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What Really Happens During a Presidential Transition · Pod Save America

• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Hey everyone, we're out for the holiday break. What you're
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• 0:45
  Speaker 2: Welcome back to Inside 2024. I'm Alyssa Mastromonaco.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: And I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: Buddy, is it still Inside 2024? What are we going
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: to call it in 2025?
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Are we allowed inside again? Yeah.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: Maybe it's just outside.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Yes, outside the country 2025. Outside the country 2025.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: Wait, before we get started, I have to give you
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: a little fun fact. Oh, please. Do you realize as
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: we sit here and record today, we are older than
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: Barack Obama was when he became president?
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Well, gee, thanks, Alyssa. That's great. That's exactly what I
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: needed during the holiday season. Yes, I'm well aware of that.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: At least we're the same age. I'm doing it to myself, too.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Do you know what? What? Between us, we host like
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: five podcasts. How many podcasts did Barack Obama host when
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: he became when he was 47? None.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: OK, so we're thriving.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: He's ahead of us in some ways and we're ahead
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: of him in other ways. It's fine.
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: Well, but it's December. We're winding down for the holidays
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: in theory, and it's time to rest and recharge. But alas,
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: we are knee deep in a presidential transition period straight
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: out of the upside down world.
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  Speaker 2: So Dan, we're two old vets of the process. Caroline
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: wrote that.
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  Speaker 3: We both served on the transition committee in the Obama years.
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: So we have some valuable insight to impart on this
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: very abnormal moment. So today we're talking about just that.
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: Also here to moderate this conversation, definitely not an old
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: vet of anything, is producer Caroline Reston.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Did she write that too?
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: No, I wrote that. Okay.
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: I didn't see that you wrote that. I mean, I've
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: been here six years. I'm like an old vet.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: When I tinker with the outline, I tinker with the outline.
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: Also, I just want to point out that Obama, post
• 2:15
  Speaker 4: being a president, got into podcasting. So he kind of
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: is following in your footsteps.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: You can shut up now.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: That's exactly how he sees it, too.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: No, I mean, he did.
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: So you were both part of the Obama transition committee.
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: What does that mean? What were your roles? What did
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: you do? Tell me all about it.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: I was the communications director for the transition, which meant
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: that during the campaign itself, I had sort of a
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: second half job, which was to begin thinking about how
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: we staffed the transition, what kind of resources we would have,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: how we would think about communicating with the public after
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: we won, which was a terrible job. I hated even spending,
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: I was so superstitious, I hated spending any moments thinking
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: about what would happen if Barack Obama would win when
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: he had not yet won. And once the election was
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: over and Obama became the president-elect, I went to Washington
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: a couple of days after the election and was in
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: charge of sort of the messaging in the transition, which
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: really counted to both helping coordinate how we responded to
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: reporter questions about what the president-elect was going to do
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: and mostly rolling out all of his nominees. The cabinet secretaries,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: the new White House staff, the people who are going
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: to serve on the Federal Reserve Board, that sort of stuff,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: like how we rolled them out, what kind of press
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: events we did, what we said about them, how we
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: responded to attacks on them. And so it was sort
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: of just like a.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: It was very similar to my communications director job on
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: the campaign, but focused on what the administration would look
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: like when he actually took office in two months.
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  Speaker 3: So I actually, I was on the transition. The transition
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: for us was split between Chicago and Washington, D.C. And
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: so Barack Obama, then President-elect Obama, and Michelle and the girls,
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: they were staying in Chicago until the holidays because girls
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: were still in school. So I was split between Chicago
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: and D.C., And I, with Pfeiffer, worked on... This is actually...
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: Here's one of our funniest transition stories. So like Pfeiffer said,
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: we did a lot of the... We did a lot
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: of the coordination around the cabinet secretary rollouts. They did
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: not happen on Twitter as they do this time around.
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: We actually had events where everyone would fly in and
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: stand with the president for the most part and be
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: announced and he would have met with them and he'd
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: come out and be like, I just met with my
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: economic team and here's who they are. But one time
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: things moved so fast and furious on the transition that
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: one of my deputies, Lizzie, called Stephen Chu, who was
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: going to be Secretary of Energy, to coordinate his travel.
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: And when she called him, he goes, I guess I
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: got the job. So we had, it is fast and furious.
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: But yes, so I oversaw everything that the president-elect was doing,
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: both in D.C., Chicago when he traveled. And then also,
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: Pfeiffer and I were both, even though they're separate entities,
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: there was the inaugural committee. And we both had a
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: lot of visibility into that too, because- You can't have
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: an inauguration that's off message or poorly organized.
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: I mean, I feel like you can't now.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we thought there's a lot of things we thought
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: you couldn't do that you absolutely can't do.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: We held ourselves to a high standard, you know?
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: I love that the way we used to announce cabinet
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: picks was like a debutante ball and not just like
• 5:18
  Speaker 4: on Twitter.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, people really don't understand how few resources there
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: are on a transition committee. Like, Pfeiffer was in D.C.,
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: so I'm not sure if he saw the same level
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: of it. But where I was, because President Obama was
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: there most of the time, we had... Secretary Clinton, then
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: Senator Clinton, was coming to see President Obama.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: And he's like, can we get her some juice or something?
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: And it required going to Bed Bath & Beyond to
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: buy a pitcher and then go to the Whole Foods
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: to buy the apple juice. And then one of us
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: had to take the pitcher home at night and wash it.
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: And when he heard it was Peter Orszag's birthday, who
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: was going to be our director of OMB, he's like,
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: we should make him a cake, which meant one of
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: us made him a cake.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: So those were very different times.
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: When John McCain was coming to see President Obama after
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: the election, he flew out to Chicago.
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  Speaker 2: There was no car.
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: Service to pick him up. There was a nice guy
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: named Ted Scioto who picked him up McDonald's on the
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: way so he could eat. That is, it's rough and tumble.
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: It is not a fancy, it is not, the taxpayers
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: are getting their money's worth through that process.
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: Wow, that's kind of sad.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: Well, that's an important difference, right? Is that we, you,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: there is taxpayer money allocated for transitions, right? We used
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: that money. And so essentially, we all became government employees
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: the day after the election. And therefore, we had a
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: whole bunch of rules we had to follow, like what
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: you could spend money on, what you can't spend money on.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: And Trump is not doing that. He is funding his
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: transition through private, mostly secret money. And so they can
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: do lots of things we could not do. And we
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: had to follow a bunch of rules that they don't
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: have to follow, including ethics requirements.
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  Speaker 2: Yes.
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  Speaker 3: All right.
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  Speaker 1: It's basically you in exchange for the taxpayer funds, you
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: follow government rules. If you don't take the taxpayer funds,
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: you don't follow those rules.
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  Speaker 4: Work smarter, not harder.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, if we could have announced those cabinet picks
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: on Twitter, we probably should have.
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  Speaker 2: Would have been so much easier.
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  Speaker 4: So you're talking about how previously before even winning the election,
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: you are already prepping, even though you feel like it's
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: bad juju. OK, you won the What is happening the
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: next day?
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: It is hell on earth. Horrible. Horrible. Howard Wolfson, who
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: worked for Hillary Clinton, described presidential campaigns as a pie-eating
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: contest where the prize is more pie. And that's exactly
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: what it is.
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  Speaker 2: We won.
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  Speaker 1: We had a victory celebration late into the night. And
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: then several of us, myself and Alyssa included, had to
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: come to the office at like 9 a.m. the morning
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  Speaker 1: after the election to meet with our new boss, Rahm Emanuel.
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  Speaker 2: It was like, it was like 7.30, 8 a.m.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was just, and then you're just like, you're working.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: For the people who were going to work on the transition,
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  Speaker 1: you went like, and that includes basically the sort of
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: the senior staff of the campaign. You went right to
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  Speaker 1: work on your new job. There was no break.
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  Speaker 4: The best night of your life to the worst.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's truly a terrible morning. And it's just pure chaos.
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  Speaker 3: But the other thing that's really hard about it is that, like,
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: for example... Pfeiffer and I had worked together at that point,
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: like side by side for two full years. And now
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: they're just all these new people flooding in. And as
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: Pfeiffer will attest, I don't like you until I like you.
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: So that was a very hard time for me.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: That's an important point, which is as like some of
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: us on the campaign would dip in and out of
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: the transition process. because we were going to take jobs
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: in the transition if we won. But separate from the campaign,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: there is an entire operation run by other people, staffed
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: by people we don't know, working out of an office
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: in D.C. who are putting together binders of staff names
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: and cabinet secretaries and doing research on them and thinking
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: about what executive orders you would do in the first
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: hundred days, just like an entire policy brain trust that
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: we never spoke with, never saw. And then the day
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: after the election, you're like, meet your new colleagues.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: And I was like, no.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Alyssa was like, no.
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: I think what you guys are talking about is something
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: I actually didn't know existed, which is the Presidential Transition
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: Act of 1963, which requires GSA to provide office-based administrative
• 9:22
  Speaker 4: support to the president-elect. So looking at the Biden administration
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: right now, when does the new president-elect start to get
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: looped in? How does that whole literal transition process start?
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: And how does that work? When is Trump getting clued
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: in to what's going on?
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: After they become the nominee. Yeah. If they won't. So
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: after you become the nominee, you are officially a nominee,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: which happens after the convention. Then you now get access
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: to this government transition funding, which most people, Biden, Trump
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: last time, we did, they take advantage of it. So
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: they open an office that is run by the General
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: Services Administration, which is sort of the government administrative arm.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: And you hire a bunch of staff, they get a
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: bunch of volunteer policy people, they all start working. And
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: then periodically during the campaign, the candidate and hopefully president-elect
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: will get briefed on here's the names we're thinking about
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: if you win because you're going to have to move quickly.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: And so they kind of will be like, yes, yes, no, no.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: Ask me about this again if we win sort of stuff.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: And then same for some staff like us who would
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: be like, these are the things you have to be
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: thinking about. We're going to have to hire these people
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: to work on the transition. Are you okay with these people?
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: How should we staff it? How many jobs should we
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: hold open for people who are currently on the campaign
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: to work on the transition until January 20th on Inauguration Day?
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: Are nominees being told that, like, the Syrian regime is
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: on the brink? Like, top national security information when they're
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: the nominee?
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: Yes. You start getting classified briefings. You can start getting
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: classified briefings as the nominee from the CIA. It's essentially
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: a– let's correct me if I'm wrong here, but it's
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: like a dumbed-down version of the presidential daily brief.
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so what happens– and I learned this more– I
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: sort of was clued into this more in 2012 when,
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: as– Deputy Chief of Staff, I actually ran the internal
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: sort of transition process. So we were sitting in the
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: White House, but I still had to reach out to
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: the Romney team, onboard them. There's a small handful of
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: people around, so there are a small number of people
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: around Mitt Romney who were submitted for security clearance so
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: that they could be with Mitt Romney if and when
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: he received any of these briefings. And you just get
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: them all briefed up. So it's the nominee plus, I'd say,
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: a small handful of people who all have access to
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: a sort of maybe slightly diluted presidential office.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: Daily Brief. But when we were the nominee and headed
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: into the financial crisis, the Bush team was actually really
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: good about looping in Obama and McCain on everything that
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: they were thinking and talking about in the days leading
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: up to the election around the financial crisis.
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: In 2009, the Obama administration was coming into a huge recession.
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: And I know we talked a little bit, you were
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: just talking about how the outgoing administration has to loop
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: in the incoming administration. But when something like a huge
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: economic crisis is happening, what does that look like? I
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: imagine you need to hit the ground running. What are
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: the things you're doing day one when you're the nominee
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: on something like that? Are the Bush folks nice to you?
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: Extremely. Extremely. The Bush.
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: I don't think that we could have been any luckier
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: in our transition than how the Bush folks handled it.
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: And they had told me in some of my transition
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: meetings that in some ways it was kind of informed
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: by how they came into office in 2000, which was
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: different and a little contentious and, you know, maybe not
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: the jolliest of transitions after, you know, the Supreme court
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: decided the election, but I found, and I'll let Pfeiffer
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: speak to the financial crisis because to just show how, um,
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: sort of organized or whatever the Obama campaign was, the
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: economy was not my bag. And so I did not
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: pick it up. I had to watch the movie Too
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: Big to Fail to totally understand the financial crisis.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: So Pfeiffer would have a better sense of that.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, Alyssa's right. The Bush people took real
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: pride in having a real transition. And she's right. Bush's
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: transition was not great for a couple reasons. But mainly,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: he didn't get to start doing the transition for 37
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: days after the election because of the recount in Florida.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: And then there are some reports, some of which have
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: turned out to be apocryphal, about some tension between the
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: Clinton folks and the Bush folks after the election. But
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: Bush did take real pride in it. And everything we
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: asked for, they were very helpful. Everyone whose job we
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: were about to take spent plenty of time with us,
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: meeting with us, and talking about how to do the
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: job so we could get the ground running. But it
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: was especially important because we're existing in the middle of
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: this financial crisis. And It's important to understand that George
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: Bush was basically– had been a lame duck president for
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: about a year and a half at that point, like
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: fully lame duck. His approval rating was sub-30. He didn't
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: really have the juice to get anything done. He kind
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: of– because he was such a political albatross around the
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: Republican nominee's campaign, he basically had been– disappeared. So not
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: dissimilar from how Biden had been sort of absent throughout
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: this whole campaign because him being in public was not
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: seen by the nominee as helpful. So Obama sort of
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: had to become president. and for all intents and purposes,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: on day one as president-elect, because Bush wanted to pass
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: a bunch of legislation to respond to the financial crisis,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: and he could not do it on his own. He
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: did not have the juice to do it. So Obama
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: had to take a real role in lobbying members of
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: both parties to vote for bills. He had to begin
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: writing legislation so that he could submit, he could release
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: his economic stimulus bill before he even took office. And
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: so that was one of the having to do a
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: normal transition to prepare for all the normal things you
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: would do and hire all the right people and have
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: your first week of events and be president at the
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: same time during an absolute crisis with no margin of
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: error because of the history-making nature of Obama's election, because
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: of his relative Washingtonian experience, like if you one fuck
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: up and it could damage his presidency for a year.
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: You can describe the transition most succinctly, I think, as
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: just when the chickens come home to roost.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: Like just across the board.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: You're so much more stressed because you're– by the time
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: we built the campaign, it was incredibly stressful. But we've
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: been on it for two years and it's what we did.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: Like we were campaign people. We knew how to do it.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: And now you have a totally different job. The stakes
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: are much higher. You're navigating different– like a different culture,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: a different set of objectives with a bunch of people
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: you've never met before. Like we had the most closely
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: knit campaign. There was maybe 10 to 12 people who
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: had worked together for two years. We loved each other.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: We made all decisions together. We trusted Obama. Obama trusted us.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: And all of a sudden, you have all these new people,
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: which we needed them, right? They had experience we didn't have.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: We needed them. But it was hard. I remember my
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: first day of the transition. I walk in. I've been
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: the communications director of the campaign. I'd been there on
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: day one with Alyssa and Favs and Tommy. And we
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: had just won this presidential election. I walk in the transition,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: and my name's not on the list. I can't even
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: get in the building. And all these people who... whose
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: names I only knew because they worked for people who
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: ran against Barack Obama in the primary, just buzzing through
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: with their IDs. I'm standing there waiting for someone to
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: come get me. Like the kid, it was just so demoralizing.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: When I say the chickens come home to roost, it's everything.
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: It is like Pfeiffer and I were the heads of
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: our departments on the campaign, which meant that, you know,
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: for me, I probably had a hundred and some full-time employees.
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: I had 500 part-time employees. Every single one wants a job.
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: But meanwhile, we're like, well, do we.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: Even have jobs yet? Because like, There's a lot of faith.
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: You know, you're like, oh, I'm just going to start
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: on the transition. But you haven't been given your job
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: in the White House yet. And so you're a little
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: bit on, you know, pins and needles. And to Piper's point,
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: you know, we had this thing on the campaign called
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: the block schedule, which is like the Bible. It's everything
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: Barack Obama is going to do. And I was in
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: the transition office. And this woman who I'm going to
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: say her name because I love her today. But at
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: the time, I almost had a stroke. Mona Sutphin, who
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: is deputy chief of staff for policy, goes rolling through
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: with the block schedule. And it's all marked up with
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: her handwriting. And she's like, Ron wanted me to take
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: a whack at the first 100 days.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: I was like, 100 days? What? That is my job.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: Give me my schedule back. It was.
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: And the thing is, the thing that was so hard
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: for me is that Pfeiffer and I were not in
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: the same office. So I couldn't go in his office,
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: close the door and be like, buddy, you're not going
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: to believe what happened. I'd like secretly call him from
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: the bathroom in the Chicago transition.
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: Does anyone give you a tour? Or do you just
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: kind of like waltz in and figure it out?
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: You just walk in.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: You just walk in. It's like, make no mistake. It's
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: sort of prison-like. Like, if you think about the DMV,
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: that's kind of what it's like.
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: So- In 2020, when Biden was president-elect, Trump and his
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: administration famously stonewalled the transition. What does that even mean?
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: What are the stakes for stonewalling an incoming presidency? And
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: what literally are they doing to stop the transfer of information?
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: You know, historically, vetting is part of the transition.
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: It is, you know, you need your papers, you need
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: to submit them, they need to be vetted by the FBI.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: And other people. You're learning.
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: I mean, the one thing that Biden had a leg
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: up on is that he and several of his closest
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: advisors had been in the White House for eight years
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: as vice president. So a lot of the things that
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: we kind of suffered from or would have suffered from
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: in 2008 and nine, had we not been given the
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: access that we got weren't as catastrophic for him. Um,
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: but they still, they still just slow everything down in a,
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: in a, in a world where you still only have what,
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: like 60 days buddy, like ish to transition, give or take.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, here's where it matters. In a normal transition,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: immediately after the election, the president-elect and the incumbent president
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: sign a memorandum of understanding, and then teams go into
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: all the individual agencies, and they look at the org chart.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: They look at the policy that's happening. They understand the
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: budget so they can begin to make decisions about staffing
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: and policy happening on day one. This is most important
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: on national security because there are a whole set of
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: Things happening, intelligence, operations happening that are ongoing and don't
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: just– they don't stop on January 20th because a new
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: president is coming in. You have to know what is
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: happening and be able to jump in on day one
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: and to know what ongoing threats to the country are
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: that you have to be prepared for. And none of
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: that stuff got to happen for the Biden-Trump transition because
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: Trump was trying to steal the election up through January 6th.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: And there's probably, as Alyssa points out, If there was
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: ever any incoming administration that could best navigate that, it
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: was the Biden administration because of his experience. And he
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: was coming back only four years after leaving. So government
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: had changed, but not so much that it was impossible
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: to fathom. So they were able to come back. Everything
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: was further complicated by COVID at that time. The fact
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: that people weren't going to be in work, that all
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: the senior staff meetings and the white money transition, the
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: White House were happening from home.
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Or people in the same building, but not in the
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: same room. So they had a very complicated, even if
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: Trump had not been an insurrectionist asshole, they would have
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: been a very complicated transition. So he made it much harder.
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: So is Biden and his team just not getting information
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: during that time?
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: Basically none.
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: You know, I want to ask this question earlier, but
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: I saw that Trump was at the reopening of Notre
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: Dame in Paris and had a meeting with Macron, the
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: president of France and the Ukrainian president, Zelenskyy. Is that
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: normal for an incoming president to be meeting with other
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: world leaders? And is Biden ever clued in on what
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: they're talking about because they had a closed door meeting?
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: I don't know what mechanism would inform Biden of what
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: they talked about.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: I'm sure all the surveillance equipment.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: Well, the Chinese may have.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the Chinese may have.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: They're always with us.
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: They might have given a little parting gift, like here's
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: a summary of the off-label conversation that they had. But no,
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: in general, Caroline, most of the foreign relations leader-to-leader contact
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: is pretty ceremonial, I guess, during the transition and by
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: design because— nominees and presidents elect aren't supposed to be
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: conducting foreign policy until they're president. So when you come
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: into office, almost every foreign leader on the planet calls
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: up and wants to talk to you. And then you, uh,
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: with the help of 30 members of the national security council,
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: figure out which order you reply to those calls in
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: and how you set them, uh, because you don't want
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: to offend people. And there's a lot of, uh, a
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: lot of considerations that go into the, the order in
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: which you return the call.
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: Is Obama's first call.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: It's got to be the British.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's got to be the UK. I would imagine
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: it was the UK.
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: Our former mommies.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: But thanks, Caroline. But it should, for the most part,
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: it is.
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: Usually kept to that. You know, phone call, look forward
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: to working with you. See on the backside, you know, onward.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: This has been just a unique situation because Trump was
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: having some of these conversations during the campaign.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: Like Obama did in like, If we're being fair, Obama
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: did go meet with world leaders as the candidate. We
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: went on a foreign trip. We sat down with all
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: these world leaders.
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: As a U.S.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: Senator.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: As a U.S.
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: Senator, yes.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: As a U.S. senator.
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: And the potential next president of the United States. But Trump,
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: because he was a recent former president, was talking to
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: people like Netanyahu during the campaign. And so this– like
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: I know– It is unusual that he is doing this.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: It is probably low on the list of outrages of
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: the Trump transition so far, but it is definitely unusual.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: It's not super weird that he went to Notre Dame
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: and saw Macron there. Like that's not.
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: But the closed-door meeting that happened after is a kind
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: of weird part.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: It kind of depends on what's said. But it's like,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: to what end, right? Like, what is the worst thing
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: that's happened?
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: He's also been president before, so I think that's maybe
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: a little bit different. Like, it wouldn't be.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: Unusual— if Trump was not— it' s not unusual for a former president
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: to travel to another country and meet with a sitting
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: world leader. Like, that is not— That's a good point.
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: I would say that's, like, kind of the perk of
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: being the president-elect. It's like, you know what? I'm going
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: to go to Greece and meet with the princess. Yeah.
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: So looking now at President-elect and his transitional team, it
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: is helmed by Linda McMahon. By the way, I've been
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: really loving looking at her old videos of getting like
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: body slammed.
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: Nothing like a half Nelson to scream, I'm ready to serve.
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: What should the Trump administration and their transition team be
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: focusing on right now?
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: I'm not convinced that they're not They're doing a lot
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: of the same things we were doing. They are rolling
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: out nominees. They're doing it differently. They're definitely not vetting
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: their nominees in advance. That's something we spent a lot
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: of time doing to make sure that we knew all
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: of the problems before you put them out. And even
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: when you do a great job of that, you will
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: miss some. They're basically picking people almost at random for
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: some of these jobs.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: Shooting them out of t-shirt guns.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: And they don't really seem to care about qualifications because
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: they think they're going to be able to get everyone
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: through the Senate. And they very well may be right.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: But there's definitely an operation that's happening that's thinking and drafting,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: according to all the reporting, executive orders they're going to
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: issue on day one. What they're working with the Speaker
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: of the House and the incoming majority leader of the
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: Senate about what their legislative strategy is going to be.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: Are they going to do taxes first, border first, both
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: at the same time? And so they're kind of doing
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: those same things. They don't seem to be doing it
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: super competently or super responsibly, but it's not like they're
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: doing the things that you're supposed to be doing. Just
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: the outcomes seem quite dangerous and poorly thought out.
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's really interesting watching it from the difference from 2016.
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: I feel like this time it's feeling much more like
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: politics as usual. Like it just seems more formal and
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: like they have their shit together even though it's like math.
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: It's like a small bandaid on chaos that's underneath.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it's, I say, I kind of dispute
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: that because last time he really did pick people who
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: we hated, but were theoretically qualified for their jobs for
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: the most part. Right. Like he got HR McMaster to
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: be the national security advisor, Rex Tillerson. Like I'm not
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: picking this X and the CEO of Exxon do something,
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: but that's a serious, that's a person with serious credentials.
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: This time he's picking Matt Gates, Tulsi Gabbard, like his
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: picks are fucking bananas. But what I think has happened is, Our,
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: everyone's perspective eight years later about like how you do
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: things has changed. I remember right after the election, I
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: was in DC and I went and saw Obama and
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: Trump had just won. So, and we were talking and
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: he said that he had just met with his national
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: security team. I think he had done a call to
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: a world leader or something. And he said, I guess
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: we're going to find out if all this prep work
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: and briefing really matters or not. And it clearly does, right?
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: It clearly does. But because of the, like the dumb
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: fuckery that was so much of Trump's first term, But
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: just like some of the formal ways in which we
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: do it, like if Obama in 2008 had just started
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: announcing cabinet secretaries via email, which is how you would
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: do it back then, people would think that was insane.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: But like some of the, and some of it is
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: fine that it's changed, but it's like our expectations for
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: what is acceptable conduct from Donald Trump have been so
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: lowered because we're comparing it to Trump of 16, not
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: the previous 44 presidents.
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: This is a great time for me to ask this
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: question that I've been dying to talk to you both about.
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: RFK is I don't know if you guys saw this story.
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: It was reported that there is a job application process
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: that is asking some bat shit questions. Let me give
• 27:14
  Speaker 4: you one example. This is per The Independent. One section
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: asks applicants to pick three or more attitudes that suit
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: them as such. Quote, I require excessive admiration. Or I quote,
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: I don't have that much interest in having a sexual
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: experience with another person. Another was, I believe in many
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: things others don't, like having a sixth sense, clairvoyance, and telepathy.
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: And as an adolescent, I had bizarre fantasies or preoccupations.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: Is this normal?
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: Are these the job applications to work for the administration?
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: It is so wild. I had to read it many times.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: It's like, this can't be true. But it is.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: I have no recollection of what our job application was.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: No, we didn't, because these are for the cabinet.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Oh, these are people who are going to be in
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: the cabinet.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: Yes, these are his applications.
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: But I still don't think Kathleen Sebelius was digging into
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: these kinds of thought starters.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's bananas.
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: Okay, so that's not normal. What is a typical question
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: you are asked?
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: No, Caroline, that's not normal.
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: Well, I don't know, okay? I've never worked for the government.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: It's fair to ask.
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: We don't even know if there were questionnaires when we
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: were in office.
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: They just kind of bet you.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: We just got vetted.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: You know, you have to fill out your security forms.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think people submit resumes. Submit resumes.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: Or they're like their open position. There was a website
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: with open positions and people submitted resumes. Or you just
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: submitted your resumes and then people sort of sorted those resumes. Yeah.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: To positions.
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: Here's my last question for you guys before we wrap up.
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: And this is honestly something I've been thinking throughout. Is
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: there a petty part of you deep down inside that
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: wishes the Biden administration was just like, fuck you? I'm
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: not telling you anything. I'm going to stonewall this, like
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: doing exactly what Trump did to Biden back in 2020.
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: The risk you run by being the person who doesn't
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: offer a productive transition is that if something bad happens,
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: it can blow back on you. So I think that,
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: you know, giving people the keys to the car is
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: just generally the right thing to do.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: There is there is some there's some petty history here.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: George famously. I think it turned out when this was
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: truly investigated, it wasn't true. But there are all these
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: reports that when Bush came into the White House, George W.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Bush came into the White House, that the Clinton people
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: had removed.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: W's from the keywords. I always thought that was still true.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: I think there may have been one. or two examples,
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: but it turns out– I think afterwards we learned it
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: was not– there was a lot of bullshit there, unsurprisingly.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: I think the way to resist Trump is not to–
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: do something big and loud in the beginning. It's that
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: the people who work in the government have to be
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: very smart and quiet about how they do it and
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: try to do what they can to protect the things
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: they need protecting, delay the things that need to be delayed.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: But look, I am as petty as they come, right?
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: So the fact that I'm going to say this runs
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: against type, but I think if Trump is going to
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: blow up on his own, we don't want to give
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: him something easy to blame, like the Biden staff being
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: petty or not. Let's give him every opportunity to succeed,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: and then when he fails, that's on him, as opposed
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: to an easy... Let's not give him an easy scapegoat.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: So the Biden administration is doing what they can to
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: do the transition the right way, and I think they
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: should absolutely do that. That's the right thing to do
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: from just a general point of government's public service, but Politically,
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: in the end, it's also the right thing to do
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: because if and when, and it's more likely when than if,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: Trump fails, Trump has no one to blame but himself.
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: Real quick before we wrap this segment, just want to
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: let everybody, including listeners, know that the Ws were in fact,
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: according to ABC News, the springs under the Ws were
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: removed off of keyboards in the Eisenhower Executive Office building,
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: but not in the West Wing.
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: If anyone in the Biden administration is listening to this,
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: hide all the remotes. That's a very innocuous, petty thing
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: you can do is hide them.
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: Even better.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: That's great. Switch them.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: So you think you have a remote, but you cannot
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: figure out why it doesn't work.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: Or take the phone, like the little thing that says what,
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: like when we got into the White House, there's just
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: a Right after the inauguration, there's a Post-it note with
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: your name on the door and then a Post-it note
• 31:37
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• 31:40
  Speaker 2: That's fun too.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: No one knows how to call anyone.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: Co-sign all of these petty measures.
• 31:50
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