President Trump delivers his inauguration address on Jan. 20, 2017.

President Trump delivers his inauguration address on Jan. 20, 2017. Patrick Semansky/AP file photo

White House Veterans: A Smooth Presidential Transition is Critical Even if the Incumbent is Reelected

"Premier Source" for transition resources launches its 2020 efforts.

As the country’s “premier source” for presidential transition information and resources launched its 2020 efforts, government veterans stressed the importance of having a smooth transition for management and national security purposes, regardless of who wins.

The nonprofit Partnership for Public Service launched its Center for Presidential Transition on Thursday. Former White House chiefs of staff Joshua Bolten and Denis McDonough spoke at the launch about the importance of the Partnership’s resources to ensure the government operates efficiently and foreign adversaries don’t take advantage of changeovers. This coincided with the release of the Partnership’s new data that show second term administrations have faced high turnover historically, which the nonprofit said highlights the need to fill positions with qualified candidates early.  

“Presidential transitions are major undertakings with a great deal at stake,” said Max Stier, president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, in a press release. “If done well, an effective transition for a new president or to a second term can lead to an administration’s long-term success.” The transition center will be led by David Marchick, most recently the managing director and global head of external affairs at the Carlyle Group and a former government official during the Clinton administration.

When the presidential administration changes, “adversaries are interested in catching us with our eye off the ball or they also want to figure out what we’re up to,” McDonough said. This is one of the reasons why an effective and timely transition is important, he stated. McDonough and Bolten spoke about a credible threat against inauguration day festivities in January 2009 and how the Obama and George W. Bush teams worked together to mitigate any harm. 

If the president is re-elected, turnover can often be a challenge. “From about Election Day through the first six months of the second terms of Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama, 43% of their Cabinet secretaries, deputy secretaries and undersecretaries at 15 major agencies left their jobs,” according to the Partnership. “Only 11% of the individuals appointed to these positions during the first year in each of the three administrations stayed until the end of the eighth year.”

Bolten said an issue many two-term administrations have is “the president doesn’t think of it as a transition.” However, not having a second term transition is “a huge lost opportunity for an administration to relaunch itself, to refresh its personnel and to attack its policy agenda with the same vigor that the administration did in year one.” He encouraged the Trump administration to take advantage of the Partnership’s resources. 

The transition from Obama to Trump garnered a lot of attention for the Trump team’s unprecedented approach to this established process. According to a Government Business Council/GovExec.com survey released shortly before inauguration day in 2017, nearly 60% of the 745 federal employees surveyed disapproved of Trump’s transition. Also, 35% said they were at least somewhat confident Trump’s appointee to lead their agency would do so effectively, while 44% expressed little confidence.

Author Michael Lewis wrote in his book The Fifth Risk about how Trump appointees tossed out briefing books and made limited attempts to build on the knowledge of the Obama appointees. “Thousands of people inside the federal government had spent the better part of a year drawing a vivid picture of it for the benefit of a new administration,” wrote Lewis. Then shortly after Election Day in November 2016, “Across the federal government the Trump people weren’t anywhere to be found. The few places they did turn up, they appeared confused and unprepared.”

However, Lewis wrote, “It was Max Stier who had persuaded Congress to pass the laws that made it so annoyingly difficult for Donald Trump to avoid preparing to be president.”

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.