Context, where, for example, when we seized 800 million in Swiss Bank Accounts that belonged to the corrupt uzbeki official in the silicon case, there was one claimant to that money, the government of uzbekistan. So we see that. Thats obviously something that the people who were involved in the wrongdoing were associated with the government of uzbekistan. So we wouldnt necessarily be willing to agree to give the money back to them, because they might put it back in a different pocket. So in the hypocrisy context, thats a typical thing where whatever government, whatever the constitution was, that government will claim an interest in the funds. So we do deal with that. We generally fight that. We recognize the entire government is not corrupt and that the government itself was a victim, in some way, of the corruption of this official but we try to work to get the money, to the extent we are giving money back to the country, we work to get the money back in a different way so we can be sure its not going to be used either corrupt officials just to be put into a different swiss bank account. I have not seen in the ftpa context, but i can see that similar rationales may apply. That we do not want to give money that was paid to get contracts through bribes back to a potentially the same officials got the bribes. Susan well, please join me in ell forg leslie caldw this wonderful presentation, particularly with regard to transparency. The fact that youre here and talking about these important issues. P for the karen pop perspective from practice. I think we were able to get a nice balance of issues and something i think develop the issues with perspective from the government and the private sector. Thank you very much for coming. Please join me in thanking the panelists. [applause] and we will have a reception outside across the hall. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2016] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] Republican Donald Trump is elected as the next president of the United States. And the nation alexa a controlled house and senate. Watch live on cspan the transition. Watch ondemand on cspan. Org. Or listen on our free cspan radio app. Now, a look at the president ial transition process and what challenges await the next demonstration. Speakers include a former advisor to president will ofnton and former chief staff to first lady laura bush. This was hosted by the National Press foundation. Chris welcome. I am chris adams, the director of training at the National Press foundation. I will be introducing our panel here in a second. Sandy told you her transition story, i will give you my one brief transition story. 2000, most interesting transition in my lifetime, i was working at the wall street journal, i was in the midst of a longterm project that had nothing to do with politics. Everyone in my newsroom was working on the transition but me. So we are going to talk today about transition. We have three panels, a panel of experts, reporters, and two experts talking about the revolving door issue. What we are trying to help you figure out is what happens when you wake up on a cold day in january and all of your sources are gone. For reporters, that is what today is about. Strategies on how you can prepare for, what stories you should be looking for, how you build new sources in the new administration and the stories you want to do, like the old standby stories. For the politicians and the administration, it is a matter of efficiency and speed in getting the president s new agenda enacted. These are some numbers from the david eagle center for president ial transition. A new administration is likely to get its appointees confirmed fastest in the first year of its administration. It has only 73 days to do so. If it wants to get them in place by the start. And there is 4000 president ial appointees to try to get through the process. That is what we will be talking about today, our three experts, david eagles, the director of the center for president ial transition of the partnership for public service, he will tell you what pivotal role they are playing in the transition this year for both potential administrations. Anita mcbride, executive in residence at the center for congressional and president ial studies at the school of Public Affairs at American University and a veteran of incoming and outgoing transitions with the reagan, george h. W. Bush, and george w. Bush administrations. And william galston. A senior fellow for the Governance Studies Program at the Brookings Institution and a veteran of the bill clinton transition process. The first session is 75 minutes. Each of them will give a brief view of some of the most important things they see and that they have experienced in their transitions. And then it will in for 30 to 35 minutes of q a, because that is what most of you want to do. We will start with david. David eagles. David thank you. Appreciate your time. Thanks for talking about president ial transition. I want to take a quick step, understand the sheer scope and magnitude of what we are talking about here. These president ial transitions are massive. They are inheriting a 4 trillion dollar apparatus. There are hundreds of federal agencies. There are 4000 political appointments. 1100 of those have to go through the senate. And there are only 73 days. There is generally not a lot of experience in this process. There are generally not a lot of folks leaving and there are not a lot of folks coming in. What has happened is this is a reinvent the wheel exercise, a groundhog day exercise that every incoming team has gone through. Not only is it big and complicated, it is also a time of vulnerability for the country. By and large, the white house is virtually empty, the original files are virtually gone. There are no hard drives, or they wiped hard drives for the incoming team, and historically, there are no instruction manuals when they come in. And there is really an interesting time around the inauguration, where it is very vulnerable for the country as well. Also no incoming president really has done this very well. Because it is a reinvent the wheel exercise, this is the first time you have seen both teams planning this effort early. Because of the legislation that has passed, they have space and logistics provided by the government. This is only the second time in history we have done that. Governor romney dated four years ago and went to town on it. He had several hundred people preelection focused on this. This whole thing is one big epic corporate takeover. Except the big difference is 4000 of your top people quit in the exact same hour. In this process, you get virtually note due diligence, so you do not know what you have so you doyou not know what you have bought into after the election. It is a six to 12 month process, you have ceo succession plans and you review the financial statements. Here, there is virtually nothing. There is an opportunity to do so much better. What i mean by that every , president coming in nearly a year after they have been elected, are getting less than one third of their people in office. They are not getting their top people in place. Even today in the federal government this is not only president obama, this is every modern president one in five senior positions are vacant. We have to ask yourselves why, what is happening, why is it taking so long, why are there these senior vacancies, and we found couple of things. One is that first of all these , teams are not starting early enough. They are not managing this process strategically. That is why we feel if these teams take a step back, this is one of the greatest opportunities to make government more effective. It is the only time these teams can understand how they want their government to work. It is very difficult once you are in office. All of our research and interviews show once you are in the presidency, you are hit with ufos, or unforeseen occurrences, all the time. This is that time they have to maximize. They historically have not gotten their people through, and once you are in office, you cannot catch up. That is why youre seeing these type of vacancy rates that we see out there now. Secondly from the campaign , promise perspective, we are in the midst of a few days left, of the silly season of the campaign, they are making Campaign Promises, transition is what connects those Campaign Promises into the government. Understand how to execute them. So they will develop the teams now or developing 100 day plans or 200 day plans, thinking about their Campaign Promises, how do you execute them within the federal environment. This is an extremely complicated business that is the u. S. Federal government, the largest, most complex, and powerful entity on earth. So if you want to keep the country safe and prosperous, these teams have to start now. It,cannot afford particularly in the post9 11 environment. This is why the Bush Administration started early. That is pretty much what i wanted to leave you with. Eagles, part of the partnership for public service. We are committed to making government more effective. We are nonpartisan and nonprofit. We have been working with the team since spring. In april, we convened all five Senior Campaign officials, the candidates who are still in office, pulled them offsite for two days to talk about governing the country. It is the first time we have seen that this early. As an american, super proud to see a safe, nonpartisan environment where these teams could talk about governing this entity, which is the u. S. Federal government. Since then, we have been working closely with the teams. Both are committed to the effective transition, which is exciting and the understand the importance of governing this country. Anita thank you. That really helped to frame things. I will talk a little bit more from the practitioner point of view. I want to pick up on something that sandy mentioned you never know who your source is going to be for information. I think that was very illustrative. I can speak to that for a minute. In 1994, when congress split from democrat to republican almost after 50 years, people who were in the opposition working behind the scenes that could be in leadership at some point. So it is important to be cultivating those relationships. Particular went it comes to transitions on the senate side, who will be in the position of overseeing the nominations process for any Senate Confirmed appointment, because they could be a stumbling block to the nominations of a president elect or they can be a real help. So it is really a good, illustrative example of knowing who is on the hill. Chris, thank you for inviting me to participate. I want to focus on a couple of key areas. Really, what role does the Outgoing Administration play in ensuring that there is a smooth transfer of power. My answer to that is it plays the most important role, because they set the tone, the outgoing president and his team will set the tone on how the transition is viewed by the American Public, about how the transition is handled by the incoming team as well. We will take a lot from the First Encounter that the president elect and the outgoing president have. Particularly if it is a dramatic change, if donald trump wins, given all the rhetoric that has happened in this campaign. That will be a moment that everyone will have eyes on and will set the tone for what may happen. Because it has been such a visceral election. Obviously, if this is mrs. Clinton these are two people that know each other, he is campaigning for her, my assumption is all of the assets and resources that the Outgoing Team can provide will be there and that the tone will be set very early as a positive one. So the role of an Outgoing Administration in ensuring a smooth transition is setting the tone. It is really important that the president do that and do that well. And by extension, that they give direction to all of their staff, not only in the white house but to the departments and agencies as well, to be open and transparent in providing the information that an incoming team would know. So what are the greatest obstacles for an incoming team . The greatest obstacle is they do not know what they do not know. Particularly if it is a trump presidency, how do these people , who may be because this has been an election based on dramatic change and overhauling the government, from top to the anticipation that people want to come in and blow the whole thing up is probably pretty highly likely. So who are what tone is going to be set by the incoming team, how open are they to learning how the government does work. As david said, extremely context. Trillions of dollars, thousands of people work, hundreds of thousands of people work in these federal bureaucracies. And you do have 4000 pivotal positions to put in there to run the government the way you want it to be run. So a great obstacle for the incoming team is to admit what they do not know. Having good people on their Transition Teams, which are in place now, to understand what is happening in the agencies, what are some of the things that are on the table, what are some of the things in the hopper that agencies, through regulation or policies, are getting ready to do, and how is that different from what you have campaigned on, what you have promised to do . And the personnel that you need to select and be ready to go in at the end of that 73 days to actually execute on what the electorate has asked you to do. How has the transition process improved or changed . You heard chris mention about the transition of 2000. Really, that is one that no future president should ever experience. In a post9 11 world, it would certainly put any white house and the American People, by extension, at great risk. You think about the number of days we did not know who was going to be president of the United States the decision was not made until december 12 of 2000. So there could be no official transition process. There could be no official conversation between an Outgoing Administration and the incoming team. George w. Bush, the president elect well, i cannot even say that. The george w. Bush Campaign Team was operating in arlington, virginia, in offices that were acquired by dick cheney, the candidate, acquired by him and paid for privately. There were no government resources. People like me, who had worked in previous transitions, were called up. I was never expecting to go back to into the government. I had my time working for Ronald Reagan and george h. W. Bush. But i had been in personnel and management administration. I had been director of white house personnel. I understood how the process worked, i knew how to offload people, how to onboard people, and the critical connection between security and Personnel Management and administration. So i was asked to come help, and it was a very dramatically different experience, because you were kind of operating in the shadows, you were trying to be ready and have things ready to go if the decision was going to be that it was george w. Bush to become president of the United States. But if he did not, then all of those resources just collapsed. The private money had to be raised to make those offices available. Once the decision was made by the supreme court, then all of these assets and resources General Services administration, things that are provided by the government, could kick in, and you had a very quick turnaround to move into transition space, which is downtown, closer to the white house, and you could get to have conversations. But the conversations, you could imagine, were not all that easy. That was a very tense time. There was a call in question, particularly by Vice President gore, that this was really the right decision. There were personal tensions. But nonetheless, the process worked. And there was a transfer of power that all of us expect and americans are entitled to have once the Campaign Rhetoric is over in the business of and the business of governing begins. But that was a very illustrative experience for george w. Bush and for a lot of us on the team. Basically, with the underlying premise for him, for any future president , president elect, should not face a transition like that. It was not the way we should be doing business. But we learned from that. And then, of course, came 9 11. So the stakes were even so much higher in a transfer of power. And what it led to in late 2007, early 2008, president george w. Bush really executed an executive order creating a transition network, began to put a framework, an early framework, around having conversations between the Outgoing Administration and whoever the incoming team may be. So what did that look like . That meant every department and agency and every White House Office was charged with putting together documentation, we put it in binders, all welldocumented, provided, tabbed, with what you can expect on day one. What are some of the things that that this particular office i was chief of staff to laura bush, the first lady. What are the things you can expect in a calendar year . What are the things that you can anticipate . That was done for every single office, so there was a hands off of excellently documented information that provided a template and a framework that we still are using until today. What also opened up an opportunity for, once there was the decision, november 6 in 2000, an early meeting between barack obama and george w. Bush, and we began to have conversations with incoming teams that have been named by president elect obama. They came in and met with us in our offices in the white house began to have an exchange. ,it really was a very dramatically different experience than 2000 was, where we could not talk to anyone. We certainly could not talk to anyone openly. So despite how the Outgoing Team may have felt emotionally about losing their jobs, not knowing what they were going to do, this was what they were charged to do, to make sure that there was a smooth transfer of power, that they gave confidence to the American People, that despite the rhetoric of the campaign, which was pretty visceral back then as well, that things were going to move on and move on well. So that allowed the new president , when he came in on day to know what would be on his one, desk, particularly from a National Security point of view. There were tabletop exercises that had taken place between the National Security team of george w. Bush and the incoming National Security team of barack obama. That was really important. Again, post 9 11 world, the stakes are very different. The fact that we were a nation at war in two theaters of war clearly underscored the fact that serious deliberations, conversations had to take place. So the other last thing i will leave you with before my time is up is not only is the business of government being transferred and the personnel that has to be put in place to execute the policies of the new president , but there is also a change in the residence of the white house. A new first family coming in, the first family going out. There is a lot that goes on to make that happen smoothly and to make that comfortable for the new first family and not to be diminished, because the white house and its setting is the stage for our diplomacy, and it is a stage for the business of our government on a daytoday basis. So that has to be a smooth transfer as well. And thankfully, there are 94 people on the white house staff that Serve Administration to administration that make that happen. Thank you. Chris bill galston, if you could go next. I should note that we are at the university of maryland, and you are professor at college park, both at workings and college park. So if you could talk about your experience and the research you have done on transitions since you were in one yourself. Bill sure. I am going to adopt the perspective that i know best , which is an Incoming Administration. You just heard, i think, a very full explication of what things look like from the standpoint of an Outgoing Administration. From the standpoint of an Incoming Administration, a transition is a discrete series of tasks. And each of those tasks can be executed well or badly. And people like you will be watching and making judgments every single day about the one is the selection of the white house staff. I want to underscore at this point, for the First Six Months in the new administration, the white house is the locus of action. The white house staff is the locus of action. Because however well organized the nomination and confirmation process is, it is in the nature of things, slow. The departments and agencies are not going to be up to full strength and will not be operating at full speed. So, the white house is more important in the First Six Months than it ever is again. The white house staff has to be appointed first, and it has to be appointed quickly. Here is a rule of thumb for covering a transition. If the transition is doing its job well, almost all the white house staff will have been named by thanksgiving. The transition that i was involved in, the clinton transition, got it backwards. Spent almost two months focused on the cabinet, and the white house was almost an afterthought. I speak from personal experience, because i got a call to come down to little rock on january 10. I was a professor at the university of maryland. Were typed and the students had registered for my courses, the books had been ordered, and a funny thing happened on the way to the spring semester. It was interesting experience for me and totally unexpected. I would not recommend it as Standard Operating Procedure for a president ial transition. Of the people who are going to be selected for the white house staff, keep your eyes focused first of all on the chief of staff. Who will the chief of staff be . Secondly, the personnel director. That is going to be a huge locus of action early on. If the personnel director is someone with experience and if the president ial transition gives the incoming personnel director the human power and the resources to do that job on multiple fronts, then you are setting the stage for a be snugly well for a reasonably well organized and orderly process. If the personnel director is not given enough help and he or she has to function as one an old boss of mine once called a one armed paper hanger, then disaster is around the corner. Finally, the person who is in charge of organizing and directing scheduling for the incoming president , get those three things right and the odds are that the transition is going to go reasonably smoothly. Then, of course, comes the senate confirmable positions. You have heard the number 4000, and that is true but there are a handful that are incomparably more important than all the rest. Focusing on the cabinet and key subcabinet posts, your cabinet ought to be named before christmas. An interesting story to follow is the perennial question of who gets to choose the subcabinet. You can tell a lot about an Incoming Administration from the degrees of freedom and discretion that the nominated cabinet officials are being given to help select their immediate subordinates. Highly centralized white houses political debts to fill, frequently try to take as many of those decisions into the white house and not disperse to the incoming cabinet officers. There are various points in between. Jimmy carter gave his cabinet officials Carte Blanche to select their immediate subordinates. That did not work out so well. There are various ways of trying difference, that is is afferent story that different story. Here is a third interesting story for the cabinet. Has the president elect and has the chief of staff of the senior advisory to the president given any thought to the way teams of people who are working on similar overlapping issues together . Because if your treasury secretary does not get along with the director of the National Economic council and the director of omd, or if the secretary of state cannot work well together, that causes problems. Another issue is that you have made hundreds of promises. In the nature of things, the a congress is narrow. What are the legislative agenda items that you will focus on in the First Six Months . You must make that decision early. And then you must organize the issue teams and the political teams during the transition to begin to execute those top priorities. That is a very interesting political story during the transition, because, if you have on many fronts if you have entered into transactions on a number of key issues on a number of bases than a lot of different people are going to be disappointed. How are you going to handle that . That is an agenda issue and a political question. It is not all legislative. During the transition, a separate team will be working on executive orders that the president could assign on day one. That is something under the president s control. You can set a tone by determining which executive orders are going to be signed and made public on the first day of the administration. It makes a difference. Are you going to dump them all at once . Theme you going to release like little time capsules day by day so that people like you have something to write about every day . There is an art to dribbling out so that the ones that matter get their day in the sun. As part of the substantive preparation for the administration and keep your eye on this one, too. There needs to be coordination between the issues agenda and Budget Development. Many of an incoming president s key legislative proposals will have fiscal consequences and believe me, if those consequences are not factored into the budget, then no one on capitol hill is going to take them seriously. Let me tell you a war story from the first month of the Clinton Administration. One of bill clintons key domestic promises, probably the most important one, was to end welfare as we now know it. There were going to be substantial, ongoing transition expenses connected to the fulfillment of that promise. There was a humongous fight as to whether that money was going to be slotted into a budget, which was by president ial decision early on going to be an austere budget to bring down the deficit, reduce longterm interest rates, encourage business confidence, etc. Not a typical decision for an incoming president and not a universally popular decision. Is there going to be a provision made within that austere framework for the 5 billion annually that is needed to fund welfare reform . The answer to that question was eventually no. Everybody who understood the process understood that whatever was going to happen in year one, welfare reform was not going to be part of the agenda. You demonstrate your seriousness on the substantive by coordinating your Budget Development with your issues development. If you do not, then the president elect can deliver all sorts of ringing speeches about the agenda once the inauguration occurs. Speaking of inaugurations, there is an inaugural date to plan, and address to be drafted, and two other key tasks. First of all, congressional engagement, and secondly, press relations. And especially if an incoming president is facing divided government which will almost certainly be the case. The next president of the United States will not enjoy the luxury that barack obama had on day one and for the next 13 months. Control of the white house, and ample majority of the house of representatives, and a 60 vote majority, a filibuster proof majority if it held together in the senate, whatever the outcome of this election, the next president will not have that kind of freedom to maneuver. So the ability to establish good relations with the leaders of both Political Parties and the congress will be essential to the agenda, whatever it turns out to be. And finally, any smart transition will Pay Attention to the fact that you have stories to write. Many of you will have stories to write every day. What are you going to be writing about . Trust me. If the transition does not think through the answer to that question, you will try to come up with answers on your own. The answers that you come up with might not be as helpful as the answers the Transition Team might come up with. The Transition Team, if it is smart, can give you something on the issue front, the personnel front, or the scheduling front to write about every day. Preferably some cocktail. Those are the benchmarks you can use to gauge the competence of an Incoming Administration. I can spend a lot of time giving this template i have just issued of key tasks talking about what the clinton transition got right and got wrong. Rather than telling war stories, let me stop now and if youre interested in any of them, that is what the q a session is for. Thank you. We love war stories. I want you to think of your best war stories. I will ask a couple of questions, and then i will turn it over for full q a. David, i was hoping you could give us when you actually got started, there was some legislation that passed in the last six years that has released money toward the transition efforts. Could you explain that . There are a couple of pieces to that. You have to know that modern transitions are completely different than they were years ago. It is a totally new legislative environment and mandate that these teams have through congress to plan early. One of them was passed in 2010. This was the law that moved Government Support earlier. To meet the point historically, it was election day, you looked around, and try to acquire resources from the government. That kicks in at convention time. This is only the second time in history we have seen early support provided by the gsa. This provides a mandate and some safe space for the teams to plan out and rethink how these transitions are done. Having looked at these and served on romneys Transition Team, they are completely different. They are slating larger numbers of candidates, and we have ever candidatesumbers of than we have ever seen before. They are thinking through very creatively the campaign process. They will have in place on election day the potential options for candidates and also progressing nicely of their plans. The second piece of legislation is the reduction of the number of Senate Confirmed positions. This number was closer to 1400, now it is 1100 create it was now it is 1100. It was reduced by 169. That helps from a processing standpoint to get your folks through. The 1100 number is way too many. These are the policymaking jobs , but they are also Good Management jobs in there as well. We would argue that you consider taking them off the list. The third case, there was signed this year by executive order, by president obama to comply with the law. This is the first time the Outgoing Administration has started the coordinating functions this early. They are required by law this year, six months before the election to start the coordinating functions. Think about it eight years ago. Your incoming teams did virtually nothing, or if they did something, it was the cover of darkness prior to the election, very small, quiet teams focused on just the top. You have seen president obama got seven in by inauguration. Seven of 1100. Think about the outgoing. You are coming in and leaving or staying. The Outgoing Administration has not participated fully with the exception of there has been no formal process of planning that we have seen. This is the first time now, the White House Court needing council and an Agency Career Directors Council that has been that is several times with active engagement of the incoming teams. The third piece of transition are folks who are staying through transition, the career Civil Servants. Every agency has prepared for transition completely differently. Some agencies put together, one put together 80,000 pages of briefing materials for the incoming team. Some agencies do very little. Some start a year plus in advance, and some do not start until the election. What has been great about this cycle, the administration is committed to much more consistency with agencies. So there is a standard template every agency is using. This is the first time youre seeing coordination of outgoing , and incoming, and the folks were staying. That should drastically change how these transitions happen and we should see much better results. Point, we actually think by Inauguration Day or right around Inauguration Day, instead of trickling in your cabinet officials that you can get your top 100 cabinet and subcabinet officials in place. Four years ago, governor romney was on a similar trajectory. That was the intent. You may say it is not possible , because you have to go through the senate. All the data shows we have 70 percent of the time getting these people through the senate. It is the Transition Teams finding these people, putting them through the paperwork, this stuff is controllable, and they can start now. This should be the new measuring stick for modern transitions and modern presidencies. It is easy to go fast and slow. There is a halo effect to get the men and from the American Public to execute on your promises. Why waste the first 100 days spinning your wheels when they can be ready on the first day . This is our message for the First Six Months, we have been working very closely with them. We have all been on the phone trying to find these folks that did it 20 years ago. We are going through george w. Bushs boxes. We are trying to be there their repository of information and best practices connecting people who have done it before with experts to map this whole thing out. If you go to our website, you can see the entire process mapped out and what the teams are to be doing literally today. President ialtransitions. Com. It leads to better results for the incoming president. A better ability to execute on their promises and much more planning along that inauguration so we can stay safe and prosperous. I will ask one more question. I will then turn it over to the audience for for for full q a. Note that everyone should have a booklet from the center that lays out what hes talking about, thats yours to take home. I want to ask this to all three of you with kind of a subquestion to you, david. The notion of the election being rigged, and the kind of poisonous political atmosphere we have right now what sort of impact is that going to have on transition on both sides if you know, a huge section of the country is hostile to the outcome of the election, does that what kind of impact does that have here in d. C. . And then also, david, i was hoping you could answer, you know, Donald Trumps campaign has been very hostile to the process in general. Is his team working with well with you all working well with you all, and are the folks working with you the same as we see on tv or a Different Team . Anita ill just very briefly say, reiterate, one thing i said to you initially, the tone that person whooth the wins this election, and particularly the person who loses this election, have to set the tone and say they accept the decision of the American People. That is far more important. So i think that the tone, particularly, and id like to take some comfort in what governor mike pence said yesterday on the news, that the if donald trump loses this election, they absolutely will accept the decision of the American People. I think that would be an important thing to keep reiterating by that campaign and i think, you know, obviously on the other side too, i would hope that mrs. Clintons team would say the same thing. Bill i agree with that. Weve seen some interesting debates in this campaign, but the one id like to see is the debate between mike pence and donald trump. But let me stop there in say that it is not just a question of what the defeated candidate does. Its also what the president elect does. If the president elect is former secretary of state hillary clinton, i think she will have a job from day one of reaching out to the responsible leaders of the Republican Party and emphasizing that despite the tone and temper of the election, that there are people in washington, starting with the president elect, who are really dedicated to the process of governing the country in the national interest. And this election has surprisingly turned up some areas of Common Ground between the Political Parties on key issues, ranging from infrastructure to assistance for families with Young Children who are trying to balance work and family. So the president elect can set a tone, if its secretary of state clinton, not only with very explicit and continuing serious outreach to the leaders of both Political Parties, but also in the selection of key top exs, agenda items to lead off the new administration with. There are some that would be confrontational and others that would tend toward cooperation. Never underestimate the extent to which the Initiative Lies in the hands of the president elect and the Incoming Administration. David so, a couple of things. One is, first of all, weve seen both teams committed to governance in this country and both teams have begun working with in the april time frame. Both teams are also organized around the key functions of transition, you have a head of transition, you have a head of their agencies and policy implementation focused on their key Campaign Promises, cataloging them and developing 100 and 200 day plants. Weve seen remarkable consistency with both. I think each campaign has their issues and challenges that weve been working with them on. As an american, ive been extremely pleased that these words, put their own their swords at the door to talk about governing the most complex country on earth. Job one right now is to win the campaign. They dont want distractions focused on governing the country while trying to run the campaign. Both teams are staffed up, organized, and taking it seriously. At the end of the day, well see much better results from both. Post host we have time for questions from the audience. Raise your hands and well call on you. Questions out there . So the only the only administration ive really seen that i remember personally george w. Bush and barack obama. In both of these administrations, you saw Congress Move away from them. Kind of refuse to work with them at a certain does that happen to point. Every administration . And at what point does that usually happen and why . Anita can i comment on that . Really, that was a great question. And youre right. Relations are of course difficult, naturally, and in 2000 there were a lot of people on the hill who were not happy with the result. They were still calling into question the legitimacy. I think a lot of things changed really after 9 11. The country really did come the Congress Really did work well with the president on a number of key issues. They passed enormous Bipartisan Legislation on emergency plan relief which we havent seen anything to that level up until now. A 15 billion commitment to a single disease. So there were areas of cooperation that are actually very encouraging. Drawing from an example, too, of how Ronald Reagan handled his congressional relations as well, i mean, it is very well known he and tip oneill did not agree on policy, but they had a lot of frequent interactions as friends and after hours as friends. Those things go a long way in being able to, on key legislative priorities, trying to move the marker and trying to get something done. Know the example of george h. W. Bush, he was a creature of congress. He had strong personal relationships on both sides of the aisle. In one key instance, it didnt play out well for him. When he agreed, a conversation with the ways and Means Committee agreed to taxes. George bush made that decision knowing it would cost him the election, and it did. But it was the right thing to do for the country. So i think there are examples of where a president , again, sets the tone by being willing to take some political risks and develop relationships get things done. I think one of the things that i would say that has been disappointing about president obama he was a member of the senate. It is pretty well known, reaching across the aisle was not a strong suit of this white house. There was a lot of contentions around Health Care Reform and other issues. Building personal relationships, i think thats an important thing to watch for. Bill that said, i agree with all of that. The job of reaching across the aisle is tougher than it used to be. The political system is more polarized than it used to be. The differences between the parties are deeper and more pervasive. Theres less overlap between the parties. When i was the age of people in this room, there were a lot of republicans that were more liberal than a lot of democrats, and more democrats that were more conservative than a lot of republicans. Thats not true anymore. So building Cooperation Across Party Lines is going against the grain of some decades of american political history. Thats not to say its mission impossible, but its mission very difficult. The second point id like to make in response to your question building on what neversaid, it is think that Campaign Rhetoric is irrelevant to governance. The American People are listening, and if you make big, high profile promises, then breaking those promises for whatever reason is enormously politically costly. And everybody remembers the famous lines that peggy noonan george h w bush, read my lips. No new taxes. People not only read his lips, they heard his voice, loud and clear. There are equivalent problems that incoming president would have in 2017. If donald trump decided that maybe the wall wasnt going to to be built or that mexico could not be forced to pay for, or if secretary clinton decided that maybe t. P. P. Was just a fine and dandy agreement after all there would be hell to pay politically. So big promises matter. Never imagine that they dont. I think we both can speak to that a little bit. But yes, it goes back to the point that personnel is policy. Considered may be lower tiered policy, they are still running huge budgets. Part of the process going on on the Transition Team is compiling lists of potential candidates. People with experience in these issues or maybe those who would be new coming from outside the traditional framework but may have skills in managing huge budgets and huge departments. They will go through a vetting higher which is a much threshold to reach now. Both campaigns do not want to bring in people with a lot of outside, private sector baggage. Particularly if they have been lobbyists. To havelittle difficult lengthier lists of names that would pass through all of these high thresholds of vetting. One place that a lot of Transition Teams have looked to our in the states at the executive level. Governors are great for positions like this particularly governors from firm states for the agriculture position in particular. But they are going to look for people with experience, perhaps that have had some past public life of their own and have come out of it fairly unscathed. [laughter] ought first question they to be asking is just what are s. Roles. We will be working closely on defining what these positions and requirements are. Is onlythe only this the second time we have seen normal efforts starting so early. Have about a halfdozen names for each position. They will not even notify often the candidate that are being looked debt. Our research has shown that within one hour they go to the Cocktail Party and let a friend or friends know and that can create distractions for the campaign so they are quietly putting lists of names together. To begin the vetting process. Right that so that right beer the election, it has to extremely tight. Four years ago, we defined a calendar so the day after the election, the vast majority of the time is the president elect making the decisions on the cabinet. You present them a slate of options and the risk associated with each one of allowing the candidate to make a quick decision. I would like to add a note since both of you have referred to the vetting process. I speak from experience, it is extraordinarily complex, labor intensive, paper intensive and andcially at the cabinet senior subcabinet level is a game for very high stakes. There is a tension between speed on the one hand and avoiding damaging the stakes on the other. There is no way of relieving that tension. It just is. But if you think of events that rivet press a tension early in a new administration or during a transition and can get a new administration off on the wrong foot, it is coming up with a senior appointment that needs to be withdrawn because of some embarrassing revelation that comes out too late. People inside and outside the transition will be urging the team, put your pedal offhe metal, we need to get to a fast start. Others, including those who have been in washington longer, have some experience with the amount of eggs that get splattered over a large number of faces when a senior nomination blows up in everyones face and they will say wait a moment. I was involved after the fact in a high visibility appointment early in the Clinton Administration where nobody had bothered to read what the nominee had written on some very important topics. Nomineesounded because with long paper trails may very well be saying things that the incoming president does not agree with. The intending the incoming president will be held responsible for those utterances. At the very least, they are expected to know about that and an impression of incompetence is conveyed. Imperative ofn speed and there is imperative of accuracy. And there is no way of completely eliminating that tension. Cabinet changes what is the wisdom of keeping people around at higher levels that are already there, carry over from administration to administration. How common is that . People imagine that most want to clean house. Is that a good idea . It is not common in the white house. Watch what happens on the white house staff. That is almost a complete turnover. Staffite house office positions. 60 or 70 of those are political appointments and that really will change. That is the center of the world for an administration. Bringing in people that think like you and will take your direction. But there is a functioning bureaucracy there as well of career Civil Servants that keep the train running on time. Departments and agencies david can speak to some of this has there are positions that will not change, they are career positions. They will not change even at the highest level of departments and agencies. You have touched on a fundamental difference between a same party transition and an opposite party transition. With regard to political in a same party transition, the incoming president will pay less of a political price for allowing a certain number of the political appointees from the Previous Administration to hold onto office until their replacement comes forward. Fact that even during opposite party transitions, a president elect can make a decision to retain a senior cabinet official from the other party. Bob gates is an excellent example of that and i think probably president obama is pretty pleased that he decided to hold over the secretary of defense even though bob gates was certainly no democrat. And so i do think that in this respect, if former secretary clinton is elected, she will face less pressure from the cabinet front because the people in cabinet positions now will be reasonably well aligned with her program anyway. They will certainly not be actively obstructing it. That sheleast possible is not going to ask for mass resignations. I cannot speak to that but she certainly has the option of being much more selective than an incoming President Trump would be. There have not in many same party transitions. You see two different playbooks for how this is done. In history, some of the most difficult president ial transition has been same party. It is counterintuitive. There had been an expectation of continuity that historically has never existed. You are starting to see that now. History shows that generally the incoming team wants their own people. I would expect nothing less. It is also interesting though that the holdover concept that secretary clinton would be focused on, even both teams, there are a couple of nonpoliticalpolitical positions that require all sorts of hoops to jump through to get the person in. The under secretary of health for example, if you let that person go and start the process again, the way that position is set up, it would take you to years to fill it if you started tomorrow. There are positions like that that you may want to hold over. Data shows, based on interviews and memory, historically you will see a significant seniorlevel stopgap holdover. They may carry over into the administration but they will do so temporarily. They will not be permanent holdovers. Speaking personally, i advice would be, send that letter of resignation out and ensure there is an expedition an expectation that you will not have a job after january 20. The expectation of continuity and one like it one like in and one like out. Request for a letter of resignation would have to come from the current president , president obama in this case. To get maximum flexibility and freedom to an incoming president. That is absolutely correct. That anpoint was incoming president clinton would toe substantial latitudes refrain from accepting a large number of letters of resignation in the name of governmental continuity while the new team is being put in place. A heads up on time. We have about 10 minutes. Have a couple of questions. Between sessions we do a quick transition. My perception of the first clinton transition. The press ended up controlling that transition. For example, refocusing the overall issue agenda on the personal character of clinton and more contentious issues like gays in the military. I am curious if that perception and how has that affected clintons ability to accomplish other items on the agenda. Clinton 1992 transition was not a model transition. I agree. It was however a useful case study, object lessons. What went wrong during the clinton transition . First of all, as i mentioned earlier, this enormous and lengthy focus on the cabinet with the white house as an afterthought. That was backwards. Drawing clear enough distinction between a Campaign Team and a governing team. It is always a mistake to bring your Senior Campaign people, lock, stock, and barrel into the white house. Your, and this gets to the transition and the president elect did not do a good job of controlling the issues narrative. Onsident elect clinton november 16 of 1992, a day that will live in infamy, was actually asked the question based on what he said in the topaign how he intended handle the issue of gays in the military and he made the mistake of answering the western extremely forthrightly and not in a very nuanced way. He did not give himself much wiggle room either substantively or chronologically and the result was a focus on that issue that was nonstop and relentless because it was an issue that people could understand. Butare reform was difficult gays in the military appeared to be easy. And then there was the fact that there had been no coordination with the relevant military leaders led to an enormous push back. The white house learned that it was going to take a period of very careful consultation with the military services to get them comfortable with even some version of that idea and it was not clear what version they would become trouble with. They being the military. It is also the case that in a Successful Transition, there needs to be one locus of authority. People need to be tapped on the shoulders by the president elect you are my man or my woman with regard to x. And that is more difficult to do if there is a lot of action in washington and a lot of action in the president elects hometown. That tension is going to be easier to manage if there is a president elect whose hometown is either washington or at least within hailing distance. But little rock turned out to be a world apart. Ellipse with two foci. It seems to me that president s elect who are trying to design Successful Transition now can learn from those and many other mistakes that we made. Having been in the white house in january 1993, that morning and waiting even that from theo get lists president elect, clintons team of who would be on the white house staff. People were not even cleared to come into the building. Part of that also was not focusing on the white house cap first was the problem but after 12 years of republicans in the white house, there was an inherent concern about who they could trust that was in the white house to be accepting this information in even getting people on board. Some years later, there was a lack of trust of the institutional processes in the white house with the fbi security files and these inks that were improperly taken why the clinton team. There was some of that. In addition to starting late, there was an inherent lack of understanding and not trusting with the institutions of the presidency provided to them as well. 19921993ifficult but was pretty that also. We only have four more minutes. Keep your question targeted. And for your answers keep those targeted. We will go away in the back of the room. I wanted to hear more about the synergy between the Transition Team and the folks that will be stepping into the roles that you just made a point about. Team ansition the Transition Team. And the difference. Let me distinguish very thickly. The Transition Team is one thing , the campaign is a different thing. In my judgment, there ought to be a lot of continuity between the Transition Team in the white house but not so much with the campaign and the white house. That is what i had in mind. Coordinationome that happens at this point what you want to minimize distractions for the campaign. There will be weekly calls with the Campaign Teams and right after the election, there is an interesting exercise which is the merger. This has not happened really ever has to work late where you have had a large scale preelection transition effort with very large in some cases Campaign Staff moving into that
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