Get started let me center best wishes for a speedy recovery to President Trump, the first lady, as well as all the officials who work closely with the president. One month out from november 3 americans across the country have already started voting in the most important president ial election in a generation. President elect joe biden for reelected President Donald Trump will face a double digit unemployment situation and a global pandemic, a reckoning on racial inequality and a divided nation. The one institution that could help address these problems is the federal government. The federal government needs to be effective if it will deliver for the American People. That is why preparation and planning today is critical for effectiveness on january 20. Regardless of your wins a smooth transition this year is not enough in this year we need the best transition ever in american history. Should Vice President biden win the challenges are truly daunting. In normal times a new president faces mammoth attacks, of 70 day period to select a government, select clinical appointees, manage almost a 5 trilliondollar budget and rollout and ambitious policy agenda. That is in normal time but today is not normal and in addition to normal challenges i just mentioned the next president will have to get 13 Million People back to work and distribute 330 million vaccines and bring our country back together again. Should President Trump win the transition will also be incredibly challenging. Our data from the last three twoterm presidency suggests almost half of the top officials across the government will leave within six months of this inauguration, half and thats a normal but unfortunately when it comes on top of what is 133 senior positions that are currently vacant without incompetence or without a nominee so a huge challenge for a reelected President Trump will get competent people to serve. Perforation as we have learned from our podcast transitional add is essential in your preparation, as we learned on our podcast is essential in year four 2year 5. If theres a change in administration the outgoing president will have a solemn responsibility under law to facilitate a smooth transition much as george w. Bush did for incoming president barack obama. Transitions are always hard, they are chaotic, the time is short, 78 days this cycle. If the election is not decided on november 3rd there will be less time getting ready for day one will become more difficult because every day will matter. That is why this events talking transitions comes at such an important time. We are pleased to host this first event of its kind, nonpartisan event in association with the truly amazing president ial libraries for the past four president s, george and barbara bush foundation, the clinton residential center, the george w. Bush president ial center, the Obama Foundation and uva Miller Center, the leading Research Center in the country on the american presidency. Thank you for your incredible support, partnership and cooperation. Our work at the partnership has never been more important. For four president ial cycles we have worked to make transitions better, smoother, and faster because the success of a presidency is directly correlated with the success of their transition and throughout this cycle we worked with the three most important actors, the Trump White House, career officials across the government preparing for either even she walid as well as the body. Thousands of people watching this event, the Largest Group represents the dedicated Career Agency officials have with transitions coming under the law. They must prepare with any eventuality, reelected donald trump or a new President Biden. We realize how hard and how delicate your work is every day, we support you and salute you. I want to thank a few people before handing it over to the advocate for more president ial transition planning than before anybody else focused on it. The center has a truly worldclass advisory, one that is from sage advice counsel and support. My longterm friend mac mccarty, president clintons for his chief of staff, josh holton, president bushs chief of staff who i call the godfather of smooth transitions, romney didnt win but created a new Gold Standard for transition planning. And one of the few people i know who has been equally successful in business and government and philanthropy. Let me think the amazing teams at the libraries at the Miller Center who pulled this events together. Let me turn it over to penny. Thank you for that gracious welcome. Let me begin by wishing the president and first lady a speedy recovery. You have been a tremendous leader of this vital project and we are so grateful youve dedicated your time and energy to this important effort to the benefit of our nation. We are grateful to your dedicated team at the center for their long hours to support the timing of todays conversation could not come at a more critical point for our nation given the weight of issues we face both candidates will not only have to campaign vigorously, they also have to prepare to run the country for the next four years. The diverse and sizable audience we have today reflects the interests people have in a president ial transition even if the process is not well understood. We have people from capitol hill, private industry, government organizations, transition subject matter experts, political appointees, those who serve on campaigns and Transition Teams in the media. We also welcome for many federal career professional staff this morning. Your expertise, Institutional Knowledge, and willingness to support administrations from both parties during a president ial transition and over the life of each administration is to be commended. We are sincerely very grateful for your Public Service. Would let me say as a person who came from business and Government Service and given the honor of a lifetime serving in president obamas cabinet. I was blown away by the incredible talent, expertise and innovative spirit of the career professionals not only in the department of commerce but across the entire government. Quite honestly the most capable people i have ever worked with word of a career professionals in National Institute of standards and technology, National Oceanic and atmospheric administration, the bureau of industry and security, the census bureau, the National Weather service and so many more important offices within our government. Day in and day out, significantly important work on behalf of all of us and they get too little credible respect for it. I want to thank them all. In terms of our evened today the caliber of our speakers is a testament to the nonpartisan power of the partnership for Public Service and their vital work to make the federal government work better. It demonstrates the impact of the centers ability to provide support, expertise and resources to a wide variety of groups that are transition stakeholders including federal agencies, political appointees and president ial Transition Teams. The Center Brings unparalleled capacity to support president ial transition planning and execution. Their work has gone deeper than any other cycle, 3 main stakeholders, federal officials and the biden Transition Team. I am honored to serve as cochair of this critical effort along with mac mccarty, josh bolton, extraordinary Public Servants who i am blessed to learn from and call my friend. As david said the program, a 1ofakind event to draw together a highly respected group of senior officials from bush 412 obama, president ial scholars and respected journalists, one of the most importance of our democracy, to the transition of power. The purpose of this event is to inform the public about how president ial candidates Transition Teams and the federal government are critical to the success or president s second term, by design, we do not have representatives from the Current Administration given our desire for each discussion to remain nonpartisan and to the extent practical nonpolitical. In our first Panel Margaret brennan, face the nation moderator and Senior Foreign Affairs correspondent will moderate a conversation with josh bolton, andy card, Denis Mcdonough and mack mclarty for outstanding former white house chief of staff. They will talk about their experiences preparing to take office, transitioning to a second term, planning to leave office and what to expect in 20202021. Melody barnes will lead a discussion with Stephen Hadley, lisa monaco, barbara parry, and john podesta about transition and crises and why this transition period could be the most important and consequential since 1932. Let me say one thing about john podesta. He has more senior transition experience than any other living person, could have been on the first panel and we asked him to be on the panel that on reflection, we thought given his experiences in the 2008 transition where he led the obama transition during a financial crisis and two wars he would be hugely valueadded in the second panel in vital transitions in crisis. That may be the most relevant topic for today. For our final panel, and me walter of the Cook Political Report will talk about four Public Servants, valerie jarrett, karen hughes and margaret fallon, the complexities involved in shift and campaigning for the presidency to governing when elected in a first or second term. To our audience, thank you for joining us, for your many excellent questions, we hope to get them as best as we can to the morning program. You can be part of todays conversation on twitter by following Public Service by using the hashtag talking transition. I would like to hand the program over to Margaret Brennan for the first panel. Thank you. Thank you very much to the partnership for all the nonpartisan work you do to explain to the public how the institutions that support our democracy function or are supposed to function. This is an extraordinary morning. All of us have woken up to this news with a little bit of shock, one certainty of 2020 seems to be nothing is certain and to expect the unexpected. This is a conversation to have to have been inside the west wing at the highest level to help talk us through was planning needs to look like, what it should look like and what it is like in a moment of crisis, we are battling multiple crises as a country right now, economic, health, racial strife, election and certainty and now this news this morning. I want to start by digging in right away to this conversation, it will be a question for all of you, we are four years into the Trump Administration. Are they ready . Is mike pence ready for what is happening right now . Mack mclarty if you were chief of staff what would you be doing a morning like this . Thank you for your engagement in underscoring the importance of doing this on a nonpartisan basis, thank you for your leadership, you set the table just perfectly as you always do. All of us, chief of staff would agree the Vice President ial pick decision is an important one during the campaign, shifting from that campaign to governing, the criteria for a Vice President , he or she needs to be ready to step in the moment it requires that and be able to discharge responsibilities as commanderinchief, president of the United States, that is from day one absolute essential ingredient of any effective administration. If i were chief this morning we would be focusing on that, certainly fully engaged with the president and his family at this time and as you will comment, multiple number of other issues, the inevitable confronting you even in times that are not quite as interested and unsettling as these. Lets go to andy card. You know what it is like to be chief, to be in that job of extreme national crisis. What would you do on a morning like this . I dont care what your political stripe is a your philosophy, we all pray the president and first lady will recover quickly and be able to meet responsibilities. I also point out the white house has to keep everything working no matter what is going on. Make sure people in the white house have the confidence to do their job and give them permission to do their job and not try to jump into somebody elses lane or be distracted by these events or the president s inability to attend meetings as he normally would. Just having discipline and confidence makes a big difference. It is important for the chief of staff to maintain the momentum every cabinet member has been asked to maintain. With regard to policy objectives, i would leave the Campaign Work to the campaign people. As chief of staff i would say my job is to help the government meet its responsibilities, let the campaign worry about the campaign responsibilities. The truth is you have to be prepared for things to happen. These unexpected challenges are likely to show up and we want people to have confidence in our government, confidence in our democracy. The white houses responsibility to set the expectation so people will have confidence their governments can function during these times of trouble. We are seeing a public that is questioning so many institutions, what would you be doing if you were chief . Ask members of the public to see the president come out today. What do you need to signal to the public today . You need a signal to the public the government is operating normally, naturally and the president is available, on camera as well. Let me at my best wishes to my colleagues, the first family and thanks to the partnership for Public Service, president ial foundation for bringing us together in this important topic. The topic gets more important when we face disruption and potential crisis like we are having now, a dry run for what we may be facing around election day. I want to get into specifics around election day in a moment but i want to give Denis Mcdonough a chance to jump in, what do we need to hear from the president , from joe biden, what needs to be signaled and what would you be doing . Thanks a lot. I want to thank you for the chance to be here, i always enjoy that, david and penny for all their work especially at this timely event today. The first and most important thing was Vice President biden said which was our thoughts and prayers for a speedy recovery for the first family go out obviously and express ongoing appreciation for the medical staff in the white house which has been working overtime since last january when this broke. Demonstrating the government is at work is important, hopefully reassuring to the American People. That was behind the written communication, it does sounds to me like the white house is talking about trying to get some clear evidence of the president at work today and that would make sense. I will add one thing, we have troops around the world, allies around the world and i would expect communication not only with the cabinet as everyone referred to but communication from the white house that obviously work continues and it would be prudent and careful about developments with the first family and continue to be focused on the official business of the government and that includes staying vigilance with our allies. The president is symptomatic. It is mildly symptomatic at this point. The question of how ill he becomes, something we hope to learn more about, National Security crisis because of the question of competence. I want to go back to you, something you raised in your first answer. We as a country because of this high anxiety are asking so many questions about basic civics of how transitions work, how the election is going to work, it is so keen and important because of this unprecedented circumstance in which the next election will be happening with the global pandemic. Given your observations of the campaign and the transition planning that is happening, how confident are you . What concerns do you have about a transition into a trump or Biden Administration . The good news is everybody should be comforted at the kind of work going on in both places to prepare for a transition, that work is more substantial and intense with respect to potential biden presidency but they come a like other campaigns before them, not all but most campaigns in recent times have taken the transition very seriously, they are likely to be well positioned to take over despite the difficulty with potentially multiple crises they will be inheriting. I saw that firsthand in 20089 with the obama transition which was run by john podesta, very professional, very well organized, a good partner and we are seeing the same with the biden team. On that side, we also know that Trump White House is taking their responsibility seriously and they are hoping and planning to remain in power going through but i hope they are treating it as an opportunity to refresh and reset. You are talking about the mechanics of the process behind the scene led by others on the team that is transitioning. The president s remarked of what a transition might look like and to that point can you pick up on that . We are expecting, we are told to expect a litigated outcome to this election, we wont have clarity for potentially days and weeks after november 3rd, the amount of time it will take to tally up the number of mailin votes that are expected. How concerned are you about circumstances and what influence they could have on a transition . Thanks for the question. Prudence dictates everybody take this period of transition very seriously, the fact is as josh just briefed the institutions, the Transition Team at the Biden Campaign, the Transition Team, some reporting inside the white house over the course of the last couple weeks. As importantly as we tea up at the start, senior civilian federal workforce mobilized and prepared for the transition in either case into a second donald trump term or a first President Biden term. All the wheels are moving and moving quite effectively as near as we can tell, it is important in the context of your question to highlight one thing, president obama always thought this transition was important for two reasons, there is only one president at a time. When theres a change it is important the current president runs into january 20th but also important, this is the second point, the current president recognize the transition, and effective transition and clean hand off to his successor is part of the Job Description and definition of an effective president especially in a time of crisis we are living in. I hope that informs the ongoing work of the Transition Team in the government and will on federal service and informs the decision the president made as you suggest in days leading up to and coming out. The institutions are strong, they work, i am confident they will work again but you have to understand and hope the president and his team understand that. The definition of an effective president starts with a Job Description that includes a free hand off especially in a time of crisis. Back in 2000, we saw the outcome that you know and because of what it did for us that delayed the transition particularly delayed clarity for a long time. What was the net effect of that and what is the potential parallel to an outcome we may see come november . Thank you for your leadership in this conversation . That was a challenge but it was also a blessing. I got to spend time with the president elect the we didnt even know was the president elect at his ranch in crawford planning what kind of government he wanted while secretary james baker iii and joe from the campaign were managing the question of hanging chads and dealing with lawyers and Everything Else , we focused on building white house staff first in the cabinet second and the president and i, the president elect and i had a wonderful time kind of working under the radar screen because most people were focused on what was happening in florida. We spend time getting to know each other very well. Having me understand what his priorities were not just in policy but also his relationship with people on the white house staff and the cabinet and building a white house staff without the expectation of having to talk to the press. That was a blessing. Would it did leave the question of who won up to jim baker and the folks, josh bolton focusing on the policies as a First Priority when we took office on day one, education reform and joe hagan, to make sure we had the infrastructure organizational support, to get things done. A lot of people dont recognize two transitions, one transition is a white house transition and that is where the president has immediate impact. In the morning i want john smith coming in the afternoon he shows up. With the cabinet you have to make sure you go to a process of informing the senate and giving them a chance to ratify the decision. There are two transitions, the white house to get ready for the real transition and the transition into governing. I was glad to have the experience of an unfortunate election result, organizing the white house staff and we get to do and some president s suffered because they didnt get their white house staff organized until end of the process. It is better to have it done in the beginning of the process, the team the president elect put together, karen hughes, josh bolton, joe hagan, made a big difference in having the white house ready to help the rest of government understand the priorities of the new president. Can you pick up on that . We heard from the positive but there were complications because of the delay as well. And the abbreviated transition and the negative impact that may have contributed. Practically speaking how complicated does it become in these circumstances . Let me add one point, i completely agree, it is important to this circumstance which is we had two candidates prepared to live by adjudicated results of the election. It is back to the outset, it is crucially important and what could have been a national crisis. And Election Results in florida, could have been a big crisis. We have two candidates who told their staff we will live by the legal outcome, both candidates before the Supreme Courts ruling to december both candidates made it clear that we are going to fight this through legal means and whoever is declared the winner is the winner and that is important and the mechanism we are talking about are extremely important. The leadership comes from the top. It is a delay, they go into it with an attitude of country first. The mechanics may be complicated, and what is raised here, institutions here for a transition, the assumption the rule played by and divided by. Are you concerned that wont happen . This is a highly unusual election year. The way of the campaign is taking place when the voting process raised that. Everyone followed, the democracy is peaceful transition of power, free and fair election. The core of the democracy to the constitution. No question they will comment they had a hand off did so after the campaign or putting it diplomatically this year in this campaign, a real spirit the most sacred responsibility for any, the safety and security of the American People is essential, the peaceful transition was moved transition in our transition, hope and pray you see that this year. What do you think happens on constitutionally laid out date of january 20th. It will be a different election, a perfect crystal ball. The chairman of the Federal Reserve using words unknowable, some indication of the uncertainty already noted but what you hope is a clear understanding of the Election Results in that transition. Denis mcdonough, you were supposed to be involved in obamas first intelligence briefing, and the team of researchers the cia was under instructions only brief president elect obama and no one else. Do you know what happened in that meeting, and issues confronting the next commanderinchief, the sharing of intelligence. That is not my recollection. On the morning that he had his first briefing, i remember, i was in chicago, i came back home. And directed to turn around to chicago. You are absolutely correct the sharing of intelligence may be one of the most concrete examples of the sharing that needs to move across the board and to josh boltons credit in 2008 and 2009 that happens. My participation with the president at cdc is an example of that, only one of several examples and many of those examples i tried to emulate eight years later in december, november, december, in january of 2017. I want to go back to the earlier question that i feel we are not giving you the answer that you want. Which is are we worried about transition . The short answer is yes. Each of us was in that job, if you are not a warrior you will not qualify for this job. I guess what i also want to communicate as clearly as i can is there are as you noted in my answer institutions at work to ensure we are ready for a variety of eventualities. Individuals making decisions in the context of the election, no one suggested the results will be an accurate, people suggested the results will be delayed because of numerous in an effort to curtail counting peoples votes, i would be worried about that but the current team has to understand a great presidency, this is the Job Responsibilities of president s, and one of them is a clean effective handouts particularly in a time of crisis and i believe because of that individuals will make the right decision. Let me votes to be counted. American people have confidence the way their vote gets count gets counted accurately and will continue this more than 240 years of tradition of peaceful transfer of power. The question the public is asking quite a lot these days whether the date of the election or the date of the transition, what the president said publicly, practically, would be implemented. Which is why let me pick up on what you mentioned which was you were part of briefing the Trump Incoming team, they go through a few iterations, what do you do to prepare them and were the efforts wellreceived . I hasten to add one thing. I did several things. The wheels that are turning especially as penny and david said with federal service are substantial. They are preparing for either eventuality and that is a big amount of work. There were two big challenges in 2016. One was a wholesale change in the Transition Team right after the election which delayed the trump teams start of the transition which is transition itself is very short if you compare the transition period to other countries around the world so anything that curtailed is unfortunate. It appears not for my firsthand knowledge although i have some of that, a lot of the material wasnt consumed. Time will tell whether that, what the overall impact is, it was a delayed start, would not consume even though it has been prepared and it looks to me like bidens team suggested a couple minutes ago, learning from that and is digging in on these questions and in the context of the time also was period. Why is it important to president bush and your team to create a model that you talked about . The most important thing is we were in the midst of two wars in iraq and afghanistan particularly at that time we begin thinking about the transition, it is a lot easier to do, but there we were approaching the end of the second term. In 2007 the situation in iraq and afghanistan is not particularly good, remain under physical threat, president bush said this will be the first transition in modern history conducted with the nation, regardless of who wins. A lot of good people in government doing their job, setting the tone in partisans, we once republicans 2 women, a transition for country first. We are looking at the possibility of transition from term one to term 2 for the Trump Administration. What do president s need to do to prepare for year 5 . They have to acknowledge that there is a transition. You are not just taking yesterday and repeating it. People sometimes feel they shouldnt be replaced, they want to hold onto the desk even though the president wants them out of office. President bush had a good transition should he have lost reelection. He told us to be prepared to transition to another president. As josh told me he was as focused on the responsibilities as being a leader of our great democracy as he was, i am the president , he was prepared to after the election at camp david, called me into his office and said i will make a number of changes in the staff, the cabinet, and told me cabinet agencies, that is why you should start with your chief of staff because that will send a signal to everybody in government there may be new people coming into your position. I need you to help me make those changes, this is a side story, talk to my wife, not sure i can put up with it and i will ask her right now, went out and saw my wife and said kathleen, andy says he cant do this. Anyway, wanted me to help make changes and one of the challenging aspect of the chief of staff, you dont get to hire people, you get to help people, their service is no longer needed. Cabinet members, they should keep doing their job. Changing people is part of the transition, from team one to team one plus and that is what we have to do. There was a transition even though the government quote was the same, president bush was the same january 19th as january 21st. He did have a new government, and executive branch to make new policies and mom and some, and honest transition, it started very well considering we were in a war, dealing with an unusual challenges but he got a lot done. What will happen in year number 4 or year 5, to recruit good talent for a second term. I think he outlined that, so importantly, how the campaign has gone before, president clinton, the first democrat to be reelected since Franklin Roosevelt, critically important is for the country to feel the reelected leader has a vision, moving forward, not just resting on laurels or being stuck so to speak. It has to be a renewal, a new vision. As far as the leadership of people, there is a natural transition, chief of staff position for the chief of staff, times they were wellsuited for and the same goes to the cabinet and the ambassadorial core. There is a renewal there, orderly, smooth manner. Josh and Denis Mcdonough, talk about turnover, recruiting good talent, with that statistic that half of Senior Leaders in the administration depart in the first few months of a second term, what is the Practical Impact of that . How do you recruit good talent . It is hard. Andy did a good job and it is a challenge throughout a second term. But it has to be done. For the transitioning administration, the risk is not so much to replace people you had, much bigger risk for a second Term Administration is you wont realize this is a good time to replace people and reset. Everything about the administration makes people feel they deserve to be there but they need to be reminded what andy carr reminded the bush white house, that we are tenants, not owners of this place and we need to keep it fresh, we need to keep energy and be prepared to leave when the time is up and use every day the best you can. It gets harder on the recruitment side, the later you go into a second term. I took over from andy in year 6 and time for a new treasury secretary, took several months the administration focused on what they had to do. It turned out my biggest contribution. The key moment. The economic crisis at the end of the administration which hank paulson had a lot to do with rescuing the world economy, an ongoing problem to keep staff fresher get the best people into government, dont ever assume you have only a year or 6 months, nothing to be done, started out exactly right by saying expect the unexpected. The biggest turnover in four years of Trump Administration do you have concerns and what is your advice for a second term recruiting top talents . And i concerned . Absolutely. That is the lifeblood of the administration you are able to bring in and work with. Federal surface, which is so full of massive talent, talent is a principle challenge bridging from the end of the first term into the second term, but i want to wonderscore mostly because this is among the good pieces of advice i got from a qualifying piece including several pieces from josh, the best piece of advice when i took the job which is you have to be very intentional about and very focused on the question of keeping talent but also being very clear eyed when you need to move off of existing talent into new talent, you need to be constantly looking for signs of fatigue in your team, taking care of your team, looking for new talent because you need it. Intentionality is important. Let me say one thing. It is an issue in this, as it relates to how quickly on the field, and the kind of tomfoolery delay that. Moreover some of that tomfoolery reached such a level, losing opportunity to get really good talents on the field because they are debated, here is my last point. Massive strength and diverse city, with your old team, and you see this now in the Biden Campaign and the Biden Campaign promises, to build a team that reflects a full gender and racial diversity and that will have each of the 3 chiefs that are on here tried to build their teams so that, what the team, how the team works well together, reflects the strength of the country, have a self reinforcing impact over time. It gives me great hope. We be more hopeful, was it tomfoolery, is that the term you used . Of actually getting people through and confirmed, the thousands of jobs that require confirmation, that changes, are we at a point that we are incredibly partisan that the sand is in the wheels and it will be complicated for whoever is elected . It shows how much times have changed, we have our cabinet in place in the Clinton Administration today after inaugural save one, the attorney general. In a republican senate, that confirmation process most of the tomfoolery was appointed so we have the cabinet in place a one, particularly relevant today, what we remember well, the acting attorney general, we could not have asked for better cooperation until we got our attorney general. That is how it was then. It is very different now, if we ever want washington to work much better, hopefully that will prevail but it is harder going back to your point earlier. It is harder to recruit people to serve in government now than it was 20 years ago, not much doubt about that. Perhaps coming out of this mess. Worked very hard to call attention to the challenge of the confirmation and i believe he had an effort to reduce the number of people who need to be Senate Confirmed which would get rid of some of the tomfoolery that takes place on capitol hill. One of the many complications out there is the fact that having in person conversations is complicated these days. Not even talking about Holding Congressional hearings in person. What about on the practical side . With what works, the fact this is a question with audience members likely to continue through 2021. What hurdles would prevent remote work for the office of president ial personnel when it comes to recruiting talent . Anyone want to take that . This is a new challenge across the board and i think in my experience as josh was suggesting a minute ago intentional about finding the talent and the team in the process youre going to run with the talent, not hard to get people to stand up and come in, the Senate Business notwithstanding. So this is kind of going to be what we are dealing with acrosstheboard not just in transition federal government but all the other things the American People are on. One of the challenges of the zoom process is it is hard to build a culture of support from the workers. I think when you are working at the white house the offices are really quite small and an intimate place to work so it is easy to have an impact on the way people work, the culture they bring to work. It will be more difficult to do everything remotely. Motivating people to feel they are part of the team is a challenge because of the distance relationship we now have to have and it is not just in government in Corporate America as well. We have new people coming in, not like it is resisting organizations, and remote work, you have that connectivity, and that is where we go. It is such an important challenging time for Public Service including talent. I have a question on the National Security. We may have the best health care system, our commander in chief is the most protected man in the world with access to tremendous medical care yet he is vulnerable to this virus. We have demonstrated that we are vulnerable to a Public Health crisis. Are you concerned on day one of the transition was that could mean in terms of immediate National Security threats for the current or incoming president . I am. It is not something to be panicked about but definitely something to be worried about. Is what animated president bush in 2008 to tell me weve got to do the best transition in history because the country is under threat into your point, there is no greater moment of vulnerability than that day of the transfer of power or just a few days as the new team is coming in. Let me underscore what mack mclarty alluded to which people may not understand that will which is the white house on january seventeenth, eighteenth, is packed with the incumbents staff. Staff and on the night of january 19, everybody is out. On the afternoon of january 20, a totally new teen team walks s you just alluded to. They will not be able to, not necessarily a but he will be in the office but even if it they could be there and everybody could be there in person, pretty much every pretty much every Single Person is new to the job and thats why the transition efforts that the partnership has been promoting are so important at a moment ofb real National Security vulnerability. Because what they triede to do and then what we tried to do in a primitive way in 2008, denis did extremely well in 2016, is bring in the new folks, there is amuck with their counterparts, special on the National Security side, to a couple of exercises so people would know how to react if one of our adversaries seize on this moment of vulnerability and decided to mount some kind of attack on january 21. Didnt the Obama Administration do that in one of the exercise pandemic preparedness . It was. And a great good credit to lisa monaco and susan rice, the president someone security and nationals could advisors. That, in fact, exercise that we went through with the incoming team and the Outgoing Team was precisely that. Look, we learned that from josh. There is so much that all of you have just Institutional Knowledge, that is such a great opportunity to get to ask you these questions here and for all of you as you did today, i play more questions but our time is up here and i want to hand it back to the partnership, and Melody Barnes i believe is standing by. Melody . Thank you so much for the wonderful panel and hearing that has led a lot of people to raise additional questions and we hope on this panel that we can continue that conversation. For you, margaret, for those in charlottesville we hope we can get you back here to your alma mater soon. I am thrilled to be it with you all this afternoon this morning. We have a wonderful panel to talk about some really important issues. I want to thank the center for president ial transition for all the president ial foundations and sedges, and the Miller Center for putting this together. It feels for me like january 20, 2009, was just yesterday. I remember after taking what was probably one of the Worst White House id photos w possible, makg my way to my brandnew office in the west wing. The parade was just Getting Started outside. And when i walked in that office the phone was ringing. The person at the other end had a substantive question. I raise this example because government never sleeps. In these unprecedented times, in times of economic and political crisis when the stakes are particularly high, the 75 plus days between an election and an inauguration are extremely important to prepare a new administration to begin its work. In fact, t those days one could say our barely sufficient. They are absolutely necessary and they are absolutely critical. So this morning weve got with us a panel of experts who can help us understand the importance of a transition in highly unprecedented times, and the panel that brings a great deal of expertise to the table because of their previous work. I want everyone as we have this conversation to remember that in the days of i a transition, in e early days of a new administration, unexpected things happen that layer on top of the crises that new administrations are already facing. Operation rescue, restore hope in somalia, waco, the Inauguration Day bomb scare, attacks by alqaeda in the arabian p peninsula. All of these things happened during the transition or during an early days of an administration and we want this panel to help us to understandd how you prepare to deal with those kinds of challenges. So with us this morning weve got Barbara Perry who is a professor and director of president ial studies at the university of virginias Miller Center. We have Stephen Hadley whose george w. Bush is National Security adviser. Lisa monaco was president obamas Homeland Security and counterterrorism advisor, and john podesta who was counselor to president obama and chief of staff to president bill clinton. I want to thank you all for being with us f this morning and looking forward to diving into the conversation. With that, barbara, i would like to start with you. As sinister and, as someone who can always put the sample bit of context. Because [inaudible] melody, fortunately i lost sound but i think i know what the first question was. We had talked about this before, so thank you to everyone for putting together this wonderful panel to allll of our partners d want to leave plenty of time for the true experts on this panel, including yourself, melody, who have participated in transitions and administration but i think my roleon was to talk about litransitions historically. One caveat is i have not stated all 44 president ial transitions in depth but it did occur to me that there may be two ways in which we using the trump Transition One is the obvious one of the handing over of the rains, and the development of a new administration. And particularly in the modern era from fdr on word where we have a situation where the bureaucracy has proliferated from the Franklin Roosevelts new deal on word. Even more important to be populating a vast federal bureaucracy. In some ways its even more important than the modern era from Franklin Roosevelt work. But also it occurred to me we think about transitions that only internally about how the rains are being handed over and have the administration, the new administration is being populated or in the case of second term, the turnover that the first panel talked about that is quite necessary toes repopulate and administration. But also i think we think of it in terms of transition, in particular if theres a crisis underway. The wonderful essay that bill antholis and bill marchant put together with a look at five crises situations, five political crises and five Economic Crises in history were transitions happen are very helpful. I was asked to think about what was the best transition in history and what wasn the worst. Its usually easy when youre talking but anything related to the presidency and the president coming into office in terms of the worst situation is the civil war period and obviously the transition from begin to lincoln with the countries literally breaking apart and fighting action sliding into civil has to be the worst. We hear about linking saddam upg his team of rivals with the famous Doris Kearns Goodwin book lincoln setting up that lincoln was trying as hard as he could to put together a team that even include his rivals or rivals among the various factions in the United States, and we give them credit for that and yet the country split into civil war. I suppose i would pick as a good transition and also a historical pattern, if you can get pattern established, would be the fact that the raking to bush 41, theyre not been many sitting Vice President who succeeded in being elected president. Think it was Martin Van Buren with the most recent with a bunch of bush 41. But a think its helpful obviously if there has been a Vice President under a president and you go from the same party to the same party and that Vice President can carry forward. Obviously felt that were differences in the party, bush 41 was viewed as more of a moderate and do some skepticism on the part of the reagan wing of the party about was 41 so there was that issue. Steve hadley has participate in this wonderful documentary that virginia public media and the Miller Center put together called statecraft about the bush 41 Foreign Policy team. If ever there was an a team that was put together it was that Foreign Policy team so i highly recommend that documentary. But it also say a point made by the last panel was that, and by the way Vice President dick cheney has said to this on a number of occasions, the 41 administration he said we did by terms of the president golden resume and the Foreign Policy team was the a team but they havent read all Work Together as a team. So when the panama crisis hit over noriega, he said they had worked together as a team that by the time the first gulf war came around they were ready and up and running completely as well of machine. But it does raise a question may be trying to do some tabletop exercises that happened at the end of the bush 43 era into the obama era. With that i will lay the groundwork historically and turn it back to you. Great. Thank thank you so much, barbar. Thats great because you also move this forward historically. John, i want to turn to you next and take us to 20082009, the Financial System was collapsing. We were involved in two wars and simultaneously president elect obama knew that he wanted to move several big piece of legislation including healthcare. During the transition period and thinking about the policy process, you arrange for general jones and Larry Summers were going to run the nationals could counsel and the ndc respectively to operate and coordinate and so they were in the white house. Im curious, why you decided that was important and if, in fact, it turned out to be an effective strategy . Thanks to the Miller Center and to the partnership for putting this program on. Its really terrific. I think this this is a good transition from the last panel, but obviously i had the expensive come into the Clinton Administration in its early days and then handed off to andy and josh at the in what i was the chief of staff. I have reflected a lot on that. I told him i thought one of the biggest mistakes that president clinton had made is that he waited until the very end to pick his white house staff, he concentrated on picking his cabinet and that i thought was understandable because he had been a governor where his cabinet was his staff but i suggested we reverse the process, i noticed andy, talking about the transition to bush 43 made the same point. And that we picked the white house staff very early so they could begin and the transition to prepare for the prospect of governing, as it turned out when the Lehman Brothers did collapse in the financial crisis really shift, that was a reinforce to get people who were being selected, the economic team, the Security Team and were selected relatively early postelection to begin to work on what their plans and strategies were in a National Security space in iraq and the economic space, i dont think during that summer and the kind of economic crisis in the fall but we went to work immediately, i would say one last word which is we have talked about the transition as though its from the beginning to end into big phases, once before the election and once after the election, before the election that you and others no because we report together on this, the first rule of transition is dont make any trouble for the campaign so that you have to plan completely in a secure environment in silence, dont let anything dribble out of the light be a crisis for the campaign or force the Campaign Office message, we had to develop the Economic Program almost divorced from the campaign but once the president was elected and came into office, it was critical that the people are going to serve him particularly in the key white house rolls in the key cabinet roles and they got together and Work Together, practice together and in fact the recovery act was developed during the course of that transition. To your point people often talk about not looking like youre measuring the drapery in the transition on a pretransition process while the campaign is still underway. One more question before i want to turn to steve, and that moment when we knew about the state of the economy, the dire state of the economy and we talked about the recovery act, simultaneously youve got a candidate who is been campaigning on a number of things that he wanted to accomplish her as a country, in that moment and in the transition how can a Transition Team think about the longterm priority as they are also managing an immediate and nearterm crisis . Clearly president obama could enter barack obama had made big promises to the mega people, tht thing we ended up doing was trying to make a down payment on those promises through the recovery act itself so major investment in education and clean energy, and putting people obviously back to work and the work that needed to be done for the country but you also had simultaneously be thinking about what were the big promises made in the course of the campaign, number one was a commitment to create healthcare for all in the beginning of the Affordable Care act was sketched out and the structures of how the white house and hhs share the responsibility for developing the program and began and i think the occupied a tremendous amount of the president s time thinking about how he was going to get that in front of the congress and of course he was successful in passing that, but he also had because of the economic crisis, he had the challenge of passing thought dodd frank and the one thing that i felt ended up because of so much on the table, Climate Change got delayed in the senate until the second year of the first term and we are unable to have the bill that passed in the house because of a sequencing for the way that you have to make decisions about, you have to decide which priority got pushed off a little bit, obviously the president came back to in the second term when i was in the white house with him and we got a lot done but that was one regret that i have from the early days. I want to turn to you now and also bring lisa into the conversation because there you are, you the National Security advisor, you know everything that we read in the paper and everything that were not reading in the paper, yummy strong sense or very clear sense all the National Security challenges facing the nation, youre preparing has to hand into the issue of the nation, how did that affect the way that it affected the decision in the final days of the Bush Administration. Thank you is a privilege to be part of this program today. Just a little perspective, i was on a transition from president george to carter and to tell you the staff under president florida was let go, i was one of three or four people asked to stay on under the new administration, when the new team came in, there is basically no staff in the National Security council, when i came into the office on the 21st of january and turned to the safe in my office, all because the documents were all gone, the president ial records that they left with the new administrati administration, when the new team started to fill in, there was no paper record in the white house, that is where we started, i would call that a nontransition in terms of National Security. The contrast then was for the bush team to help the obama team to hit the ground running and we did that in a variety of ways and of course the process was run by the chief of staff josh bolton but on the National Security site since its a president ial transition National Security advisers have been court nadir of the team and we encourage the cabinet secretaries to meet with their successors individually, talk about their departments, talk about the issues that were at stake, we also had a series of briefings on issues in which the National Security team of the outgoing Bush Administration and the incoming Obama Administration met together and we will talk through where we were on various issues, one of them interestingly enough was a saturday morning session right before inauguration when we were supposed to talk about why ron and that we can we had gotten intelligence that there was a potential threat to the inauguration itself, that saturday morning we have the fbi director common in brief the existing and then coming National Security teams about the protective threat, what we knew about it and what we were doing about it, and then a roundtable discussion, we thought the veterans were helping the new team learned the road so to speak, secretary clinton asked the most obvious question which i had not thought about which is what do we tell president obama if he is in the middle of inauguration speech and he hears a loud bang, a potential bomb attack or Something Like that, what does he do, does he hunker down, do we rush him off the stage, how will he handle that moment, there was a very productive discussion, brought to the attention by a political experience secretary clinton and we agreed on what would be brief to the incoming president and what his options were, that as a nation you want to have in your reference to the fact, we thought we would do an exercise with the new team on how to respond to an incident, initially we thought we would let them roll but then we decided we did not want to do that the new to the positions and new to working with each other, we kinda stepped through scenario and tried to explain to them what resources were available, what institutions were available, what processes were in place so in the event of a terrorist attack, they wouldve had some familiarity, thats a kind of thing you can try to do in a transition to put the new team in a position as soon as they come in the door, and handle the responsibility of issues on the 21st of january. Building on that, youve got the counterterrorism responsibility and also the Homeland Security coordination responsibility and innocent and want to ask you about the tabletop exercise that you ran they came up in the last panel in this panel as well, i wonder what you might want to add to what steve was talking about and also the question a lot of people are curious about, many people ask, what is it that you are saying in a transition. To a campaign and what is it that youre saying to the president elect, what kind of National Security and Homeland Security information are you providing and who makes that decision. Thank you melody and all round out the thank you, sir of my fellow panelist in the partnership for holding this discussion, its really nice to be on the screen with some friends and former colleagues. I have been part of three different transitions in some way shape or form from president clinton to president george w. Bush from president bush to president obama and in 2016 they obama to trump transition and its the important of this safe, effective, comprehensive handoff that dennis and others talk about in the fire panel, is so critical from a National Security and Homeland Security perspective because frankly i suspect steve would agree with me, its a signal to our allies about constancy and the signal to our adversaries that this is not a time in which to test us. That is the first point i would make. In terms of the information and who is making those decisions, one thing to note is there is a lot of govern by norms and conventions, for instance in the. John talked very rightly about the two big phases in the transition before the election and after the election, that is very relevant when were talking about what information we share, before the election was the notion of sharing information and sharing intelligence, its entirely a product of convention, there is no dictate and requirement to have these intelligence brief and information sharing or National Security information sharing, the campaign and the candidate get information and get the briefing about National Security issues indeed including the election itself entirely from the current and sitting administration willingness to share that information. That is an incredibly important point for people to be mindful of and in that case obviously is the president and the director of National Intelligence setting up a process by which to brief the candidate prior to election day, after election day, there is a provision in a lot of the path after 9 11 the terrorism prevention act that requires that the president elect although i would note i dont think theres any provision for the ice president elect to get this information that there is a requirement that the president elect gets informed of the president s daily brief, in my experience, that decision is made by the intelligence professionals, the director of National Intelligence with a brief or to the president elect and give the president elect a steady set of briefings in the transition. Similar to what the president and his team is getting in that. , that is made and should be made by the intelligence professionals so there is that study buildup of understanding what the director and state of big Strategic Issues is so there can be that handoff, the last plan i make, i was in one of the transitions from president bush to president obama, i was part of one of the briefings, i was then the chief of staff to a littleknown washington lawyer named bob mueller when he was chief of staff at the fbi and i remember quite distinctly going out to chicago to be with the been fbi director bob mueller to provide the first briefing the president elect obama got on the homeland threat state of terrorism threat and this is days after the election and it was incredibly productive, the session was very important and they immediately rank the president elect uptodate on the threats and it is something that was very clear from then president bush that needed to happen and there needed to be the full information sharing and flow so there wasnt an understanding of what it was. I want to stay with you to talk a little bit more about the tabletop exercise, it came up in the last panel, we heard and it came appear and its been written about in the press as dennis was saying that you and susan rice organized the tabletop exercise on ebola, im wondering if it you can describe in a bit more detail what the tabletop exercise look like and st was talking about, the challenge for people who necessarily in the beginning had worked together to go through a roleplay type of exercise, what does it look like, i want you to give us a sense of how you think this might work in an environment of haiku one written today when so much is happening remotely, this is a larger question for her piano when she finished about how we can go through the transition. When many people are not physically in their offices, what are the constraints that should slow normally, let me start with the tabletop exercise, what does it look like. Sure i think you should go to president george w. Bush, steve and his team because what we did in 2017 just a few days just a few days before the inauguration was a direct growth in a Lesson Learned from what they obama, incoming obama team got from president bush, it is been talked about the president bush made it clear direction for his team that was going to be a professional and comprehensive handoff and part of that was the tabletop exercise that steve had me reference, i was at the tabletop exercise within fbi director bob mueller and i remember being in that room as the outgoing National Security team from president Bush Administration and sat sidebyside and shoulder to shoulder with their incoming counterpart or designees from the incoming Obama Administration and walkthrough set of scenarios and talk to the issues that he laid out, to a person i think people felt like that was an incredibly useful, and he disses the incoming obama team and it was useful and productive well run session, fastforward eight years, im now the Homeland Security advisor to president obama and were discussing the transition and president obama was very clear in his direction that one of the best thing he experienced and he was very thankful to president bush and his team are having that comprehensive and professional transition, he said that was a high bar but lets exceeded and that was our direction in my job and that transition was to build out exactly what that tabletop would be, i knew even if we had gotten the direction from president obama that we were going to apply that same tabletop exercise, what we did, we said what should be the set of issues that we want to relate to the incoming team that we need to think about. I sat down with my team of mostly korean Homeland Security professionals drawn from across the federal government and said what are the scenarios that we want to discuss with the incoming team and we chose a cyber scenario, hurricane, we made especially sure to include a pandemic scenario because we knew that the incoming team was going to face some form of emerging Infectious Disease is a crisis because we had experienced h1n1 and then ebola and it stood to reason that this would happen and of course the Intelligence Community has been saying for several years running that emerging Infectious Disease and the danger of a potential pandemic is something that was very high on the world assessment, we included a pandemic scenario, the scenario was a novel strain of flu and we put that in the scenario planning and we had just like the bushel administration for the obama team we had the incoming designee National Security and Homeland Security officials sitting next to their counterparts walking through these sets of scenarios, i asked my then incoming successor who President Trump had asked as Homeland Security advisor, i asked him to cochair it with me, to walk through the scenarios with incoming team and it was something that we knew we were going to do and we knew we had to do because it was a virtual certainty that this set of issues would turn up in some form for the new team. Building on that and using that as an example and so many other ways that the income net administration and a new Incoming Administration have to Work Together, i am curious, this is a question from the audience members about the impact of teleworking and taking precautions because of covid19, what impact might that have on a transition and ill talk that out to the panel for anyone all start i was just going to say a couple of things, one of the things you need to do, again youre gonna have to a new team will have to li rely on the existing staff, and the transition of the Obama Administration they made clear they wanted the senior people to leave, the senior directors to leave but we had therefore ensured there was an existing director who is going to be running each of the respective offices, that you can do now and it gives the new team someone to deal with and turn to from the getgo as soon as they come in. One of the problems will be access to documents and the other thing we said these are president ial records but we asked each of the directors who are running offices in the transition. In the early days of the Obama Administration, make copies of the documents you will need in order to do your job, that may be a little bit harder to do in terms of her virtual environment. Third thing that we did, and the months running up to the election and after i was accumulating a list of initiatives that were underway that were decision that the bushel administration could take but they were also what we can hold over to the Obama Administration, one of the things that i did i took the stack of issues and questions and sat down with tom tomlin and jim jones was a National Security advisor went through one by one, do you want us to take this action, is this something you want us to hold on for the new administration and then we took the result of that and got the sign off. A lot of that you can do in a virtual environment, the trick will be access to files, that will be more difficult in a covid19 environment. But the people part of it is manageable through the zoom tools and other available. Of course, he sort of alluded to this but youre not doing class by briefings on zoom, that gives a whole layer and dimension of difficulty to operate in a classified environment when homes have not been built for that, indirectly related to that, i think the last panel hit on the Biggest Issue which is building the teamwork that is necessary to be able to create a culture that is going to Work Together and Work Together effectively right from the getgo, weve all gotten way to working remotely over the last several months, i think there has to be a lot of tension given by the leaders, they are there now and moving forward, President Trump is reelected and we wish him well, if there is a new incoming creating that culture inside the white house and administration, it is going to be more challenging operate remotely and eventually i think there will be physically in the office as we see most of the people in the Current Administration physically in the office that has its own challenges, i think its going to be hardest on the National Security team quite frankly. Thank you. A couple of other issues im watching are clock and theres so much to talk about, i want to ask a question about the legislative branch, obviously weve been focusing on the executive branch incoming a administration or this year with an existing a administration, one of the audience members is thinking about this, what role for the legislative branch, how can the legislative branch help facilitate the peaceful transfer of power to ease in improving transition and doing that there is a Historical Context for this where the congress has been better or worse, more helpful or not that you might also want to add to this. All take us down but that, one way to look at it is through the lens of 2000, first of all our nonpartisan conversation today through the panels and people who participated in the presidencies of all of my fellow panelists have from different sides of the aisle, but to show up that bipartisanship and interpartisanship, can happen and can make our country better, from bush 43 to obama, we talked about that and from obama to trump, the best transition are best for our country and so they are best if they are bipartisan and interpartisan, and if there working as teams across party lines, i wanted to mention something that melanie will know quite a bit about, she came through the fast process of Edward Kennedy on the hill and he was noted for not only having the best staff but sending them on to other positions in the melody went on to the white house for president obama and was involved in the transition, bring up senator kennedy because it was a case that he reached out to president bush 43 and bush 43 reached out to him because president george w. Bush coming from the governorship of texas worked in a bipartisan way in texas and was a member of the legislature. He had a pattern and practice of doing that, as did Edward Kennedy, he is noted by those who approach him being partisan but he can be bipartisan and may be nonpartisan when it was toward a common legislative goal, and bush 43, no child left behind, education reform and president bush 43 and biden senator kennedy and his family down to the white house within a few days of the inauguration in 2001 and you need to think back, how divided our country was, the bush gore context in the uncertainty that went on for so many days that had an impact on the transition and what did bush 43 do then reach out to senator kennedy and then to watch the new movie 13 days about the crisis in senator kennedys governor and in turn if you go to the library at smu george w. Bush library, you will see a handwritten thank you note for which senator kennedy was always famous, i think he got that from his mother always writing thank you notes, he wrote a lovely handwritten thank you note to the president george w. Bush thanking him or inviting him and his family to the white house and then he said at the end i know will have differences but i hope on education and healthcare we will find Common Ground and ill be down at the white house for bill signing. If that is not a pattern that we need to follow now, i dont know what is. Melody, another thing a legislature can do is following the pattern of moan under memorializing the statute best practices. So we have the transition act that was passed after 9 11 with the best practices that the bushel administration did do, this requirement for table talk exercise is a sharing of information that is in the statute, building on Lessons Learned and memorializing not putting them in a statute can be a very helpful role for the legislature for future transitions. I would also mention something john podesta mentioned, the most important thing that the congress and the senate can do is speed through the confirmation of the government officials for the new president , that is clearly the most support think they do, get the president s team in place so the president can start their administration. I would add one more to the list which is congress is sworn in on january 3, they received the vote of the Electoral College on january 6 and begin working before january 20. We are talking about transition and the time of crisis, during that period of time in 2009, there was a good deal of work being done by the transition with the congress, the deal with the simultaneous Economic Crises in the country to save the Auto Industry and to implement tarp to build the recovery act and got people working again, we were losing 500,000 jobs a month, at Vice President biden is elected as i hope you will be, they will have an opportunity to try to do simultaneously tackled the environment, the economic crisis and really work to put in place their strategy for dealing with a covid19 crisis, the economic crisis cant really be resolved until we finally resolve the pandemic crisis. So congress has a vital role to play in those conversations will start taking place in december, and january and as you remember, the recovery act was passed in the first week of february. So calling out senator kennedys work list with the president that led to no child left behind in some other legislation that they worked on together is a model for how people can begin right from the getgo to say can we cooperate on what we can move, obviously the constellation of the congress is also up for grabs in the selection and whos going to control the senate will be resolved but once that is known you have to begin working right off the bat to basically implement a program as you come into office. Talking about working across the aisle and bipartisanship and what can get accomplished, i want to ask the final couple of questions, question about innovation, maybe a couple of different perspectives, how do we create the Transition Team a new administration create a culture of intubation and when were thinking about, it cannot be an Incoming Administration or changes in personnel, what we see, if you have not read at highly recommend it in terms of personal different president s have a process in different ways, there is a team of rival approach, there is literal team of rival approach of bringing in people from a party into your administration and ways to shape up the thinking and expand and broaden in terms of ideas to create opportunities for innovation, i am curious, what ways do you think we might approach innovation and is it even imaginable at this point given the polarization and the vitriol that exist that we might have people from different parties or even different wings from the same party that are coming into an administration. You are already seeing to your last point a sense of unity with the Democrat Party drawing on the diversity and the expertise from the different ways of the Democrat Party, that is evidence and a lot of what we seen and the development and Vice President biden approaches impositions and platforms. On the question of innovation more broadly, i think there needs to be a sense and a reminder the people in government should never forget, they are not the source of wisdom on a set of issues, having a productive way of collaborating in getting information from the private sector to draw upon innovative ideas outside of government, bring the perspectives to the table i think is absolutely invaluable, you point to things that the Obama Administration did with the creation of u. S. Digital service and stuff like that to try and bring innovative and cutting edge talent into and across agencies on the digital side, those types of practices should continue. I want to say john podesta, i want to invite you in on this, innovation is great but there are a lot of ideas out there, i think the trick is figuring out politically what are the ideas whose time has come and are salable and sequencing them, i will give you little criticism of the bushel administration on the domestic side for which i was not responsible so its easy for me, we led on Social Security reform giving people access to the stock market, where we probably shouldve read for solvency, we probably shouldve done immigration first before we did Social Security reform because we did Immigration Reform to close to an election, part of it is new ideas and innovations but part is having a political strategy and when the time is come how do you build the coalition was a priority in the master of that is john podesta, john tell us how you do it. Im going to take this conversation in a slightly different direction, i think president s dont think about performance nearly enough in the public quite frankly is skeptical about whether government can deliver, one things i think bill clinton did at the beginning in charge of the government reinitiative is consciously focus on rebuilding trust in government and the Vice President deserves a lot of credit for being able to do that in the American People have the sense that government was delivering, i think that you saw that in Public Attitude about their faith in the ability for government to deliver, i would advise the administration, whoever is leading it to pay more attention to that and again, i think one of the things because im paying attention to this campaign that the Vice President has done is woven a story together about the need to simultaneously attack the pandemic crisis, the economic crisis, the racial crisis and the climate crisis, that takes huge amount of coordination at the White House Level two top of mind strategy but at the end of the day it really means implementation, implementation and implementation. That has got to be number one. With her last one minute and 45 seconds, im just curious. [laughter] no matter who wins the election what do you think the Biggest Challenges for transition and barb you can put that in Historical Context. I may offer this and it is a bipartisanship as well because its an interview that we did for bush 43 project and gephardt who is the House Minority leader during bush 43. This is after 9 11 and he is speaking to the pentagon and he is speaking to the president and he said i said mr. President the most important thing that we trust one another, this is about life and death, our first responsibility is to keep the people safe, we field we all failed and we have to do better and i know politics and everything that happens here, this we had to keep politics out and we have to do whatever we can to keep the country safe and to avoid anything like this happening again and this is related to terrorism but i certainly think its a matter of life and death with covid and thats what we have to keep her eye on. Absolutely, i have thoroughly enjoyed being in conversation and we could do it for another hour, thank you so much for sharing your expertise and i want to turn this over to amy walter. Thank you melody, thank you so much and i am amy walter, im the Senior Editor at the political report, i will give you my view and trying to wrap my head around getting this transition correctly but im really excited for the next panel that i get to moderate. And the Governor Cuomo theyre able to campaign but they have to govern and no one understands that his reality and women who i talked to in the next moment about taking the transition from being candidate and even if it happens to be the sitting president of the United States to them coming in post november and transitioning in that time to taking office in january and putting forward an agenda that hes talking about nonstop on the campaign trail and also having experiences coming in times of crises and economics i think they will have great insights into what the 2021 process im going to start here with alexis who served as secretary of labor under president clinton she was chair of the dnc and Deputy Director of thenpresident Transition Team, aaron hughes, to george w. Bush, she also served at his director of communications, type of government and on 2000 campaign, and president obama the director White House Office of public engagement, and Public Affairs and Market Selling to secretary of education under george w. Bush and she works for the Texas Governor. Ticket for being here not only do you share with your panelist and for a candidate going into first turn in the president who served obviously and one and one to serve a second term, can you help us understand what that looks like meaning the candidate and the income net and how you approach both of those. Im delighted to be here, i think its absolutely right to say particularly when you are going through your third term and for the country you contract herself with the predecessor and suddenly you have to have a more concrete plan for how you want to get it done and deal with all of the incoming. I think one of the cochairs of president obama transition in the first term to a job in route, we started in july, president obama by seeking the democratic chief of staff and how they organize in working with the policy from the campaign and the policy work once he was in office, combination of thinking through how you would implement the strategies and articulated in finding the right people and we have a lot of time interviewing and president obama made it clear to make it shorter to assemble the team and not only shared his values and integrity also the priority and hit the ground running, one point i will make and how incredibly helpful president bush and the entire team during the transition and he made it very clear the transition of power even though we disagree on any possible power that you can think of in the treasure trove of information that proved invaluable and they could not have been more open and candid for coming with us to make sure we would benefit from their experience and hit the ground running and profitable going into second term is different, now you not only have the initial challenge of the team and they Work Together on the campaign in new people coming in, president obama set often in the beginning the best players on the field in the end of the second term he is on that team and thats very different, many members of our cabinet have a second term so the president went to the discipline process going every two years and said heres where we are, heres our priority, what we must do and what is nice to do to help frame our energy as we went into each successful. And what they said about the first transition, we were not knowing what was expected for us to go through what happened in september in 2008 when we went into bankruptcy in the suing crash of the bank in the Automobile Industry going into bankruptcy and millions of people losing their jobs and their houses and thats where the challenge comes in you push for to the permanent agenda and dealing with the crisis, i will i will say that the continuity from a Republican Administration to a democratic one was made easier by having a helpful and supportive predecessor and going into the second term, once you win, thats an affirmation of what you did in your first term, which makes you realize two things, you must be on the right track in terms of how the country views your accomplishments, but secondly, how quickly four years goes and a finite period of time from day one. Good points and your predecessor, somebody worked for your predecessor, and you also have the rare experience of a very compressed transition time. Bush v gore happened december, i think it was december 12th of 2000 and now you have to go from december, you now have a month before youre inaugurated. I want to talk about how you balanced, you personally and then folks who were working with the Texas Governor bush. In that period in between when you were still doing the legal work, essentially still a candidate, not yet president elect and how you made that transition work. Aug command, which is an excruciating time. The only thing to get you through a president ial campaign, you tell yourself in two months its over. When you come to election day, you stumble across and it wasnt over so i felt like id run a marathon and felt like somebody told me keep going and when you can stop. It was chaotic. Were going to move to washington, i had to sell my house, i wasnt wealthy and i couldnt put my house on the market because i was afraid the reporters would take that as being presumptuous, that we had won. And so, it was a very difficult time. We had several things though that really benefitted us. One is that president bush when he first set out to campaign for president tasked the chief of staff of the governors office, clay johnson, he said i want you to come up with a plan what i do when i win. That was june of 1999, 16 months before the election. And clay johnson had been working on transition time. And at some point gave me a comprehensive set of information about the Communications Functions how theyre set up and organized. And president bush had talked to me the day of the third baib debate. I would have thought there would be Something Else on his mind. And we were Walking Around the lake in missouri and talking to me about the staff. We had some preparation, florida during the redown, it was so intense, like you said, we were on phones with the lawyers, i was on the phone with james baker aevery day and i was in austin with the president and there wasnt time during florida itself to think about the transition to the white house. So that happened all very quickly when the election was december 12th and we did make immediately plans to go to washington, and president bush met with president clinton and vicepresident gore. And the Transition Team had the goal of the senior staff appointed by the december 15th and we had an idea who the senior staff was going to be, by the way, one of the things that president bush did i think very effectively. Blend r blended a team of experienced people who knew Washington Well. And so, and ddy andy card was our chief of staff and vicepresident was the chief of staff and secretary of defense and knew Washington Well and he really blended those experiences and so those of us who i remember president bush when he gave me my Job Description, i said what do you mean by this house alert to the president . He said i want you to go to a meeting where every decision is being made and i want you to tell how i will approach that decision and tell me what you think. I was going to meetings about which things about which i often knew little, but we had people in and arn the table with our staff who also new a great deal about washington ab about the policy issues. Great. And i want to come to you. You obviously were involved in the 92 campaign on the political side. You move over to the transition and youre one of the people here on this panel who is working for a candidate who defeated a sitting incouple bant. This was going in and sitting down with the folks who you beat their guy, right . So how was that . What is that experience like sitting down with the people that may happen this year, where you come into an office where the sitting staff is. Theyre not leaving because their guy is turned out, but because, well, you beat him. Well, you know, its interesting, you pose the question that way, amy. In fact, and hello to my fellow panelists all whom ive had the good fortune to work with in some capacity over the years. Ill tell you what its like, for me personally, ill never forget the day and karen used the term transition planning, which is something you dont really talk much about. Thats that secret moment when youre engaged with the transition process and you cant talk about it. And no one knows that youre in this tiny office preparing for that eventuallity if the president wins, and then you talk formally about transition. So for me, i was a part of that small office with transition planning that eventually will he had to the transition process and i did accompany that day to the white house, warren christopher, who was the head of transition and vernon jordan. And meeting with andy card. You never know how thats going to feel quite, but i have to give andy a lot of credit and i remember that day very well. He was very professional. He was very welcoming. We were sitting there in the roosevelt room and you have your list of the Critical Issues that you want to make sure you understand what the handoff process is going to be about. So for us, and our transition process, we were very clear about the Critical Issues and the key agents that we wanted to engage the white house on and not just the larger, quote, white house agenda. So for us, it turned quite frankly into a real business meeting. It was a real, quote, business session that was very respectful, but honestly, i had trepidation going into it because we just really werent sure about the receptivity and the degree that we would receive. I had a little insight because i was of course in the carter administration, and the secretary of labor and the director of womens bureau so i had experienced that transition on the other end, but really from an Agency Perspective and a very limited role, but my republican counterpart and ill never forget, it was Connie Newman at the time who was president bushs leader of the opm. And she was the liaison at the Labor Department during our carters years and so connie was a dear friend to this day was my contact. So i expected, quite frankly, that transition to mirror what i had experienced many years before as a part of the fordcarter transition, and i was not disappointed. And i know that with other administrations there have been challenges, but i have to say that handoff that day in the roosevelt room for us was respectful, disciplined. We did not go into the agencies not knowing who each of our contacts would be, and thats very important. And there was a White House Team that made it very clear to us that they would be available to us for whatever we needed and we had to take advantage of that office. So for me, respect and cooperation and clear lines of communication of what you really need as you engage in that process. And get rid of all of the preconceived notions and ideas and the partisan moments that often can come into play when you just come off of a very political environment to win a electi election. I hope there are certain people listening very closely to this. Thats wonderful, thank you. Margaret, i want to talk to you about the process of this and you know, youve been on the campaign, you and karen both worked for the governor so you know him personally better than sort of a Traditional Campaign staffer who never met this candidate before, never worked for them. But how do you ensure that and valerie touched on this, how do you ensure that all of these promises that you make on the campaign trail, all the commitments that you make on the campaign trail are able to translate into policy, especially in those first chaotic 100 days as youre still trying to figure out where the bathrooms are, to know that youre staying sort of focused on keeping what you talked about on the campaign moving forward into governing . Thank you, amy. Its terrific to be with everybody, these fantastic women leaders. I think its a testament to both of our bosses that we were all involved with them, as we all know things go better when you have women involved. So, anyway, its great to be here. Yes, i think you have to know what youre about and you have to have a game plan and focus and pirates, and in president bushs case, we knew in that secret moment that alexis talked about that education was something that obviously had great comfort for him. I mean, he didnt need a lot of tutoring or talking points, had a great record in texas, real nexis between what one does at state policy and the understanding there and what we were trying to achieve in washington. Something that in the aftermath of a contentious election is really something that americans can gather around. Theres great concensus around education, that certainly was true in the eight years of the Bush Administration, working with people like senator ted kennedy and congressman George Miller and tend the Obama Administration, arne dunc duncan, my good friend. And we leaned into the issues that i think all americans have. And karens point having people around you as president , who know you well. Who know what youre about as well as people who know Washington Well and i remember, you know, having that feeling of, gosh, i dont know a heck of a lot about what theyre talking about, but i do know a heck of a lot about george w. Bush and i know how he thinks about things and priorities and the like. So i think being to alexis point, humble in the opportunity. Understanding the gravitas of the situation, the soberness of being at the white house, and the awesomeness of your charge and really, theres plenty of work for everybody figuring out how to create a symphony of players with the expertise that can get something done. And in our case, the First Priority was said bye Barbara Perry, no child left behind and all the things that president bush did on week one in office to build those bridges, build those relationships and get things done. I do have one quick story about that. When he first met with senator kennedy in the oval office, literally the second day of the administration, probably, and i remember him saying, karen, youre probably in the room at the time. So the press is going to come in here and ask about School Choice and vouchers and here is what i, president bush, is going to say about that. Im going to say we had a great conversation that were off to a great start and not take the bait, essentially. And of course, senator kennedy returned the favor and he think it was the first of many goodwill gestures that they both showed to each other along the way. And netted out in a really important piece of landmark legislation and ultimately Mental Health care, you know, on and on. Well, margaret thats interesting. My question about that, too, obviously this was a key issue on the campaign trail, but did the fact that the election was so contentious and that it ended the way it ended push the idea of having a bipartisan deal with senator kennedy to the very top . And it might have been in there at some point, you know, but it might have been number three or four . Absolutely. And youll recall during the transition when then, you know, president elect bush invited washington leaders to the Governors Mansion in texas including congressman George Miller who had watched and admired the work that we were doing in texas to close the achievement gap, to measure and disaggregate data and invest resources and whatnot. So, absolutely it you know, timing is everything in life and certainly in politics and policy, that we had this need for something that could be common cause across the aisle and a cast of characters and some players and frankly, we were taking republicans where they had never gone before and maybe some were uncomfortable about going. The judd greggs of the world, heretofore, abolish the department of education type politics, but following their leader in important ways and i think that that is how we started the conversation. Alexis, i want to go back to something you said about being in the tiny office and you cant talk to anybody and youre sort of holed up there for a while. Can you sort of demystify the process for the rest of us. What it actually looks like and everybody here on this panel has made clear that this kind of planning starts over the summer of an election year. Yes. So, in a Windowless Office for six months . Well, i ran and you indicated the 92 convention, i was sew of that ceo of that. And i went immediately, july of 1992. I went immediately from the convention rpgs 0, shutting it down to being a part of this small office called transition planning and i think every president is different in temps of how they approach it, but the first rule for us and there were five of us in this office, was that we could have no conversations with anyone, especially bill and Hillary Clinton because they. [laughter] didnt want to, quote, jinx the process. That was drilled into our heads. You cant talk about it, you cant talk about it. And i said, how do you get the work it dont worry, youll get the input, but you cant talk about it. So the first thing you do, you get this small team and get the ground rules straight. You couldnt talk to anyone. Im in little rock along with this Huge Campaign operation with carville and all the boys, right . Why do i stay on here . And they gave me some script about labor. I cant even remember what it was now. And i did a little of that in terms of labor unions and, you know, id been at the Labor Department before, but i could never talk about transition planning and so what happened, to be very specific, you have sort of three lanes in transition planning. Theres the white house lane where youre looking at the white house operation, that first 100 days of how you launch the president. And the cabinet. The second lane is that National Security lane and you have to have swn in transition planning that already had the National Security clearance. So that they can really be doing the very quiet and delicate work of all of the National Security issues, with the National Security clearance. That you actually can get ahead of time from the agency, from the state department because you do have to reveal who is working on what. And then the third lane and this is how we were charged, was then, quote, Everything Else. It was called the agency liaison, that was my portfolio. I was responsible for arjsing all of the issues, the Critical Issues and all of the agencies that you would, quote, inherit as the Incoming Administration. But also, you had to take into account the plan that was going on on what i call lane one. The president s agenda, the white house agenda, those first 100 days and you had to know what agencies would impact the execution of the president s agenda. So in my case, of course, bill clintons economic plan was going to be the first thing on the table. Which was a heavy lift of treasury. A heavy lift for the economic council. So getting very clear about the treasury operations, the department of commerce operations, all of those agencies that especially impacted that first 100 days would be at the top of my list. So in that transition planning process, you are laying out the priorities. Youre getting the lanes straight and then you tentatively select a Key Leadership Team that will go into each of these areas should the president win. Now, thats very painful. The other hat i wore, i was cochair for some of the carry transition operations. I have to say it was one of the most effective operations id ever been a part of, but of course, seeing get elected. But you have all of these people that youre quietly reaching out to. Some of them you cant tell them what their role is going to be. You simply have to say to them. I need you to be on standby should the president win. So, you have a team in waiting, if you will, that you have to be ready to deploy of the very next day should the president win the election. Actually at midnight that night. Thats how we were set up. So its a quiet operation, but its strategic, its a lot of planning, its aligning the first 100 days of the president s agenda and making sure that you have a handle on the very critical issue that the Previous Administration may have been dealing with that you know youre going to inherit on day one and there cant be time to think about what are you going to do. You have to have made some preliminary decisions about how we operate. I was focused on this entire program, but i was particularly interested when the earlier panels, they said Hillary Clinton actually raised in the briefing with the Obama Administration, what happened, because they were inheriting, obviously, an environment that was very different from ours. If theres at the inauguration. So you have to be thoughtful about what youre inheriting. Its not all about you and what you want to execute, but whats on the Current Administrations plate. So, he could go on, but thats a little in terms of the secretness that goes on in transition planning. Thank you for drawing the curtain back for us. Im going to start by asking this to valerie jarrett, but anybody else can feel free to jump in as well. These are some questions that we had gotten from registrants to this conference and a number of them reference career government staff. How do you work with them . One question was about the most useful types of information that were shared to you shared with you by career staff and another one was about the recommendations you can give to career staff about how to prepare for a transition, especially if what were doing is transitioning from one party in power to the next. Well, again, i think that depends on the cooperation you have from your predecessor and as i mentioned president bush made it clear to everyone, governmentwide, that he expected full cooperation and so that made our job a lot easier. He did have, i think both people who knew washington, had been in the government before, having jobs as one of the enormously helpful was pete rouse, really helpful. I was a newcomer to washington, but i knew the obamas. But it was important that we signal to the career teams all over, the professionals that we value their input. That we werent going to come in with a set of priorities. We are listening to their wise counsel and to try to get the bawling running by showing them the respect they deserve. Many of them, particularly in agencies like the National Security agency, intelligence agencies, Justice Department. They were around for a long time so we deferred a lot to their professional judgment, not just during the transition, but throughout our time in office and so it was important it hit the ground running well with them. Again, made much easier by cooperation from president bush. The final point i would make that as we populated the agency, many of us who were political appointees, myself included, spent a lot of time, i think this is postinauguration, going to the agencies and trying to meeting and demystify who we were. Theres always a sense, here they come, they think they know everything. We wanted to lift them up by having senior people from the white house get outside of the white house and travel around to the agencies. And that was a priority in all. And i ep jody it, i learned a lot from those people. I have been there and i think our career in Public Service, our treasurer and culture carriers within agencies and departments, incredibly knowledgeable and an asset to our president and to our citizens. You need to develop those relationships on day one, especially in places like the omb where theyre going to help you develop those the president s budget and that detail around things like the state of the union that are quickly going to be developed and delivered and so my own experience was, they were valuable and we listened to them. I think to overlook or to suggest that theyre part of a deep state or some such is really is really disrespectful and tragic because they really are such a treasure to our citizens and to any administration. A couple one is that the white house, when we first went to the white house i realized theres such a source of Institutional Knowledge and so i remember one of the things the first can couple weeks i was planning some event i was going to do it in the rose garden and somebody said to me, you cant do that we only use the rose garden for good news. So just Little Things like that, about what the different rooms are used for and what is the tradition and what is not. Where i found, where our transition was truncated, and we didnt have much involvement. But i found in the state department in the second midterm when i was undersecretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. Public dip mroem diplomacy was sort of a child of that. When i got there they were calling the merger, the murder of nsia. I want to send a signal that Public Diplomacy was valuable. And i had dean indina, i want s the best people at the state department. I want people to look at dan smith is going to Public Diplomacy. I want today send the signal that this was important and we would have the best people and dan smith became my chief of stand and Gretchen Welch and others fabulous career Public Servants and caught me so much i was at the state department and i agree wholeheartedly, absolutely a treasure. And were completely invaluable to doing a job on behalf of the country. And im going to throw out the elephant, so to speak, about thinking about the potential transition in 2021, if former vicepresident joe biden were to win, we know that this president has had a lot of rhetoric around accusations that the election would be rigged and he would leave as long as the election is fair. Id just like for all of you to sort of weigh in on a couple of questions. One, your assumption that after 200 plus years of peaceful transitions, if you still believe thats going to be the case this time around and the second is, even if we assume that this is going to go smoothly, if baidu biden were to win and election day, the new president was sworn into office that the transition you were talking about, which all sounds lovely and people are helpful and Work Together, and you know, use the time in between election day and the inaugural, to learn from one another. When do you think thats going to be the case this time around . Who wants to start with that one . Well, ill just and ill make it helpful. And you just i think we have to remember that weve had difficult elections before in our history. I went back in preparation for this and reread president bushs speech the night he became clear that he had won the election on december 12th when the Supreme Court stopped the recount in florida. And i read that speech and i think thats exactly the speech at that we need to hear and one of the things that he talked about were the lessons of history. Another difficult election in 1800 when there was a tie in the Electoral College, and it went to the house and i think it took six days and 36 votes or something to be resolved and Thomas Jefferson became the president. And that was the first transfer of the presidency in our young democracys history from one party to another. The and president jefferson wrote shortly thereafter he talked about the steady character of our countrymen is a rock to which we can safely moor. The and president bush the night he was determined to have won the election, referred to that and talked about the steady character of the American People and urged respect for each other, and urged a generosity of spirit and respect for our differences and he went out of his way to say, im not the president of one party, im the president of one country. Whether you voted for me or not, i will seek to earn your support and to serve your best interests. He was very gracious to vicepresident gore and theyd been through the same they think and how difficult the moment must be for him and thanked his supporters, both his own and vicepresident gores supporters. Thats what we need to hear. I certainly hope well hear it this time and there have been difficult and divisive eexwills before in our history and i hope that gives us some comfort as we look back and realize our country has done this before many times. And okay. I would ask you what karen just said. I guess in the words of the great prophet, i remain a prisoner of hope, the way that karen has just said this. And you know, she made me remember how i felt listening to president bush that day. I was literally still in my office trying to quickly back up my books and my desk and to really to get out of that moment on capitol hill. And i dont remember who, quite frankly, of that agency, the liaison was from the bush transition, who was there. But i was there with tears in my eyes and i remember this person looked at me and said, i know this is a painful moment for you personally. And i said, yeah, it is, but you know we have a new president and the spirit with which we must all move forward. I dont know what this moment is going to be like. I honestly dont. Weve talked about those terrific career Civil Servants. I think if this election is long gaited, elongated that were going to be dependent on the steadiness and the continuity of their leadership. The Social Security benefits have to still go out and the business of the government is lives of everyday people. If were in a moment of crisis and i hope not bitterness, but i hope well remember these career servants that weve just talked about. Because much will be on their shoulders during that time. Valerie. First of all, President Trump is no president bush. Yes, its a contentious campaign, but its been a contentious four years. I do take hope from vicePresident Bidens comments a couple of weeks ago, he said im running as a democrat, but if i win ill govern as the american president and represent the whole country. I dont feel that President Trump has done that in the last four years which is deeply troubling and i am hopeful for nature and i believe in hope and change and recognize how hard it is to be hopeful and my counsel to my former chief of staff in the last term of the white house and i met him when he was a field organizer just graduating from yale in 2007, organizers in iowa known him a long time and vicePresident Biden gave him the power for transition. I said hope for the best, but plan for the worse. I think theres going to be a lot more on vicePresident Bidens Transition Team to reach out to career folks, but i dont think theyre going to get a lot of cooperation from the most certainly people and certainly not from the president. Id like to hope there are others who work in the white house who are political appointees that we could appeal to their better angels going in. I was heartened from some of the republicans to double down and reinforced there will be a smooth transition of power. Im not confident and im worried, deeply and profoundly worried if the election goes much beyond november 3rd which i think we should expect it night with so many people voting absentee for their own safety, that the notion that that somehow is an illegitimate, one reason for doing it in the military, civil war and our states, isnt until now that its been questioned in terms of its legitimacy. I worry that thats is ginning up a lot of anger among the American People. I think the challenge for whoever is elected is not just to ensure that government itself is functioning, while going into the next term, but that the polarization of our country begins to heal. And i think thats going to be a real challenge no matter who. And over to a practice cal point is that the beat goes on. January 20th is going to come and the business of government must go on. If theres a transition, executive orders that had been issued fairly recently can be revoked, if President Trump is reelected, there will be a changing of the guard. There will be the personnel changes, and so, just the practice cal practical reality will cause people to get on with this one way or the other. You know, weve all been privileged to serve in ways that for people who are respectful of the role they played and certainly, and for the people around them and i hope and pray that will be the case this go round. Well, that means we have a couple of minutes left and it leads to this question that we had from one of the audience about the recommendation that you could give to career leadership to prepare for whatever moment may be coming for them. I mean, you always talked about how you laeped on them during a transition, but what should they be prepared for . Alexis, do you want to weigh in on that . I certainly do. I think it is so important, and i loved it when valerie talked about the outreach they did in the very beginning. Its important to remind them that they are Public Servants of the American People, that at the end of the day thats who they serve, and that they have to reach deep into themselves to take pride in the work that theyre doing and to know that even if theyre not applauded or thanked, that they are making a dinners and making a difference and you have to put on that armor, and just be prepared to do your work. Continue to where you are planning in whatever agency it is, and remind yourselves and your colleagues that you are making a difference on behalf of the American People. To understand to understand what the principle, what the president wants to accomplish and get smart and strategic and creative about how you help him achieve those objectives. Because thats one of the hard things when youre first there is whats the priority. What do i need to do right now . So sort of a clear sense of what need to be done and when. Whats most important because theres so much coming at you, its very hard to have that clarity. And karen, i agree with that, but i think what i was responding to, if we dont have a clear outcome, its going to be up to them to keep that focus and if youre not getting that direction, thats very, very hard and so they may have to go i think they have been frankly, beaten down a lot over the last nearly four years and so, i think that if vicePresident Biden wins its going to be incouple bent on lifting them back up. The role theyve played and whether there have been changes in the norm, lets say, like an independent Justice Department or you know, relying on your sciences or believing your Intelligence Community, just name three, i think you have to be very intentional if youre vicePresident Biden, rehabilitate the Important Role you believe they play because i can assure you, there are many who feel pretty wounded the last four year period. Well, weve come to the end of our time. I want to thank everybody on this panel for some incredible insights and advice. Alexis herman, valerie jarrett, karen hughes. Margaret spellings and im going to hand it back to bill and told hes going to close it up for us. Well, thank you, amy. What a terrific panel that was. I think in three hours weve covered an enormous waterfront and huge thanks to aum of our panelists who i will come back to. Let me go to key takeaways, at least my notes from the last great three hours. First, the hall park of our system is the peaceful transfer of power. You dont wan to play politics with that. We have one sitting president and that president needs to sprint through the tape, the constitution allows that, but needs to show deference to the peoples will and that means epg helping the incoming president prepare if the sitting president is defeated. Even in the worst transition, Abraham Lincoln that happened when seven seats seceded between election day and Inauguration Day. From raieagan to bush 41. In that contested 2000 election, both vicepresident then vicepresident gores gracious consolation speech, but then 0s president bush elect bush behind the scenes getting ready to take office. And then we saw transfer bush 43 to obama. And president bush knew particularly from the searing experience of 9 11 how important it was to have a peaceful transfer in case there was an emergency. There was an emergency the 2008 financial crisis. My second takeaway, there are two phases. Preelection phase when the incoming team is preparing itself and thats while the election is going on. They need to work silently on personal and policy planning and stay away from the campaign. That makes it easier for both parts of the same team to do their job. Then after the election, the Transition Team needs to trust the planning and start to build real teams. Thats going to be a big challenge this year. We heard that, covid is not just a crisis which will need to be addressed along with an economic crisis, hopefully not a political crisis, but covid presents real challenges, building a culture as we feel every day in our own workplace, how hard it is. Here youre building a Brand New Team and doing that in a state of crisis is particularly hard. There are addition achannels, access to documents, not just having security experiences, but to secure operating facilities where were not prepared for secure communications and well need to work that out in the transition period. Point three goes to building the team. Margaret referred to it as a symphony of players and others like a team of america and the White House Team is critical. Getting na done first is super helpful, but its important to focus on the cabinet, having the cabinet done by Inauguration Day is a good benchmark. At least selecting those people because theyre going to have to go through the confirmation hearing. And its because of politics with the confirmation and perhaps thats something that the country focusing to do it well. Not deepening this court, but trying to get beyond it. But also trusting the Civil Service in the cabinet agencies and even in the white house, the National Securitys Council Staff are often Foreign Service officers or military personnel, but there are a host of Civil Servants across the government to pride themselves in preparing a president and new cabinet to hit the ground running when they arrive. Take away four is prepare for the worst. And that really requires coordination between the incoming team and the Outgoing Team. We heard about National Security challenges. Including with the current and sitting administration, thinking through what decisions they have to make and what ones can be deferred to the incoming president and then coordinating with that president. Thats challenging because of security clearances and other thin things, but its something that previous transitions have done well and should be able to happen even in the current pandemic. Ap the pandemic, the current pandemic proves the importance of this. Planning for pandemics, the next pandemic could be a very different one. We could have dinner transmission rates, infection rates, and also, mortality rates. So, how would if there was a different pandemic kicking off. How would the government respond differently if the circumstances were different. Some emergency efforts can be done with congress as well during a transition period. That is constitutional response to emergencies, funding new activities either in an economic crisis or the one that were doing now and you may be negotiating those arrangements during the transition period as is what happened 2008 to 2009 and then finally, the fifth and most important one is look for opportunities to bring the country together. Going from campaigning to governing is a really difficult challenge. In bush 43. Particularly coming out of the contentious election, president elect bush immediately started reaching out to senator ted kennedy and set the mood and tone for a year of hard work that led to no child left behind. And they focused with the early months of his administration on passing what became nafta, which happened in president clintons first year and after a rocky First Six Months of that administration, when a budget was finally approved, he turned to a bipartisan piece of legislation that helped bring the country back together. So i think that was my five takeaways, we look forward to hearing yours. Please be in touch with both us and our friends at partnership for Public Service, now is my time to start thanking people. First, big thanks to all of our panelists, what a pleasure and joy to have five former chiefs of staff, former National Security advisor, two, three former cabinet secretaries, two counselors to the president. Two of the finalest journalists in the country, Margaret Brennan and amy walter, not just me, but my daughters and superstars melody and margaret. And the senators, our partners jim mcgrath, stephanie, michael, thank you for your partnership and friendship. And dave, the director of the center for transition at the partnership for Public Service and my coauthor now on this study of 10 transitions in crisis, which is available on Miller Center website. We at the Miller Center want to ink that the george and judy and their Practice Fund which went into our work on this event. We couldnt do that without you and our supporters. Finally, thanks to all of you for watching this event and playing the most important job in our democracy, that of an informed citizenry. On behalf of all of my colleagues at the Miller Center who worked hard with the center to transition to pull this together. Our big thanks to everyone. On friday, dr. Anthony fauci talks at an event. And joe biden at a Campaign Stop in michigan and President Trump speaking at a valley in georgia. On cspan2, Brookings Institute looks at the role in predicting covid19. We will have that live at 10 a. M. Eastern. Book tv on cspan2 has top nonfiction fox and authors every weekend. Saturday 9 p. M. Eastern, big dirty money, looks at repercussions average americans face when others break the law to accumulate wealth. And then spy masters, talking about former cia director looking at the intelligence organizations oper