemic and take a leadership role that was originally envisioned by the National Response framework and that i occupied and janet occupied when we had the office aop it has also created feeling of creeping politicization as the white house staff has increasingly seen vacancies as an opportunity to micromanage the departments in the political interest of the president and that has created a trust deficit. Much of the story of this last administration and the next couple of months is a disdain for the workings of government ad the carrying out of government mission. Its almost as if it is a determination they want to wreck government and make it as hard as possible to do its job so they can say see, people in government are bad. The problem is that leaves a lot of people dead, as we have seen with the virus. New team comes in, will the biden people just put people in acting positions to just get started and get away with it or is it important to go back to the confirmation standard, particularly when there is a crisis going . Sec. Chertoff i would say this i believe the biden team will honor the traditional norm of getting people confirmed. That depends upon the senate cooperating. If you get a senate that blocks everything, that creates a different problem. But im hoping cooler heads in the Republican Party will cooperate with getting people confirmed in the normal course. I also need to be candid congress has to revisit the upper limit vacancy process which was abused over the last four years and may need to be tightened up. One example is when we had the transition from president bush to president us on theumber of ,ecurity side of the cabinet theres a luncheon in statuary hall immediately after the ceremony and the senate went into session and immediately confirmed a number of members of the obama cabinet, particularly those on the Security Side of the cabinet. So we were actually confirmed as we were watching the inaugural parade go by. That is how two branches of government can cooperate with each other and that is how you help effectuate a smooth transition of power. Thats a great segue to the importance of the confirmation process. What happens when someone gets confirmed and what happens between now and then . Dave this gets back to ascertainment because this cant go forward. Beenlain who has designated as chief of staff, he cannot get security clearance until he has been confirmed. He can get an interim but he cannot get a final. What happens is the president elect will start naming his team, presumably in the next week, typically it is done in waves. They bet they bunch the National Security professionals, the economic people, the Health Professionals i assume those will be the top priorities. Then they start to name the people underneath. Here is why ascertainment is so important. I will give you the data. His firstobama, in 100 days, had twice as many people in their seats as president bush. The bush team had a great team. They were experienced. Vice president cheney led the transition. He and john podesta are probably the two most experienced transition People Living because they have been involved in four or five transitions each. The bush personnel operation was buttoned up, but they could not get every thing processed quickly. The security clearances, the ethics agreements, working with the Agency Ethics officials on the extremely painful process of divestments, disclosures, recusals, all of those things with michael and janet presumably remember from their process. Attend a normas amount of work to even get the package up to the senate and that cannot it is an enormous amount of work and to even get that package up to the senate, whats important is to get those people in their seats quickly. Bush until year one to get 500 plus. Obama had a little less than 500 at the end of the first year. It takes a long time and the faster those can get going, the faster you can get people in their seats, the better the American Public is served. We have four crises right now. Whether you like biden or you dont like biden, america would benefit from having highly competent people in their seats in the National Security agencies, the Health Agencies as quickly as possible and it is exactly as secretary chertoff and sec. Napolitano said, get them in their seats quickly. Bill audience members are starting to ask questions. If you are inside the zoom, please send the questions q a function. What happened in 2000 when you had a contested election . When did the security briefings begin . Can security rethings begin without the certification of the gsa . Yes. The answer is there, president clinton and john podesta did the appropriate thing. Even though the election was votested, there were 537 in one state, that state determined the outcome. Entirely different factual circumstances. Here we have probably 306 electoral votes, three states, trump needs to in pennsylvania and georgia and biden is ahead so50,000 plus and growing, its an entirely different factual circumstances. Clintonss, president authorized governor bush to receive the president daily brief, which is the highest level intelligence briefing possible, even during the recount. Bill secretary chertoff, you served during the bush years. How much within that administration i know the experience of president bush because first year was slowed by florida we are putting up the vote totals in florida in 2000 compared to 2016 and a couple of other close elections. That close election and that first year for president bush shaped his view of how to do his first transition. Administration, was their legend and lore about this . How do people in the administration think of that first year and how did it affect their view of the transition to president obama . Sec. Chertoff as i think was pointed out, the biggest change in the way we are getting people processed through the ethics checks, background checks, and ultimately confirmed. I was confirmed as head of the Criminal Division in june of 2001, six months after the inauguration. Later. Came in i was in the department of justice on 9 11 and we were shorthanded in terms of senior people. The ag was confirmed, the deputy, i was confirmed, bob mueller had been in the job for one week. We had to do double and triple the to pick up some of responsibilities that normally would have been taken by others who were confirmed. Got, and itnce we was reaffirmed by the 9 11 commission is that a Security Risk toit is a security not have the process go right away because there are so many threats out there that you need to get people up to speed. The enemies dont wait until we have had a year to settle in. They are ready to launch on day one if they can get away with it. That is compounded, as we said earlier, by the fact that we are already under assault by a virus. Until we get a vaccine approved and deployed early next year, there has to be visibility into what the plans are and what the capabilities are. If that is delayed, that means delaying getting the virus from peoples hands, that means people die. Thats why the issue of transition is not just about a bureaucratic shuffle, but it is literally are you going to play russian roulette with the lives and safety of the American People. Of the American People . The can the potus block gsa from releasing its ascertainment decision . If so, what is likely to happen . Can the head of the gsa that has to make this ascertainment simply do it by herself . Dave she can. I will leave to others to speculate what the president might do. Let me tell you a little about gsa and comment on this. The head of the gsa is typically not a highly political person. Focused on effectiveness and government. Emily murphy is a procurement expert. She worked on the hill for many years and im sure shes going how the heck did i get in this position . What is clear in the statute is that she has the independent authority. A continuity of government, the fairness statute. There are multiple provisions that require the gsa to coordinate with other agencies, including the white house. The provision on ascertainment vets that authority with the gsa administrator alone. Called a podcast Transition Lab at the partnership Public Service. We had the gsa administrator from 2000 on. Hes a former apple executive, not a political person, he focused on getting procurement better in the government and found himself in this position. He says that throughout the entire 2000 recount, he never had any pressure from the white house, he had many briefings with john podesta, john podesta made it clear was his decision and his decision alone, and it is a gsa decision. Its totally independent and hopefully she can make it soon. Let me ask secretaries chertoff and napolitano. We focused a lot on covid. In previous transition, what are some of the other things Homeland Security is focused on . What might happen in the next two months, both while the transition itself is happening, while people are peering to come in, and in the first few weeks of the administration . What are people are look what are people looking for . Sec. Chertoff we had a few things in our transition. One, we were worried about terrorism because this was going to be the first change in Administration Since we had experienced september 11. Were in combat in afghanistan and iraq. So there were security issues. We were worried about a pandemic. I think it was avian flu was a threat circulating around and we actually put together an exercise so that the incoming team could really get a feel for what the levers are that you could use if you have to deal with a pandemic. We were concerned about potential violence and terrorism with respect to the inauguration itself. There was, in fact, some intelligence that suggested there is going to be a terrorist attack from jihadis on the inauguration. It turned out happy haply that that was a false alarm, but we were validated to take it seriously. This is part of what you face in the runup to the inauguration and immediate time after. I remembertano michael calling me to let me know this intelligence threat and we discussed the day of the need tol itself and the have continuity in leadership in case something were to occur. We agreed between us that even onugh i might be confirmed the day of the inauguration, i would not take the oath for a day or two after to make sure the threat stream had been cured and that is indeed what happened. Happen when you have a cooperative transition. Named, i was serving as the governor of arizona and i was not able to keep flying back ,nd forth to washington, d. C. So Michael Senate leadership from the department of Homeland Security out to phoenix. They fully enjoyed getting out to some warm, sunny weather that time of year. Had quite extensive briefing materials prepared for me and for my team. Those ase could review we undertook to take over what is the thirdlargest department of the federal government. Said, there were some joint exercises sponsored by the Bush Administration where i did go back and they had bush people and obama people who had the same roles, sitting at the same tables so they could talk about what would happen if this were to occur, what would be the next step, that sort of thing. And itas every effort was led by the top and i give president bush credit for this. He set the tone and the direction for that kind of cooperative transition and really, i think the Gold Standard in terms of president ial transitions. , as he wasbama transitioning to President Trump had given the same direction to his administration and had used bushs transition as an example, directed materials be prepared, directed Agency Personnel be made available, directed that every cooperation should be extended to the trump team. Unfortunately, the trump team did not really take them up on it. It really takes two to tango here. You need the outgoing and incoming to really Work Together. Segue tos a great answer alan henchs question who asked did the trumpet ministration contact the Letter Center during the transition . We had a first year project. Just to amplify what secretary whetherno said there three different Transition Teams. There was the Transition Team under Chris Christie and Chris Christie was famously fired the day after the election. A new transition was set up under Vice President pence in washington, where we had pretty effective cooperation. But then people in washington refer to people as the tower and trump tower in new york that were running the transition, so there were actually two transitions and none of them were i think effectively coordinating with one another. I want to go to a question from tracy tony. One thing i was struck in that transition process, thanks to the partnership for Public Service, we had a number of three transition meetings with different groups, was the enormous presence of Information Technology consulting firms, ibm and others, that focus on quite literally the technological machinery of government and how it gets updated every four years or eight years. So tracy asks are there Information Security and technology handoff precautions in place so that passwords get passed on are not sabotaged are these policies hardened against issues like turbulent transitions or let me add Foreign Espionage or foreign interference . Take part ofpy to that but i think secretary chertoff or napolitano would be better at that michael is one of the worlds greatest experts on Information Security, so i will defer to him. Transition act thats huge amount of authority with career essentials in the government. Been amended multiple times and in the 2020 amendments which President Trump signed, there were two words that were added and thats that the people in charge of transition activities in each agency are career officials. Those career officials, we have been working with them throughout the cycle and we worked closely with the Trump White House throughout the cycle and to their credit, they did a very good job. They were buttoned up and very professional and they implemented the law up until this whole politicization of the ascertainment. But the career officials, i they arey are ready, prepared, there briefing materials are set, their i. T. Work is ready and they just need the green light to get going. I would also add one other cost of ascertainment the biden team still does not have a. Gov system. If you email them, they are. Org system. One would think it would be in the interest of the United States to have them on a secure the president ial transition act. Sec. Chertoff it is ironic after all the complaining of Hillary Clinton using the private server to communicate on government business, the administration would not take the steps necessary to rule out that the president elect and his team to have a Government Secured Network for their governmentrelated work. I think david is right career officials will do their best to manage a smooth transition and under the best of circumstances, moving from one group to another group in terms of making sure you adequately change passwords and brief everybody on security issues, that is very challenging. When you get to the white house, you may run into a different whether there is some resentment or payback in which the white house deliberately doesnt cooperate or even worse yet, drop their guard and allows vulnerabilities to be inserted into the i. T. Network. If i was part of the Incoming Administration in cybersecurity, i would be very careful before people logged on to the white house to make sure i had done a very thorough scrub of what is working on the network on january 20. Do youec. Napolitano, want it on this one . Sec. Napolitano no, i think michael called it right. Ask aso were going to question for those in the zoom do you think President Trump is justified in delaying results until Election Results are worked through . While you work that out on your screen, im curious to come back to the issue a number of people have asked what legal avenues are available to the biden team to force the ascertainment . What can the public do to increase their own, have their own voices heard in this process . There are a number of people asking. 97 dont think the president is justified. For those who do not feel it is justified, what can and should they do . Dave i think what they should do is listen to more Miller Center webinars. I think what you have done to educate and inform is having an impact. You are seeing that in the senate of the United States where more and more republicans are coming out, particularly those who are security oriented, and saying that it is clear. And i think the more people know the standard for the gsa making this nonpolitical decision is whether the outcome of the election is clear. For that, let me hijack your program, bill, because i want to get you to talk about this question because you wrote a piece that was out and has been widely quoted in the press which basically looked at the 59 president ial elections in the history of the United States to rank those and say is this a close election . I think you said there were four elections in the United States that were too hard to call and this doesnt come close. So im going to pretend moderating and kick it to you. The team going to ask to put the slide back up that shows the various counts stop essentially, we have had one election similar to this one and its the one that just happened four years ago where president inmp one, and what we listed 2020 are the Tipping Point states, what it would take to change the Electoral College map and outcome. In each case, it would take three states. President trump, to win this election, would have to flip three of the four states, arizona, georgia, wisconsin or pennsylvania. Ev stands for electoral votes. So to go with arizona and inrgia currently sitting president elect bidens camp, in order for him to fall from 306 to below 270, theres one scenario where it falls to 269 269 and then goes to the house of representatives. But even there, they have to lose three of those four states and as in 2016, President Trump would have had to lose all three of those states for Hillary Clinton to win. The three closest elections to 1976, and 1960. There go back to 1876, were four states required, but even there, it was for states and as a percentage, the vote totals were bigger in those four states and that lasted several months. Cases, 2000, 1976, and 1960, the loser saw those margins and conceded the following day. So what i argue in the piece is by historical standards, the only thing that comes close to this on a loser not accepting the results of the election was 1860, when seven states seceded from the union because Abraham Lincoln won a pretty convincing Electoral College victory. Saying 1860 is not a good model for us . Bill living in one of the reformed states of one of the former confederacy and two blocks away from the robert elise statue, i think President Trump should be looking at statues of robert e lee and Jefferson Davis and others. He has a huge fan base out there that want to build statues to him, but the clearest and easiest way to get those torn down is to try to undermine the legitimacy of the institutions of the United States. Thats what i argued in the piece and i feel that strongly. This is quite a radical move the president is making. Its not a close election. It is certainly close in the last 50 years, its one of the five closest, but it is probably the fifth closest in the last 50 years. Questions im the least important guest in todays panel. We have about 18 minutes left and as you are looking forward, when do you think things start to move . When do you think things need to start to move . Secretary chertoff, he said theres a lot going on and its not essential right now but is it next week, is it the week after . When should security briefings happen for the president elect, the Vice President elect of their key cabinet members . When should security clearances start being issued for those folks . Sec. Chertoff let me make it clear that i dont think it wasnt important that it starts happening. I think it should have started happening yesterday. Is, theter the damage longer you wait. The biden team is largely composed of people who have a lot of experience, so they at least have a feel for government. That being said, the delays in these processes, which under the best of circumstances are timeconsuming and challenging are simply meaning we are going to be at greater and greater risk as the transition approaches the inauguration. This should have started, certainly at the beginning of this week. After the dust settled a couple of days after the election. Makenapolitano 1. I would point i would make is theres nothing that precludes starting the transition process while the litigation and challenges are going on. That can continue. Litigationrumps plan can continue, but the nuts and bolts of the transition can already get started. I think that is very well said. I think thats what you are seeing from republicans in the senate, which is they are not out there saying President Trump does not have the right to pursue his litigation, even though the likelihood of that outcome according to experts is almost zero. They are saying exactly what sec. Napolitano said witches get going with the rest of it while the election stuff is sorted out. Saidnk thats a well position and that is the emerging position of republicans in the senate. Going to ask secretaries chertoff and napolitano to put on their federal prosecutors hat. Ofres a growing set conversations reported in major newspapers at the president is encouraging people to think about getting state legislatures involved in overturning the state votes. Im curious both as a legal matter your read of that and as a political matter, is that allowed . What would that take . And is it a wise course of action . And is the president entitled to seek that . Sec. Chertoff the president is not entitled to seek it. Dubious tois very have a legislature overrule the voters because the rule is under federal law, the election and the vote has to occur on election day or by election day, and changing the rules after the fact would violate that title of law. I also think it would be very difficult politically. I know the Pennsylvania Legislature has already said they are not going to do that. I think it would be political suicide to say we are going to take this away from the voters and create some kind of dirty deal. Justnapolitano let me chime in. We had an election. The election was november 3. The votes that were eligible to be counted have been counted, as we know, many were counted after november 3 because of the heavy mailin voting this election. Nonetheless, valid votes. For a legislature to come in after the fact and redo an election, holding our democracy to themselves as opposed to the voters, is just wrong as a matter of law and as a matter of politics. I think people would react quite badly to a legislature that tried to do that. We put up our subway map to the white house. This is one that are graphic artist pulled together. Theres a green line that goes from election day to independence day. That is one that moves quickly through the votes and Electoral College voting. What you see is the courts getting involved and thats the state President Trump is ringing , trying essentially to slow the train down and put it into a local map. Napolitano and chertoff, thinking back from your legal perspective, as you have seen those cases come forward, do you see anything in there that has merit or is likely to be a stalled train at one of those stations that slows things down . Sec. Napolitano no. [laughter] i will just say it that way. Sec. Chertoff i agree, no. Bill lets assume if the train turns back to the blue line than the green line, then the Electoral College convenes and votes, theres some speculation this could get thrown into the house and senate. I know this is a bit of a pop quiz without any homework assignment, but how much do you worry about that . That when the Electoral College convenes, members of the house and senate might challenge the findings of the Electoral College . Sec. Chertoff i dont think there is a legal basis to do that. If there were an issue about a particular delegation, that would go to congress to , which of the two competing delegations is the correct one. But as we discussed with the legislature, i dont see the legislatures coming up with an alternative slate. The only issue is Congress Gets to weigh in if someone doesnt have 270 votes. If for some reason you had 2692 69, given the math, thats not going to happen here. So its just going to be a ministerial act on the part of congress. I want to go to a question from the audience what is the risk the current im sorry, weve already asked that one. Someone else had a question of what if the president simply refuses to leave . Andow this seems so extreme so odd, but so much that we have seen in the last four years has seemed so odd and im curious to get your take on that. I would assume the u. S. Marshals would be sent to the white house with a warrant of eviction. [laughter] to remove him. [laughter] but i dont think that will happen. Sec. Chertoff i have a suspicion hes going to go to maralago over christmas and he may not come back to the white house. Camp downown in there and create his alternative white house. So i dont think thats a real risk. Sec. Napolitano i just wanted to chime in that there is no requirement that a sitting president attend the inauguration of his successor. Remember john adams in 1800 fled washington dc in the dark of night the night before Thomas Jefferson, university of virginia founder, Thomas Jefferson was to be inaugurated. There have been a few other examples since then. It is a matter of norm, particularly in the modern era, i is a matter of grace, but for one dont expect that from this president. How robust were the efforts reviewing transition materials by the Incoming Trump appointees during the 2016 . Secretary napolitano touched on it but there are some senior Trump Officials who were very involved in planning the romney transition, so not just in 2016 but preparing for this transition prior to election day, can you talk about some of the professionalism that exists within the Trump Administration . Sometimes there is a feeling that it is all a monolith, but we are seeing various shades of different types of people in the administration. Can you reflect on that . We are a nonpartisan organization. We work closely with the Chris Christie team. Chris christie and his righthand person, the chief of staff to him, a lawyer, a buttoned up princeton grad. They did a really good job. They consulted with democrats and republicans. The spirit with which you see this conversation between secretaries chertoff and napolitano is consistent with the tradition of transitions, which is secretary chertoff, he has been a tough guy on the republican side. He investigated whitewater and was the head of the Criminal Division and worked collaboratively with secretary napolitano on president bushs instructions. Seen, upe actually until the election, very professional work in the Trump Administration in the white , throughoute gsa the agencies, that they have taken implementation of the law seriously and, unfortunately, that has been moved to the side. There are people that have taken this very seriously and i hope they get the chance to do so soon. What connection do you see between the firings of top officials like the secretary of defense and subsequent resignations and the smooth transfer . From your various perspectives in career positions, not just from Homeland Security, but including from some Homeland Security, how significant is that . How worried are you about what has happened at the Defense Department . Sec. Napolitano there are lots of things to be concerned about there, but one is once the actual transition begins to occur, that the new acting secretary of defense is not going to know very much because he will have just gotten there himself. He cane is not a lot educate the incoming secretary about. Actually interfere with the content of transition amongst other things. Heres an irony. Someone like secretary esper who has just met could meet with the incoming designated secretary of defense. While there would be an inability to discuss questions like matters, there could be a sharing of general institutional information. One thing about the forced exodus of senior people from the Trump Administration is they are no longer in the position where they have to wait for gsa ascertainment. So i would be willing to bet a considerable amount that the biden people will be reaching out forth with if they havent already, to set up those discussions. Sec. Napolitano i think you are probably right, michael. Please, jump in here. , as part ofspective detailedect, we did a focus on National Security transition and there are a lot of firstyear crises. The first year crisis of bay of pigs is one where the Eisenhower Administration had been planning the invasion of cuba. President kennedy came in and changed a few features of that and it led to a disaster and in some ways, thats what happened 1993,lack hawk down in when the Bush Administration had inun a peacekeeping exercise mogadishu, somalia. The clinton team came in and were new and green and understood some parts of the operation, whether those changes were made by the bush team were uncertain. But in the first months of a green administration, they made a mistake and it led to disaster. And we know about 9 11. Sec. Chertoff we dont know whether in the next 60 days, the Trump Administration is going to create a new set of challenges, whether its a premature pulling out of afghanistan and the region, tother it is steps that were exacerbate tensions with iran. We may very well have a repeat of those instances. I also would love your take, and secretary napolitano and daves take on president bidens conversation with foreign leaders. Some has been written about that, but they are not managed by the state department. Your own thoughts on that . Dave this is another important point the best practice was set in the bushobama transition. Bush had a hard time getting his people in place, than eight months later, 9 11. This burned him for his entire presidency. Not burned him physically, but its something that stuck with him throughout his presidency and he basically said i want to have the smoothest outgoing transition to whoever owens, mccain or obama. Whoever wins secretary rice and steve hadley, consistent with what Michael Chertoff said, said we are going to create the Gold Standard. You have the state Operations Center available, you have access to interpreters, we will brief you, we will coordinate, and obama and biden said thats great because theres only one president at a time and we dont want to interfere with what you are doing through january 20. Lets coordinate our messaging, thank you for the technology placed, the calls were the interpreter supported it, and they were done in a secure manner. None of that is happening. How does that serve the United States to hold that up . Sec. Napolitano i do want to emphasize again, and i know the biden team really understands this, which is that there is only one president at a time, and so while they have been getting incoming congratulatory calls, im sure they are being extra nearly careful about not getting into any matters of policy. E i should have said that the biden team is doing exactly what they are doing, they are pros in this, they are being very careful. It would be better if they had the full support of the state department and state to hartman technology. Sec. Napolitano no doubt. Bill , secretary chertoff we have a minute left, so i will give you comments before we sign off. Sec. Chertoff there was a lot of legitimate concern before the election that there would be a disruption in voting or disruption of counting. None of that happened. We had a record turnout. It has been a very smooth electoral process. And that is because we have a lot of people, unsung heroes, upm the citizens who voted through state and local officials to federal officials that my old agency who are doing their jobs, and that is the strength of america. We will weather this. We have to put our heads down and be determined. Bill i think that is the exactly the right note to end on and im appreciative to you for joining us today and for all the work you are doing. Secretaries chertoff and napolitano, along with secretaries ridge and johnson and other republican and democratic Homeland Security advisors have particular citizens for safe democracy, and we are delighted to partner with them and the centers for president ial transitions and partners for Public Service was the i want to thank all of them. I want to thank our audience for m andng us in the zoo on cspan. To think the democracy Practice Fund and the whole Miller Center team. We will see you soon. Thank you so much. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] with joe biden as president elect, stay with cspan for the transition of power. Cspan, your unfiltered view of politics. Q a,ay night on university of texas at austin sociology professor talks about big data and new surveillance technologies by law enforcement. The police have long been collecting their own data and information, but that is people they have contact with. What is happening now in the digital age is that the police are increasingly collecting information on all these folks who have no direct criminal justice contact. Part of that has to do with the variety component of big data they are purchasing information from private companies, using tools like automatic license readers, so you dont have to get pulled over by the place where your data to be put in the system. Night atbrayne, sunday 8 00 eastern on cspans q a. Dr. Anthony fauci and and