Significantly. A typical aircraft squadron might have 85 fully operational. More investments are being made and stealthy, longrange aircraft, Unmanned Systems in the air or under sees hypersonic missiles, small satellites and artificial we will be leaving this here and take you to a live discussion on president ial transition and National Security hosted by the university of virginia plus Miller Center. To moderate todays conversation. It is a real pleasure to be with you all and have these terrific guests. The president ial transition act was stopped by congress in 1963 to provide important statutory framework for the peaceful transfer of power. It has been updated several times since then and today we will discuss some of the important issues coming out of that in the current transition and transfer. It has been almost a week since most Major Networks designated joe biden as president elect. The biden team has been moving forward on a transition and selected a new white house chief of staff have launched a Pandemic Task force, and soon will be announcing other white house and cabinet level positions. They started conversations with foreign heads of state and a number of american political leaders. A small but growing number of senior Republican Leaders have acknowledged the outcome of the election, including former president bush, andy card, counselor karl rove, and a handful of republican senators. Had a still have not formal concession by President Trump. That may be a personal matter of his continuing to file legal claims in a number of states, but by not conceding, he has held up a formal ascertain should that at the beginning of trip ascertainment of when the beginning of transfer of power should begin. President trump and his administration not transferring knowledge and knowhow and technology and real estate to the incoming chief. How big a problem is this . How important is it that this happens now . When should it start by law and what are the consequences of delay . Those are some of the questions we will address today with a terrific panel. We are joined today by Michael Chertoff, who served as secretary of Homeland Security under george w. Bush. Before heading up dhs, mr. Chertoff served as a federal judge on the u. S. Court of appeals for the third circuit. Casesested and prosecuted of political corruption, organized crime, corporate fraud , and terrorism, including the investigation of the 9 11 terrorist attacks. He is now the founder of the a Risk Advisory service. Janet napolitano is professor of Public Policy at the Golden School of Public Policy at uc berkeley. She served as the 20th president of the university, the nations largest Public Research university. That, professor napolitano served as secretary of Homeland Security from 2009 2 2013. Shes a former twoterm governor of arizona and former u. S. Attorney for arizona. Napolitano published how safe are we Public Security since 9 11. She earned her law degree from the university of virginia. Anally, dave mar check is retired executive from the Carlyle Group who worked at the state department. He is serving as director for the center of president ial adjunct atand is an the tuck school of business at art must. He spent 12 years at the Carlyle Group where he served as managing director and global led of external affairs and carlyles regulatory and Government Affairs and branding and sustainability efforts. We are delighted to have this terrific group. Stalledtart with this gsa determination or the ascertainment. What is that and why does it matter . Theme start with dave since president ial transmission plays a role in connecting transitions for a couple of cycles. Give us a sense of what this ascertainment is and what happens when it happens . You, bill and thank you to the Miller Center. Let me give a salute to Michael Chertoff who i have known from and also tot museum secretary napolitano. I wish you were still president of the university of california and my daughter is at berkeley and i would like her to check in on how her studies are going. Maybe she still has that influence. You struggled with the word ascertainment because it is not supposed to be a word that is commonly known because the issue of ascertaining the winner of an election has never been controversial, never been politicized. In the 1963rovision president ial transition act which gives the gsa administrator the responsibility of ascertaining the outcome of the election. Other Government Agencies that have similar responsibilities to act when president elect. The secret service significantly expanded their protection around president elect biden because he was going to be president elect biden. That was not a politicized decision, the secret service dished just did that. Unfortunately, even the most noncontroversial ministerial acts in this world, in this town are being politicized today and this is one of them. The criteria is that basically the outcome is clear and the outcome is clear. All the networks have called the election, as you said in your piece from last sunday, four states would have to be turned over, the likelihood of a recount changing the outcome is almost zero. Even president bush stated in his own statement that the outcome is clear and so, we will get into this but the gsa should make this ascertainment and then the biden team should be able to get access to all the support which we can talk about some more. Bill let me bring in mr. Chertoff and miss napolitano into this conversation. The first thing that should be on everyones mind is who is watching the home front . Is there something in these two months that poses a threat to the American People and how is that being managed in this cap . Does the ascertainment hold the American People up . Sec. Chertoff i think there are two things creating risk from a security standpoint. First of all, having a transition, it begins right away. Vetting clearances for the incoming team, giving president elect access to current intelligence, these are all part of the process of preparing so that when the new administration comes in, they can hit the ground running and not have to then figure out what the threats are and what they capabilities to respond are. We can talk a little later about how we did the handoff from the Bush Administration to the Obama Administration because that was very much in the front of our minds and we worked very cooperatively, of course both the outgoing and incoming folks, to make sure we fully briefed the people coming in with how they hadma, access to intelligence information and we even ran an exercise about a potential pandemic so they could get a feel for how things would work in the levers of government. There is another compounding problem where we are seeing a purge of security personnel. Ofhave seen the Department Defense decapitated. There is rumor about dhs having people fired or being forced to resign and that exacerbates the problem because it means in this window of time when our foreign and domestic adversaries could perceive weakness and opportunity, we are signaling we are dropping our guard and that is a very risky thing to do and it holds the American People hostage. I dont haveno much to add. I was going to emphasize first the need to have a smooth handoff from a National Security anypective and not to have kind of a gap. We are fortunate that the president elect has so much experience that even with this delay, he will be able to catch up quickly, but nonetheless, this is an unnecessary risk that President Trump is putting on the country. Comment, michaels about the removal of department of defense personnel and their replacement by political trump, twopresident key personnel at the department resigned security yesterday according to the washington post. These are troublesome moves from key departments necessary to protect the security of the American People. Me whatswere to ask the greatest risk factor confronting the United States today, i would say the greatest risk factor is actually President Trump. I would like to pivot off that to focus on when we might get the ascertainment so the biden team can have access to intelligence and can start processing security clearances. Typically, as we saw in the last transfer to President Trump or, as secretary chertoff mentioned, the transition from bush to obama, the ascertainment happened relatively quickly. In 2004, it didnt happen right away, it only happened after the florida recount stop im curious to get from you and to hear from secretary chertoff and napolitano what might trigger the ascertainment in the days ahead . Mounting callse from Republican Leaders and legislators . Is there something that can happen in the counting of ballots and certification of the states . Its a little unclear to me what the trigger will be. The trigger should have been made last week when the outcome was clear. That is the standard under the law. There is a significant shifting of political opinion on this and growing,hat snowballing impact will have an impact. You are seeing more and more republicans in the senate and in the governors saying we should get this going. In the last few days, you had governor dewine, governor hutchinson, evan or sununu these are not never trumpers. Obviously, dewine comes from a state, secretary napolitano knows politics better than i will ever learn but he comes from a state trump has dominated and is not a never trumper. Obviously, in arkansas, trump has been very popular and having governor hutchinson say what he said i think is very important. In congress, i think you see republicancern from senators, particularly on the Armed Services and intelligence committees. I also think there is growing awareness of the nonSecurity Risks, which i think is greatest which i think michael and janet articulated the Security Risk. But to me the most important thing in the world is the pandemic. The Trump Administration should for developing something called operation warp speed, the joint effort to develop and distribute the vaccine. One would think every american would want the incoming biden startingave access and to coordinate with the people responsible for operation warp speed so that when the biden team takes office on january 20, they can move forward to get that vaccine in the arms of 300 million people. That is not a policy issue, that is a logistics issue and one would think that makes sense. I think there is a growing, snowballing effect because people are being educated, the risk of not moving forward and grow every day and i am hopeful this can move in the right direction very shortly. Im going to ask our team to put up a slide here developed Public Service and to get secretary chertoff and napolitano i dont know if you knew this was coming but this is an assessment in year number four of the Trump Administration of the various cabinet agencies and how many key positions have been filled. The darker turquoise line lists how many confirmed officials in key slots. There is a slightly lighter shade of turquoise which is how many have been nominated. The farn blue boxes assessment of the five key agencies if there is a National Security crisis and there is a sixth agency which is equally critical but we highlighted it in red because in the current moment, it is so understaffed. I would like to get reflections from you, how important is it to fill these positions quickly, particularly when there is a crisis that is ongoing. How do these agencies Work Together in addressing the Coronavirus Crisis . What does the next few months look like in terms of filling these positions . Sec. Chertoff ironically, the problem is usually people who are confirmed leave go on to their next job, so you often find vacancies in the last month or two. The irony here is the positions were never filled. So its not a question of leaving, its a question of people not arriving. We have seen particular with Homeland Security is the actions of confirmed positions have made it very difficult for the agency to carry out its mission. It difficult for the agency to deal with the pandemic and take a leadership role that was originally envisioned by the National Response framework and that i occupied and janet occupied when we had the office aop it has also created feeling of creeping politicization as the white house staff has increasingly seen vacancies as an opportunity to micromanage the departments in the political interest of the president and that has created a trust deficit. Much of the story of this last administration and the next couple of months is a disdain for the workings of government ad the carrying out of government mission. Its almost as if it is a determination they want to wreck government and make it as hard as possible to do its job so they can say see, people in government are bad. The problem is that leaves a lot of people dead, as we have seen with the virus. New team comes in, will the biden people just put people in acting positions to just get started and get away with it or is it important to go back to the confirmation standard, particularly when there is a crisis going . Sec. Chertoff i would say this i believe the biden team will honor the traditional norm of getting people confirmed. That depends upon the senate cooperating. If you get a senate that blocks everything, that creates a different problem. But im hoping cooler heads in the Republican Party will cooperate with getting people confirmed in the normal course. I also need to be candid congress has to revisit the upper limit vacancy process which was abused over the last four years and may need to be tightened up. One example is when we had the transition from president bush to president us on theumber of ,ecurity side of the cabinet theres a luncheon in statuary hall immediately after the ceremony and the senate went into session and immediately confirmed a number of members of the obama cabinet, particularly those on the Security Side of the cabinet. So we were actually confirmed as we were watching the inaugural parade go by. That is how two branches of government can cooperate with each other and that is how you help effectuate a smooth transition of power. Thats a great segue to the importance of the confirmation process. What happens when someone gets confirmed and what happens between now and then . Dave this gets back to ascertainment because this cant go forward. Beenlain who has designated as chief of staff, he cannot get security clearance until he has been confirmed. He can get an interim but he cannot get a final. What happens is the president elect will start naming his team, presumably in the next week, typically it is done in waves. They bet they bunch the National Security professionals, the economic people, the Health Professionals i assume those will be the top priorities. Then they start to name the people underneath. Here is why ascertainment is so important. I will give you the data. His firstobama, in 100 days, had twice as many people in their seats as president bush. The bush team had a great team. They were experienced. Vice president cheney led the transition. He and john podesta are probably the two most experienced transition People Living because they have been involved in four or five transitions each. The bush personnel operation was buttoned up, but they could not get every thing processed quickly. The security clearances, the ethics agreements, working with the Agency Ethics officials on the extremely painful process of divestments, disclosures, recusals, all of those things with michael and janet presumably remember from their process. Attend a normas amount of work to even get the package up to the senate and that cannot it is an enormous amount of work and to even get that package up to the senate, whats important is to get those people in their seats quickly. Bush until year one to get 500 plus. Obama had a little less than 500 at the end of the first year. It takes a long time and the faster those can get going, the faster you can get people in their seats, the better the American Public is served. We have four crises right now. Whether you like biden or you dont like biden, america would benefit from having highly competent people in their seats in the National Security agencies, the Health Agencies as quickly as possible and it is exactly as secretary chertoff and sec. Napolitano said, get them in their seats quickly. Bill audience members are starting to ask questions. If you are inside the zoom, please send the questions q a function. What happened in 2000 when you had a contested election . When did