Assistant professor of Political Science here. And thanks for everyone coming. Differen dennis and bob for all their hard work. Political Science Research has shown that judges sentencing tends to be harshest right before lunch. I assume that similar patterns hold for political discussions. So my pledge to you is that well make up some time in the air and aim for a safe landing by 12 30 and hopefully you wont have to throw anyone offer the flight along the way. Oh, no. Let me begin by introducing our very distinguished panel, which in the spirit of this conference combines some luminaries from academia, with people who have really rich experience in the political world. So, to begin, going, again, from left to right, not necessarily in ideological order, matthew khan is a professor of economics, spatial studies and environmental science, ron christie, a former special assistant to george w. Bush. Jane dunn is Political Science professor. And and the Lieutenant Governor. Maybe we can just go, starting from left to right. Im interested in getting everyones take. General question, the Trump Campaign was unlike any other in modern american history. I think we can all agree on that. So id like to begin by asking our panelists, since this is a panel on trump at home. How have the first 100 days mirrored the unconventional nature of the campaign or have they at all . In what ways have, has what weve seen from trump broken with his predecessors sharply . And in what ways are they about par for the course. Fairly ordinary for our contemporary politics . So very briefly, im an economist. Economists are used to being relatively powerful in washington. And its fascinated me and many economists that i know that academic economists do not seem to be playing a major role in policy deliberations. And so i, i, thats a surprise to me. It might be a statement about our value added. And so i, something that i teach my students here is we can only know the effectiveness of a Public Policy if we have variation. So President Trump, by changing public policies, were learning a lot about the effectiveness of public policies. Were creating a control group. But to an economist, these very interesting days, because there an a literature in economics about uncertainty that investment can freezeup when there is uncertainty about where political winds are going, and President Trump whos been a very successful businessman and is thinking about how to make the economy grow, i hope that he anticipates some of these unintended consequences of his policies. You know, i think there are three things that have kind of really stood out from this period. Donald trump came to the white house as the president least owing anything to a Major Political party in 50, 60 years. The most independent of both parties. He had opportunity to governor in a bipartisan way, watched democrats trains up to trump tower during the transition. Even liberals were saying we want to work with you on infrastructure and hes governed as a very traditional republican. Hes aligned himself with Mitch Mcconnell and paul ryan, unlike president bush or president obama he didnt put a member of the opposite party in his cabinet. I think the second thing thats really surprised me is how much hes really abandoned his economic populist agenda in these first 100 days. He started off attacking health care, not infrastructure. Hes restoke the up some of these cultural wars on immigration, of course, but really hasnt delivered. On october 22nd, he outlined ten things that were economically related he tried to get done in the first 100 days. Nine of them he didnt send to congress in the first 100 days, let alone get done. He really hasnt tried. Personnel, theres never dna modern president whos done less to staff his government than donald trump. That will have consequences if theres some kind of crisis, some kind of thing. As crazy and tumultuous as the first 100 days have been, hes been spared a major crisis. He will find the lights are out and nobodys home in a lot of these agencies, thats going to be a problem. I want to thank my friend bob shrum for the invitation to come out. Three quick points that really bear, when you hook at the first 100 days and similarities between the previous administrations and where we are now. The bush presidency in 2001, there were a lot of people who questioned bushs legitimacy, a lot of democrats who were very upset, hey, we won. There were a lot of democrats who were really upset by what happened in florida. I was down on one side, he weighs down was down on the other. But the first couple the second, as the other ron mentioned, personnel. My chief of staff of staff used to say that personnels policy and policy is personnel. One of the thing that has struck me by this white house, by having been into it and talking to colleagues, is that there is nobody there. You walk into the white house and you see all these offices and theyre dark. There is new computer equipment, chairs there, and staffers waiting to be seated but theyre not there. To put that into perspective, of the 16 executive branch agencies, we only have two deputy secretaries. You wonder who is really doing the work. So the lights are on and the works not getting done is something i find really intriguing at this point. The third point is, this is obviously the twitter presidency. Bushes are noun for discipline and for staying on message. Ive never seen a president of the United States and i dont think we have ever seen a president who takes to twitter to get their message out. That certainly is pleasing to Trump Supporters, gives a lot of people in communication jobs heartburn, and gives the media and all of us something to talk about. Morris, you asked the question of whether this is par for the course and the extent to which we can use previous presidencies as a frame of reference as to how to judge this president in the first 100 days or judge more generally. I think i would build on rons argument or observation about the uniqueness of this particular president , within the context in which we live. All of us think these are amazing times, because these are the only times we are living in. If we have lived in the 1800s, we would have thought those elections were amazing as well. What we have now in the age we exist in as a student said to me, people say things because they want to get noticed. People do things to get attention, rather than wanting to be right, using facts, reasoning or saying something useful, they instead say things to be noticed and to get attention. I think in some respects, this particular change in the Communications Technology and the ways in which parties and the media have changed help to increase the extent to which a person and the personality of the president we have now can eertsz abuse this element of Communication Technology or use it to his advantage. The ways in which we are the same as always is that there has always been polarization, partisan polarization. Theres always been. It has always been the case that anybody who is a republican engages in motivated reasoning. Thats a good thing he did. On the other hand if its a democrat its a bad thing that the democrats do. So motivated reasoning, as well as confirmation bias, have always existed. These are general, longstanding psychological processes. Those are no different. The partisan polarization we see, the distinction and differences of approval or disapproval by party, should not be surprising to us. These are normal aspects of politics. Having said that and turning back to the original point about the extent to which people today who want to be popular, who would like to get as, say things to be noticed rather than because they might be true or not true. I think it is useful to think about that within the context of a person who is not only the leader of this country but who is the mouthpiece for his Political Party, and the significance of all of these statements, whether wellfounded or not, based in reality, done at 3 00 in the morning, driven by whatever sentiment they are driven by are nevertheless things that will continue to follow this president and this party will continue to teach young voters, like our students, new immigrant voters 20 of the u. S. Population is immigrant or the child of an immigrant as introducing to u. S. Politics that this is how a president behaves, this is how a republican president behaves. Thats the lesson and one of the consequences of a Communications Strategy such as this. Thank you for having me here. I was asked to say a few words. Obviously, i come from San Luis Obispo county and you had to dig deep to find somebody who would talk about in good term for donald trump and its great to be here. I want you to know that as 20 years of Public Service myself, coming from the private sector, i have been watching what has been going on back in d. C. Ive had the opportunity to meet President Trump. Its not who i see on tv, sometimes, fact of the matter. When i have oneonone conversations, he is very locked on the conversation, very smart, understands the issues. When he comes out of the office, obviously, its a different person and i why do i say this . I was Lieutenant Governor with Arnold Schwarzenegger, and i see a lot of the same. He is a businessman first. You have to understand where he comes from. And when you see weve heard earlier there are a lot of positions that are vacant. Putting my businessman hat on, i would venture to guess he sees that as savings for the federal government when it comes for resources. Luckily there hasnt been a crisis because thats when the rubber hits the road. If you look at the president today, in his first 100 days, here is a man who was never elected to office. Ever. You look at the previous president , president barack obama, obviously didnt have executive branch experience but he was a state senator and he was a u. S. Senator and he had experience. You look at president bush he was a governor. Andy card was also an elected official at one point in time. He was a secretary of transportation, very knowledgeable. Then you have President Trump, who comes into the oval office he didnt have a Transition Team in place because i think they probably didnt think they were going to win. So they come in fresh. He hires a chief of staff who does not have government experience either. 45yearold chairman of a party. And then you have some advisers who have been around him for a long, long time, who have zero government experience. So im speaking as an outsider today because im not in office but if i go to the parts store in my community, they love it. But if i go to los angeles and speak to an institute, there are a lot of questions about, why is this happening . It gives you a flavor of the dynamics of what we have today. If you ask me, what has he accomplished in the first 100 days . Well, he has nominated and appointed a 49yearold judge, who is going to be there for 30 years or more. That is a huge accomplishment for him that he can tout for a long, long time. People want to know about immigration one of my biggest issues, my passion. I am sad with some of the things that have been said, but i think theres an opportunity here to work on immigration. I think there is a lot of places where people are saying, he is trying to correct himself. If you go back and look at Arnold Schwarzenegger there are some similarities here. Let me share with you. Maybe you have caught on or maybe you have not. Most politicians want to be liked. Most movie stars want to be loved. If you look at when arnold was speaking, he would always talk in the third term. When schwarzenegger wants to do this. You never hear Mitch Mcconnell saying when mitch wants do this or nancy pelosi wants to do something, she doesnt say nancy wants to do that. You hear trump say, trump wants to do this. Bottom line, they are brands. When a brand takes a hit, there is a correction in who they are. When arnold got his brand hit, there was a correction. I think President Trump is going through a correction. And i think joel talked about earlier today, the base is worried is he going to go left . And thats the big question today that i think as where america is going to go. Do the Upper East Side new yorkers take over or does he continue to tout to the base as i think you were talking about, he has been the president just for republicans. Kind of my feeling where im coming from, i want to be the voice up here of the outsider who is not in office, who is a farmer, who is a viticulturist who says maybe there is a change. Also as the author of proposition 14 in california, because i believe the biggest problem facing America Today is partisanship. I think there is a hidden tax on partisanship, because republicans go into a caucus room and worry about electing republicans a known and not worried about the economy and democrats go into a caucus and do the exact same thing. And we lose, as the people of this great state and country. Well go into other questions as well. Thanks very much. A couple of the themes that seemed to come out of this were staffing is fairly unorthodox. To some extent in some offices theres nobody home, period. And communication strategy. I wonder if i can ask. Im happy with any of the panelists jumping in on this, to what extent and how specifically have these two id owe cinchsi idiosyncrasies of the Trump Administration may be helped or hurt the president in moving some of his signature agenda items forward . Anyone who would like to jump in. On staffing, if you you got to look at the president first. This is a man who is running a multibillion Dollar Company with 30 people. Of those 30 people, probably one third of them were his family. And its its where hes coming from. And where his trust is and where he feels, not understanding that the federal government is a huge, huge operation, with some i think i read the number of 550 people that are need Senate Confirmation that havent even been nom natd. Thats a big thing that he neats to correct and i think he will. Now some people on my side of the aisle will say, its a democrats that dont allow him to do it. No, he has got to nominate them. Then you have the democrats saying, he is not nominating them, he does not have anybody qualified. Well, thats just both sides of the aisle trying to come. I think we are going to see movement in the next month. I think hes been focusing on these 100 days. To be frank with you, outside this room or the city, i have never heard somebody come to me and say, the 100 days are the most important days of the presidency. I think it could set the tone, but when his four years are up, they are going to judge him on what he did over the four years. But the staffing thing, it is mindboggling to some, but to some others, goes back to what you said. There hasnt been a crisis so there hasnt been a situation where he needs to ramp up and move quickly. But it is a challenge. I see him coming back to people that he believes have some kind of business experience, that hopefully will help them. And then you look at you appoint a secretary and the secretary might have a discretion on who the deputy is. Well, that doesnt work. When i was arnolds lieutenantgovernor, we worked together. If you dont work together, a fortune 500 company doesnt work that way. So, those are the challenges that i see as we move forward and the staffing being a huge issue. I hope it is corrected soon, and i think it will be. I think look, when we left sacramento, arnold told me something ill never forget. Jerry brown was sworn in, beautiful ceremony. He said, i really liked this job. But it took him five or six years for him to say that. President trump is going to say the same thing. He is going to love this job. They love these jobs, these folks that are like them, but it is going to take some time. Right now, i dont think they are there. Yes . So let me try to put this in perspective for you and ron knows this very well. There is nothing more unusual than showing up to the white house on day one, because there is no instruction manual. Theres no this is how you are the deputy domestic policy adviser to the Vice President of the United States. You show up in your office and there is literally nothing in your office except for a band around your computer that says this is the property of the gao and everything here will be recorded. Thats it. As you try to sketch out, how can i serve the president , if you dont have the personnel in place, you are in a very, very bad spot. I look at this administration and i look at the president and say, youve got to stop the infighting. There was a fascinating article on the front page of the Washington Post that i largely believe that there are different camps going on. You have got ivanka and jared, bannon in another corner, some holdovers from the bush administration. They are all signing off on the most minor of appointments. The president of the United States needs to have a position in place that allows the opportunity to get the senior people nominated, as the governor said, and sent to the senate as soon as possible. For most importantly, to have the political personnel in place in the agencies that can take direction from the white house and fulfill the president s agenda. I think hes being ill served by his staff for that infighting. Ron and i work for a very headstrong Vice President and president s, but you recognize at the end of the day its not about you, its about their agenda and what theyre trying to achieve. The infighting and stories you hear about that are really undermining and under serving this president. As it relates to communications, this is anot