Events during the cold war, as well as the continuing threat of nuclear conflict. Watch tonight at 8 pm eastern, and enjoy American History tv every weekend on cspan 3. Ministration c former Homeland Security talked about the danger in delaying the president ial transition of power, other examples of transitions after close elections and had the Biden Administration can prepare to take office in january. Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another move burner. This one coat produced and organized by the center of transitions for Public Service, and citizens for strong democracy. Im going to moderate todays conversation. Its really a pleasure to have these traffic guests. Provide a important statutory framework for the peaceful transition of power. Its been updated several times since than, and today robin to discuss some of the important pressing issues coming out of that in the current transition and transfer. Its been almost a week since the Major Networks designated job as the president elect. The biden team has been moving forward on a transition and theyve selected and announced the white house chief of staff, have launched a Pandemic Task force, and soon will be announcing other white house at cabinet level official. They started talks with four and a number of American Foreign leaders. A number of republican Senior Leaders have acknowledged the outcome of the election, including george w. Bush, congolese a, race at a handful of other republican senators. And we still havent had a formal concession by President Trump. That may be a personal matter of him continue to fall legal claims in a number of states by my not conceding hes held off a formal assertation that the beginning of the transfer of power should begin. , ascertainment sorry. That is while joe biden is beginning to transition to cabinet, President Trump and his team isnt transferring no, how and real estate to the incumbent team. How big a problem is this . How important is it . Wind does it need to start . When should it start by law and one of the consequences of the delay . Those are some of the questions were going to address today with the panel. We are joined today by michael who served as secretary of Homeland Security under george bush in 2005 to 2009. Before heading up dhs, as a federal judge of the court of appeals on the third circuit. More than a decade as a federal prosecutor, he prosecuted cases of political corruption, terrorism corporate fraud including the investigation of the 9 11 terrorist attacks. He is now a leader of this is the professor of Public Policy at uc berkeley, she served as the 20th president of the university of california. The largest Public Research university, prior to joining the she served as the secretary of Homeland Security from 2019 2013, shes a two term governor of arizona, former attorney general and former u. S. Attorney for arizona, in 2019 she published, how safe are we Homeland Security since 9 11. She earned her degree and her law degree from the university of virginia. And finally, dave from the Carlile Group who also had worked in government in the state department, he is serving in a volunteer role as director for the senator for president ial transition and the partnership of Public Service. Hes also and edge of professor at the school of business in dartmouth, ants at the law firm of covington, he spent 12 years at the Carlile Group and where he recently served as managing director. And he we are really delighted to have this terrific group, let me start with this stalled determination, the ascertainment of what is that and why does it matter . Let me start with dave, since this plays an integral role in connecting transitions now for a couple of cycles, give us a sense of what this ascertainment is. What are they trying to ascertain . And what happens when it happens . Thanks so much, thank you to the mueller sector and to also give my salute to Michael Chertoff who i knew from the Holocaust Museum and also too Janet Napolitano i wish you were still president of university of california because i am on the board and my daughter is that berkeley and i would like her to check in on how her studies are going. Maybe she still has that influence. You struggled with that word ascertainment because it is not supposed to be aware that is commonly known, the issue of ascertaining the winner of an election has never been controversial, it is never been politicized, there is a provision in the 1963 president ial transition act which gives the gsa administrator the responsibility of ascertaining the outcome of the election. There are many other Government Agencies that have similar responsibilities to act when theres any president elect, the secret service on saturday morning significantly expanded their protection around president elect biden because he is president elect biden, that is not a politicize decision. The secret service just of that. Unfortunately, even the most non controversial acts in this world, in this town are being politicized today. This is one of them. The subject, that criteria is basically the criteria is clear, the outcome is clear, all the networks who have called the election, as you said in your piece from last sunday, four states would have to be turned over, and the likelihood of a recount is almost zero, even president bush stated that the outcome is clear. We will get into this, but the gsa should make this ascertainment and then the biden team should be able to have access to all the support which we can talk about more. Let me bring in mr. Michael chertoff and Janet Napolitano because i think the first thing that should be on his mind in a peaceful transfer is who is watching the home front . Is there something in this two month period that poses a threat to the American People and how is that being managed in this gap, and as the ascertainment fool the protection of the American People . I can go first, i think there are two things that are creating risk from a security standpoint. First of all, having a transition that begins right away, getting clearances to the incoming team, giving the president access to current intelligence, these are all part of the process of preparing so that when the administration comes in, they could hit the ground running and not have to figure out with the threats are and what are the capabilities to respond are. We can talk a little bit later about how we handled that when we did the handoff from Bush Administration to the obama administration. Because that was the front of our minds, and we work cooperatively. And we wanted to make sure that we immediately fully briefed the people coming in with obama and how they had access to intelligence information, we even ran exercises about a potential pandemic so we could really get a feel for how things would work in the leaders of government. There is also another compounding problem. We are seeing a purge of security personnel, we have seen the department of defense decapitated, there is rumor about dhs being fired or being forced to resign, that is the problem. Because it means in this window of time, when our foreign and domestic adversaries perceived weakness and opportunity, we are signaling that we are dropping our guard. That is a very risky thing to do. It holds the American People hostage. I dont have much to add, i was going to emphasize first the need to have a smooth hand off from a National Security perspective and not to have any kind of gap. We are fortunate that the president elect has so much experience that even with this delay, he will be able to catch up quickly, but nonetheless, this is an unnecessary risk that President Trump is putting on around the country. And secondly, michaels comment about the removal of the department of defense personnel on their replacement by political loyalists President Trump to keep personnel of the Homeland Security quote, resigned, close quote according to the washington post. These are troublesome moves from key departments that are necessary to protect the security of the American People. If you were to ask me, what is the greatest risk factor confronting the u. S. Today . I would say the greatest risk factor is President Trump. I would like to pivot off that to focus on when we might get the ascertainment so that the biden team can have access to intelligence and processing security clearances. Typically, as we saw in the last transfer to President Trump or as secretary chertoff mentioned the handoff from bush to obama, it happened quickly. And 2004, it didnt happen right away, it happened only after the florida recount. I am curious to get from you and also to hear from secretary chertoff, wet might trigger the ascertain in the days ahead . Where you looking and where you seeing . Is it simply the mounting calls from Republican Leaders ants is it something that happens in the counting of ballots and the certification of the states . It is a little unclear what the trigger will be, the trigger should have been made last week when the outcome was clear. That is the standard under the law. I do think there is a significant shifting of political opinion on this. And perhaps of that growing snowball impact, you are seeing more and more republicans in the senate and the governors saying, we should get this going. In the last few days you have many governors, these are never trump people, and obviously he comes from a state secretary to pull autonomy knows this better than i do, he comes from a state that trump has dominated. And i think obviously arkansas, trump has been very popular. And having governor hutches and say what he said is very important. In the congress i think you see growing concern from republican senators, particularly on the Armed Services and intelligence committees, and then i also think that there is growing awareness of the non the Security Risk, which i think michael and janet articulated. To me, the most important thing right now in the world is the pandemic. And the Trump Administration, they should give credit for something called operation warp speed which is a joint d. O. D. And hhs effort to develop and distribute the vaccine. One would think that every american would want the incoming biden team to have access and start to coordinate with the people responsible for warp speed so that when the biden team takes office, they can move forward to get that vaccine in the arms of 300 million people. That is not a policy issue, that is a logistics issue. One would think that would make sense. I think there is a growing, snowballing effect because people are being educated of risks of not being moving forward. I am hopeful that this can move in the right direction very shortly. I ask her team to put up a slide that is developed by a partnership of the Public Service and get reactions from everyone, you knew this was coming, but this is an assessment in year four of the Trump Administration of the various cabinet agencies and how many key positions have been filled. The darker turquoise line with the percentages lifts how many confirmed officials in key slots. It is a slightly lighter shade of turquoise which is how many have been nominated. We have been put in blue boxes, the are assessment of the five key agencies if theres a National Security crisis and there is a sixth agency which is the one that is equally critical. We have highlighted in red because of the current moment, it is so understaffed. I would just like to get a reflection from you, how important is it to fill these positions quickly, particularly when there is a crisis that is ongoing. How do some of these agencies Work Together in addressing the Coronavirus Crisis or any other crisis . What does the next few months look like as far as filling these positions . I can begin, ironically the problem usually is in it administration with people who are confirmed because they are moving on to their next job. You often find vacancies in the last month. The irony here is that the positions were never felt. So it is not a question of believing, it is question of having them filled. But we have seen with Homeland Security is the absence of confirmed positions that has made it very difficult for the agency to carry out its missions with. The that made it very difficult for the agency to deal with the pandemic and take a leadership role that was actually invasion by the response framework, and that both i occupied in janet occupied when we were in office. It is also creating a sense of polarization as white house staff has increasingly seized the vacancies as an opportunity to micromanage the departments. In the political interest of the president. And that has created a trust deficit. So much of the story of this last administration, and the next couple of months, is a disdain for the workings of government and efficient carrying out of government initiative. Its almost as if its a determination that they want to wreck government, and make it as hard as possible for government to do its job so they can say you see, people in government are bad. The problem is that that is a lot of people dead, as we have seen with the virus. As the new team has come in, has it based the importance of the biden team put people in acting positions to get started and get away with it or is important to go back to the confirmation standard . Particularly when there is a crisis going. I would say this. I believe the biden team will honor the additional norm of getting people confirmed. That depends of course upon if the senate cooperates. If you get a extra press senate that blocks everything that its a different set of problems, to be candid, at some Point Congress has to revisit the documents he prone which was abused over the last several years and needs to be tightened up. One example is when we have the transition from president bush to president obama a number of us who were on the Security Side of cabinet, theres a luncheon in statutory hall immediately after the inaugural ceremony and then the senate went into session and the immediately confirmed a number of members of the obama cabinet, particular only those on the Security Side of the cabinet. We were actually confirmed as we watch the integral parade go by. Thats have two branches of government can cooperate with each other. Thats how you help effectuate a smooth transition of power. Between now and then its a good segue into the confirmation process. What happens before someone gets confirmed and what happens between now and then . Go ahead. Go ahead david. This goes back to ascertainment because this cant go forward. So ron klain, who has been designated chief of staff, he cant get his final security clearance until there is ascertainment. He can get a interim, but not final. What happens is that the president elect will start naming his team, presumably in the next week. Typically it is done in waves of the bunch the National Security professionals. The economic people. The health professionals. As seen those will be the top priorities. Then they starting the people underneath. Here is why, again, asserting municipal portent. I will give you the data. President obama in his first hundred days had twice as many people in their seats as president bush. The bush team, they had a great team. They were experienced. Vice president cheney lead the transition. They are probably the most experienced transition People Living because theyve been involved in four or five transitions each. The bush personnel situation was buttoned up. But they couldnt get everything processed. The security clearance, ethics agreements, working with Agency Ethics on the extremely painful process of divestments, disclosures, refusal, all those things that michael and janet painfully remember from their transition process. Its a painful process to get to the senate, and that can start until ascertainment. So what is best practices to get those people to their seat quickly. It took bush until youre one to get 500 plus. Obama had a little bit less than 500 at the end of the first year. It takes a long time. The faster those can get going, the fast you can get people into their seats the better the American Public at served. We are in for crisis right now. Whether you like biden or you dont like biden, america would benefit from having highly competent people in their seats at the National Security agencies and health agencies, in the economic, agencies as quickly as possible. Thats exactly what secretary turn off and apollo said. Get them in their seats quickly. By the way, audience members are starting to ask questions. If youre inside the zone please send the questions through the queue and a function. I will pose them. Asked, what happened in 2000 when you had a contested election . When did the security briefings candice security briefings begin with a certification of the gsa . The answer is yes. There, president clinton and john did the appropriate thing, which was even though election was contested, it was a entirely different factual circumstance, there were 537 votes in one state, that state determined the outcome. An entirely different factual circumstance. Here we have probably 306 electoral votes, four states, trump needs to win pennsylvania and georgia, and biden is ahead by 15,000plus. So its entirely different factual circumstances. But regardless, president clinton authorized president bush to root the president daily brief, which is the highest level intelligence briefing possible, even during the recount. If secretary chertoff, you served in the bush years. How much in the administration i know in a president bush his first year which was slowed down by florida. Were we down the vote totals in florida compared to today, 2016, and a couple other close elections. That close election in the first year where president bush shaped his year within the administration, was there legend and more about this . How did people in the administration think about that first year . How did it affect their view of the transition to president obama . As they pointed out, the biggest challenge was getting people process the ethics checks, the backer, checks and other things to confirm. [inaudible] that was six months before the integration. Those came in later. Ick i was in the department of justice on 9 11 and we were shorthanded in terms of senior people. The a. G. Was confirmed to deputy. Mueller was on the job for one week. We had to execute government triple duty to pick up some of the responsibilities that normally would have been taken by others who were confirmed. I think that the clearance we got was really formed by the 9 11 commission, is that its a Security Risk not to have the process go right. There are so many threats out there that have to get people up to speed because our enemies dont wait until we have years to settle in. They are ready to launch. They want to know if they can get away with it. Thats compounded as we said earlier by the fact they were already undersold by a virus. If we are to get a vaccine approved and deployed by early next year, again, there has to be visibility into with the plans are, them and with the capabilities are. If that is delayed, that means delaying getting the virus and peoples hands. That means people die. Thats why to me the issue of transition isnt just about a bureaucratic shuffle, but its playing russian roulette with the lives and safety of the American People. Another question from the audience this can the potus want the gsa can the head of the gsa that has to make this ascertainment simply do it by herself . She can. I will leave to others to speculate with the president might do. Let me tell you a little bit about gse and comment on this. So, the head of the ge as a is usually not a highly political person. They are focus on effectiveness in government. Emily murphy is a procurement expert. Im sure shes sitting there thinking how the heck did i get into this position. Whats clear in the statute is that she has the independent authority. The statute is basically a continuity of government statute, the fairness and government statute. There are multiple provisions in the statute that require gsa to corn it with other agencies, including the white house. The provision of ascertainment vest that authority with but alone. Earlier this week, we had the gsa administrators from 2000 on. Hes a former apple executive, cfo again at a very political person. He focused on getting procurement better in the government and he found himself in this position. With he said that throughout the entire 2000 recount he never had any pressure from the white house, and he had many briefings with john protested. Jump attest at was the chief of staff, he made it clear that it was his decision, and his decision alone. It is a gsa decision. Its totally independent. Hopefully she can be considered. Let me ask congressmans turn off and in previous transitions, what are some of the other two that Homeland Security has focused on . What might happen in the next two months both while the transition itself is happening, while people are preparing to come in, and in the first few weeks of the administration . What are people looking for . Let me begin by saying we have a few things in our transition. One is we were worried about terrorism because this is going to be the first change of Administration Since we had experienced september 11. Got of course, we were in combat in afghanistan and iraq as well. There were a whole set of security issues. We were worried about a pandemic. I think it was even flew was a threat. It was circulating around and we actually put together exercise so that the incoming team could really get a feel for what the leaders are that you could use. Eight and we were concerned about potential violence, and terrorism with respect of the integration itself. And there was in fact remembers, some intelligence that suggested that there was going to be a terrorist attack fit on the integration. It turned out happily that was a false alarm. Them but it was sufficiently validated to be taken seriously. So all of this work that you face with both in the integration and the immediate period after than operation. So i remember michael calling need to let me know this intelligence threat. And we discussed the day of the inaugural itself. Them and the need to have continuity of leadership in case something were to occur. With and so we agreed between us that even though i might be confirmed on the day of the inauguration, i wouldnt take the oath for a day or two after to make sure that that drug theme had been cured, and thats indeed what happened. Thats what can happen we have a cooperative transition. I was sworn. I was named. I was then serving as the governor of arizona. I just was not able to keep flying back and forth to washington d. C. , and so michael sent leadership from the department of Homeland Security at the phoenix. They probably enjoyed getting out to some warm, sunny weather at the time of year. But nonetheless, they had really quite extensive refund materials prepared for me and for my team. So that we could review those as we undertook to take over what is the Third Largest department of the federal government as michael said, there were some joint exercises with that were sponsored by the Bush Administration were i did go back. They had bush people and obama people who are the same rules sitting at the same table. With so they could talk about what would happen if this were to occur, what were to happen, but would be the next step, that sort of thing. So there was every effort, and it was led by the top. And i give president bush credit for this. He set the tone and the direction for that kind of cooperative transition. And really, i think the Gold Standard in terms of president ial transitions. President obama, as he was transitioning to President Trump had given the same direction to his administration and head used bushes transition as an example. Directed materials be prepared, directed that Agency Personnel be made available, directed that every cooperation and it all should be extended to the trump team. Unfortunately the trump team didnt lay take them up on it. It really takes two to tango. You need that outgoing and the in coming to Work Together. It is a great segue, in parts lets answer the Miller Center attendee, did the Trump Administration at and just echo and amplify what you said, there were three different trump transitions, there was the difference between Chris Christie that was put in place up until election day, then Chris Christie was famously fired the day after the election, and you transition was set up underpants which was in washington where we had pretty effective the and then people in washington refer to the people in trump tower that were running the transition. So there are actually two transitions during the trump team and none of them were effective leaders, they werent effectively coordinating with one another. I want to go to a question from tracey, one thing that i was struck in that transition process, there was a number of pretransition meetings with different groups and it was the enormous presence of Information Technology consulting firms, ibm and others that focused on quite literally, technological machinery of government and how it gets updated every four years or eight years. Tracy asks are there Information Security handoff precautions in place such that accounts and passwords get canceled or not sabotaged by insiders. Are these precautions harden against issues like turbulent the transitions or foreign interference. I am happy to take part of that, but i think secretary chertoff would be better to answer as far as the i. T. Security, michael is one of the greatest experts on Information Security, so i will defer to him. The transition act invests a huge amount of authority with career officials in the government, the act has been amended multiple times and in the 2000, the 2020 events which trump signed, there were two words that were added that the people in charge of transition activities in each agency are career officials. Those career officials, we have been working with them throughout the cycle, we have actually worked closely with the Trump White House and to their credit they did a really good job, they were very professional. They were focused and they implemented the law up until the whole political but the korean officials, they are ready. They are prepared, theyre briefing materials are set. All their i. T. Work is ready and they just need the green light to get going. I would also add one cost of ascertainment, the biden team still does not have a. Gov system. If you email them they are still on a dot or system. One with think that it would be in the u. S. Interest to have them on a secure Communications Platform provided by the government the, let me defer to michael on the second part of that question. It is kind of ironic that if you are complaining about Hillary Clinton using a private server to communicate government business, the administration wouldnt take the steps to allow the president elect in his team to have a government secure network. I think david is right, the agencies, korean officials will do their best to manage a smooth transition. And on the best of circumstances, moving from one group to another and making sure that you adequately change passwords and brief everyone on the security issues, that is very challenging. I think when you get to the white house, you may run into a different issue which is if there is some resentment or payback that, is deliberately not cooperating or even worse yet, perhaps allowing vulnerabilities to be inserted in the i. T. Network. Frankly, if i was part of the Incoming Administration in cybersecurity, i would be very careful before people log on to the white house to make sure that i made a very thorough scrub of what is lurking on the network on january 20th. Secretary nepal a tunnel, john and on this one . I think michael called it right. We are going to ask a question now for those on zoom. Do you believe President Trump is justified in delaying the transition process anthill challenges to the Election Results have been worked through . Well you are answering that on your screens, i am curious to come back to this issue of, a number of people of asked wet legal avenues have the been available to the biden team, what can the public due to increase their own voice and havent heard in this process . There are a number of people asking. As we can see, 97 do not think the president is justified. What can and should they do . I think that what they should do is listen to more miller seller webinars. I think what youve done to educate and inform is having an impact, i think you are seeing that in the senate of the United States, where more and more republicans are coming out, particular those that are security oriented and saying, it is clear. I think that the more people know that the standard for the gsa making this non political decision is whether the outcome of the decision is clear. Let me hijack your program, i want to get you to talk about this question, you wrote a piece that has been widely quoted in the National Press which basically looked at the 59 president ial elections in the u. S. , and ranked those to say, is this a close election . I think you said there is four elections that were truly too hard to call and this doesnt come close. I am going to pretend moderating and kick it to you. I mean ask her team to put that slide back up that shows the various counts. Essentially, we have had more elections similar to this one, it was the one that happened four years ago where President Trump won and what we have listed 2020 and 2016 are the Tipping Point states, what it would take to change the Electoral College of the outcome. In each case it would take three states, President Trump in order to win this election would have to flip three of the four states listed in 2020, arizona, pennsylvania, wisconsin, in georgia. What does the ev sound for . It stands for electoral votes. You have georgia sitting in president elect bidens camp, for him to fall from 3 06 to below two 70, there is one scenario that it could fall to two 69 and then it goes to the house of representatives, even there they have to lose three of those four states. Like in 2016, President Trump would have to lose all three of those states for Hillary Clinton to win. The only, of the three closest elections to this, they were in 2000 and 1976 and 1960. If you go back to 1876, there were four states required, but even there with four states and up as a percentage the vote totals were bigger. And that lasted several months. The in these three cases, 2000, 1976 in 1960, the loser saw those margins and conceded the following day. Would i argue in the piece is, by historical standards, the only thing that comes close to this on a loser not accepting the results of the election was 1876 when the states seeded from the union, because Abraham Lincoln won a pretty convincing Electoral College victory. So 1860 is not a good model . Living in one of the reform states of the former confederacy, and two blocks from the statue, i think that President Trump should be looking at statues of Jefferson Davis and, he has a huge fan base out there that want to build statues to him. But the clearest an easiest way to get those torn down is try to undermine the legitimacy of the institutions of the u. S. That is what i argue. I feel that strongly. This is quite a radical move that the president is making. It is not a close election. It is certainly close in the last 50 years, its one of the five closest, but it is probably the fifth closest in the last 50 years. Do you think things need to start to move . A few questions, the least important guest in todays panel, as you see we have about 18 minutes left, as you are looking forward, when do you think things start to move . When do you think they need to start to move, at the beginning you said theres a lot going on and it is not essential right now, but is it next week . Is it the week after . When should security briefings happen from the president elect and their chiefs of staff and cabinet members . When should security clearances start being issued . Let me be clear, i dont think its the important for it to start happening, it shouldve happened yesterday. The more time that passes, the greater the damage can be. There is benefit to the fact that biden team is largely composed of people that have a lot of experience, so they may not be totally turned, they have a feel for government. That being said, the delays in these processes are time consuming and challenging and are simply demeaning and meaning that we will be a greater greater risk as the transition approaches. They should have started certainly at the beginning of this week, after the dust settleds them. And one point i would make is that there is nothing that precludes starting the transition process while the litigation and challenges are going on. That can continue, President Trumps litigation plan can continue, but the nuts and bolts of the transition can already get started. I think that is very well said, i just want to jump in, i think that is the perfect position and thats what youre seeing from republicans in the senate. They are not out there saying that President Trump does not have the right to pursue litigation, even though the likelihood of that outcome, according to experts is almost zero. But, they are saying the wet secretary napolitano said, keep going with the rest of it will be election stuff is sorted out. I think that is a very well said position. That is the emerging position from the republicans. Im going to ask everyone to take off their former Homeland Security hats and put on their judge heads, there is a growing set of conversations, including in major newspapers that the president is encouraging people to think about getting state legislatures involved in overturning the state votes, and im curious both as a legal matter of what you think of that and as a political matter. Is that allowed . What would that take and is the wise course of action . And is the president entitled to seek them. The michael, do you want to go first . Sure, the answer is the president is not entitled. I think it is legally dubious to have a legislature overrule the voters because the rule is on a federal law, the election and the vote has to occur on election day, or by election day, and changing the rules after the fact is not good. I also think would be very difficult politically. We i think it would be political suicide to say that we are going to take this away from the voters and create some type of dirty deal to give it to donald trump. Let me just chime in, we had an election, the election was november 3rd, the votes that were eligible to be counted have been as we know, many were counted after november 3rd because of the heavy mail in vote for this election. Nonetheless, fellow votes. For a legislature to come in after the fact and redo an election, holding our democracy to themselves as opposed to the voters, that is just wrong. Its a matter of law. And as a matter of politics, i think people would react quite badly to a legislature that tried to do that. We have put up our subway map of the white house, this is one that are graphic to artists pulled together, you will see on this that there is a green line on election Data Independence day. It is the express train that moves pretty quickly through the certification of votes and the Electoral College voting. Whats you see on this map as you move to the west or are the courts getting involved, that is the state that President Trump is bringing, and basically trying to slow the train down and put it into the local map. And so, secretaries, thinking back to your legal perspective, as you see those cases come forward, do you see anything in there that has merit or is likely to be a stalled train at one of those stations that slows things down . No. [laughs] i agree, no. Lets just assume then that the train removes back through to the blue line and green line, then the Electoral College convenes and votes and there is been some speculation that this could get thrown into the house and senate, i know this is a bit of a pop quiz without any homework assignment for you. But how much do you worry about that, when the Electoral College convenes and members of the house and senate might challenge the findings of the Electoral College . I dont think theres a legal basis to do that. If there was an issue about a particular that would go to congress to determine the allegations. But as we already discussed, i dont see the legislatures coming up with alternative ideas, so then the only issue is Congress Gets to weigh in if someone doesnt have 270 votes. So for some reason you have to 69 to two 69, given the math, that is not going to happen here. It is just going to be an act on congress. That is great. I want to go to a question from the audience, whats is weight, we already asked that one. Somebody else had a question, what if the president simply refused to leave . I know they seem so extreme and odd, but so much that we have seen in the last four years has been odd, im just curious to get your take on that. I would assume that the u. S. Marshals would be set to the white house with a warrant of eviction, to remove him. I dont think that will happen. I have a suspicion that he is going to go tomorrow legault for christmas and not come back to the white house. He may camp down there and create his alternative white house and he is not talking about running in 2024. I dont think that is a real issue. I just want to chime in, there is no requirement that a sitting president attending an inauguration of his successor, and we all remember john adams in 18 hundreds, he kind of fled washington d. C. In the dark of night, the night before thomas jefferson, university of virginia founder, and it was when he was to be inaugurated. Theres been a few other example since then. It is a matter of norm, particularly in the modern era. It is a matter of grace. I for one you dont expect that from this president. Dave, we have robust where the efforts viewing the transition materials during the obama trump transition . Im curious to know, there are some senior Trump Officials that were very involved in planning the transition. That was just in 2016, but in preparing for this transition prior to election day, can you talk about some of the professionalism that actually exists within the Trump Administration . I think sometimes we have a feeling that it is all a mess, but we are also seeing various shades of different types of people in the administration. Can you reflect on that . We are a non partisan organization, we worked closely with a Chris Christie team, Chris Christie and his righthand person, the chief of staff to him, a very buttoned up princeton grad. I dont think he got into uva, or he wouldve gone there, they did a really good job. They consulted with democrats and republicans, and i think the spirit with which you see this conversation with is very consistent with the transitions you know. Secretary chertoff is a tough guy on the republican side, he vested whitewater. And as the head of the criminal division, he worked with secretary napolitano on bushes instructions. We have seen up until the election, very professional work in the Trump Administration, in the white house, at the gsa, throughout the agencies, they have taken implementation of the law seriously and unfortunately that has been a move to the side. There are people that have taken this very seriously, and i hope that they get a chance to do so soon. Lisa asks, what connection do you see between a firing between tom seger and the officials like the secretary of defense and subsequent resignations and the smooth transfer . From your various perspectives and career positions, not just from Homeland Security but including Homeland Security, how significant is that . How worried are you about what is happening in the Defense Department . There are lots of things to be concerned about there, but one is that once the actual transition begins to occur, the new acting secretary of defense is not going to know very much. They all have just gotten their themselves and there is not a lot that they can educate the incoming secretary about. It does interfere with the contents of transition amongst other things here is the irony, someone like secretary esper, who just left, could meet with the incoming designated secretary of defense. There could be an inability to discuss what matters, there could be a sharing of general institutional information. One thing about the forced exodus of senior people from the Trump Administration is, they are no longer in the position where they have to wait for gse. So i would be willing to bet that the biden people will be reaching out forthwith if they havent already to set up those discussions. I think you are probably right, michael. I will say from our perspective, please jump in here. I was just gonna say from our perspective, as part of this first year project, we did a very deep dive focus on National Security transitions. There are a lot of first year crises, the first year crisis of bay of pigs was one where the Eisenhower Administration had been planning the invasion of cuba. President kennedy came in and changed a few features of that and it led to a disaster, and in some ways that is what happened in 1993 when the Bush Administration got a peacekeeping exercise in somalia. The clinton team came in and they were new and green and they understood some parts of the operation, they made a few changes, whether those changes might have been made of the bush team is uncertain, but the first months of the green administration, they made a mistake and it led to disaster. And then we know about 9 11. But we dont know whether the next 60 days, the Trump Administration may take steps overseas. That could create a new set of challenges. It could be about afghanistan and that region or whether it is steps that would exacerbate the tensions with iran. We may very well the deal with those instances. Im glad you chimed in there, i would also love your take and the secretary napolitano take, on the president bidens conversation with foreign leaders. Some have been written about, they have not been managed by the state department. Your own thoughts on that . Let me jump in on this, this is another important point. The best practice was set in the bush obama transition. Bush had a short transition, hard time getting his people in place, eight months later there was 9 11. This burned him for his entire presidency. And not burned him physically, it was something that stuck with him throughout his presidency. He basically said, i want the smoothest outgoing transmission for whoever wins. Obama winds, secretary rice again consistent with the Michael Chertoff said, were gonna create a Gold Standard. You have a state Operation Center available, you have access to interpreters, we will brief you, we will coordinate and oh biden obama and biden said that is great because we have only one president at a time and we dont want to interfere with what you do. Lets work on our messaging, thank you for the support. It would smooth communications. They place the calls, interpreters supported it, it was done in a secure manner. None of that is happening. How does that serve the United States . The point is, i do want to emphasize the point, the biden team really understands this which is there is only one president at a time. And so while they have been getting incoming congratulatory calls, i am sure they are being extraordinarily careful about not getting into any matters of policy. I shouldve said that. The biden to me is doing exactly what they should be doing, following and creating best practices, there are pros in this, they are being very careful. It would be better if they had the full support of the state department and that technology. No doubt. No doubt. We have a minute left, im going to give you the last word before we think our audience and sign off. Any final thoughts to close . I would say this, we have a resilient system, there is a lot of legitimate concern before the election that there would be disruption in voting or county, none of that happened. We had a record turnout, it is been a very smooth electoral process. That is because we have a lot of people, Unsung Heroes from the cities that we voted through, to state level to federal officials that my old agency who are doing their jobs. And that is the strength of america. We will weather this, but we have to kind of put our heads down the and be determined. I think that is the exact right note to end on. I really am appreciative to all three of you, not just for joining us but all the work you are doing. I may have failed to mention at the outset, secretaries the chertoff and secretary napolitano the, have put together the citizens for safe democracy, and we have been so delighted and honored to partner with them and with david and the center for president ial transitions and the partnership for Public Service. I want to thank all of them, think radiance for joining us both in the zoom and through cspan, and i also want to thank the sponsors at the Miller Center for this and their Democracy Fund as well as the whole Miller Center team. We will see you soon. Thank you so much. Wednesday morning a senate panel holds a confirmation hearing for three nominees to election commission. Watch live coverage from the Senate Rules Administration committee, starting at 10 00 eastern on cspan three. Online, and cspan. Org, or listened on their free cspan radio app. You are watching American History tv up next, a Georgia Historical Society senior historian, stan deaton, interviews former u. S. Senator sam nunn, about the cold war 75 years after it started. Senator nunn served from 1972 to 1977 from a democrat to, georgia and served as the Committee Chair from 1987 to 1995. After leaving the senate he cofounded the nuclear thrt