The 2016-2017 Transition into

the Donald J. Trump Administration

by

James D. King James W. Riddlesperger, Jr. Department of Political Science Department of Political Science University of Wyoming Texas Christian University Laramie, WY 82071 USA Fort Worth, TX 76129 USA jking@uwyo.edu j.riddlesperger@tcu.edu

Prepared for presentation at the Conference on the U.S. Presidential Election of 2016: Domestic and International Aspects, hosted by the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, Israel, January 8-9, 2017. © 2017 by James D. King and James W. Riddlesperger, Jr.

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“Though this be madness, yet there is mthod in ‘t” --William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act II, Scene II

Throughout the long, contentious presidential campaign of 2016 there was one

undeniable fact: with President Obama term-limited from seeking another term, a new president

would enter office on January 20, 2017. The campaign became a drama in many ways

unprecedented in the nation’s history, with rhetoric taking on historically polarizing

characteristics. And the election of Donald Trump gave the nation a president-elect with no

public sector experience for the first time in history. Trump’s campaign theme was one of

“disruption” politics, promising to give the government an entirely new direction—moving away

from the “extreme incompetence” Trump saw in the conduct of government and “draining the

swamp” of Washington, D.C. by bringing new faces and a fresh decision-making style to the

nation’s capital. His message was aimed primarily at his opponent Hillary Clinton, who he

promised to prosecute for criminal violations of the law in her email scandal, but also involved

excoriating the decisions made by previous Republican presidents, including explicitly his two

Republican predecessors—the George Bushes, Sr. and Jr. In so doing, he alienated himself not

only from Democrats, but also from the Republican establishment, with four of the five the most

recent nominees of the GOP explicitly avoiding endorsing his candidacy. Only Robert Dole, the

1996 nominee, stood by the Trump candidacy.

A singular election might give way to an unusual transition. Yet, the core positions of

government still had to be staffed, and the routine functions of government still had to be

managed. In other words, while President-elect Trump is a larger-than-life personality who

wants to impose his will on government, he still faces issues common to all incoming presidents.

As president-elect, Donald Trump has seventy-three days to prepare for his administration with a

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host of tasks to accomplish during that narrow window of time. In this paper we explore the

challenges facing Trump as he prepares for the assumption of office. How did his disruption

candidacy yield a transition different from previous presidents, and in what ways did the

common problems faced by all presidents elect constrain him to similar approaches to previous

presidents?1

Previous Interparty Transitions

The Obama-to-Trump transition reflects the most common type of transition in the

modern era, a transition that occurs when a new president representing the opposing political

party is elected. These interparty transitions represent clean breaks with the incoming president

having the freedom to build a team from the ground up. In the post-World War II era, the

Truman-to-Eisenhower, Eisenhower-to-Kennedy, Johnson-to-Nixon, Ford-to-Carter, Carter-to-

Reagan, G.H.W. Bush-to-Clinton, Clinton-to-G.W. Bush, and G.W. Bush-to-Obama transitions

were of this nature. Successful interparty transitions occur when presidents-elect carefully assess

their strengths and weaknesses, cooperate with the outgoing president, learn from their

predecessors, move quickly in selecting personnel and developing budget proposals, avoid

raising expectations regarding the role of the cabinet in the new administration, and establish a

working relationship with Congress from the outset of the administration.

After a successful election campaign, presidents-elect are not immediately inclined to

take advice from their predecessors. Implicitly or explicitly, the outgoing president has been the

target of the incoming president’s campaign. Historian Carl Brauer notes:

1 Had she prevailed in the election, Hillary Clinton would have faced a somewhat different set of challenges as a

president-elect in an intraparty transition, that is, following a president of the same political party. The principal challenge in these situations is establishing an identity distinguishable from the current administration in terms of policies and personnel, without severing linkages to the incumbent president. See: James D. King and James W. Riddlesperger, Jr., “Getting Started in the White House: Transitions in the Modern Presidency,” White House Studies 3 (#2, 2003):115-131.

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The weeks and months after a Presidential election are not times when humility reigns in the victor’s camp. Rather, it is one when confidence, hope, hubris and infallibility run high, characteristics that contribute to, if they do not directly cause, some of the mistakes that are made.2

Examples of this attitude are common. Bill Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos (1999, 121)

wrote later that “we saw ourselves as smart and tough and good; we had won, deposed an

incumbent president.” Perhaps even more striking was the transition of Jimmy Carter in 1976

when, being determined to chart a course different from the Nixon and Ford administrations, the

president-elect openly rejected recommendations from the Ford team about the necessity in the

modern White House of having a strong chief of staff. Instead, Carter returned to the less-

structured “spokes-of-the-wheel” model that had been used by previous Democratic presidents.

Speechwriter James Fallows acknowledged that the failure to listen to Ford administration

people meant that “a year was wasted as we blindly groped for answers.”3 During the third year

of his presidency, struggling to advance a policy agenda, Carter abruptly changed to a chief of

staff model. His new chief of staff, Hamilton Jordan (1979), sent a note to Dick Cheney, Ford’s

chief of staff, acknowledging that the hubris of the Carter people at the beginning of the term had

not served them well: “Dick—If I’d only listened to you—A Former Spoke.”4

The perspectives of Fallows and Jordan on the Carter transition reflect an early decision a

president-elect must make: how should the White House staff be organized? The growth of the

institutional presidency that began with Franklin Roosevelt’s administration has continued with

expansion of the Executive Office of the President and White House staff. Dwight Eisenhower,

2 Carl M. Brauer, Presidential Transitions: Eisenhower through Reagan (New York: Oxford University Press,

1986), p. 258. 3 James Fallows, “The Passionless Presidency,” Atlantic, May 1979, p. 39. 4 Hamilton Jordan, Note to Richard Cheney, July 21, 1979. White House Staff folder, Chief of Staff Files,

Carter Presidential Library.

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drawing upon his experience in the military command structure, created the position of chief of

staff to manage the expanded organization. For a time this arrangement was considered the

Republican approach to White House organization, as Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford adopted

similar arrangements for the White House while John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson utilized less

structured staff arrangements. Carter’s failed experiment of returning to the Kennedy and

Johnson approach marked the end of administrations with loose White House structures. Each

president since Ronald Reagan has started his administration with a chief of staff commanding

the White House operation.5

Success of the White House operation and hence of the administration stems from the

president’s choice for chief of staff. More than any other factor, having a chief of staff

experienced in the Washington policy-making environment is key to an effective White House

operation.6 Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama had success during their first

years in office, in part, due to the White House leadership demonstrated by James A. Baker III,

Andrew Card, and Rahm Emanuel as their respective chiefs of staff. Bill Clinton chose Mack

McLarty, a lifelong friend from Arkansas, as his first chief of staff and preferred separate

meetings with various staff members. This arrangement hindered systematic, coordinated policy

development in the Clinton White House and led to McLarty being replaced midway through

Clinton’s second year by Leon Panetta, the administration’s budget director and a former

member of Congress and executive branch officer. The later arrangements of the Clinton

administration, with a chief of staff with substantial experience in the nation’s capital paired with

5 Stephen Hess and James P. Pfiffner, Organizing the Presidency 3d ed. (Washington, DC: The Brookings

Institution, 2002), and Shirley Anne Warshaw, The Domestic Presidency: Policy Making in the White House (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1997).

6 On the characteristics of successful chiefs of staff in the modern presidency, see James P. Pfiffner, “The President’s Chief of Staff: Lessons Learned,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 23 (Winter 1983): 77-102.

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senior advisors with strong personal ties to the president mirrored the very successful first term

of the Reagan presidency, when Baker teamed with long-time Reagan associates Edwin Meese,

who led domestic policy development, and Michael Deaver, who coordinated the president’s

public activities. Obama utilized a similar model by bringing together in the White House

Emanuel, Peter Rouse (Senate staff), Valarie Jarrett (friend and advisor from Chicago), and

David Axelrod (2008 campaign manager).

Most visible for a president-elect are the choices for other key positions in the

administration, notably the men and women selected to lead the various cabinet departments.

Choices that are made regarding who will serve in the president’s cabinet, in the Executive

Office of the Presidency, and in the White House Staff are key, for as Senator Elizabeth Warren

reminds us: “Personnel is policy.”7 These are the people who will advise the president on policy,

will promote the administration’s policy initiatives, and ultimately will implement policy. The

challenges for the president-elect are that the choices are momentous, the process is complex,

and the time frame for making appointments is limited. Certainly all incoming presidents feel as

Kennedy did during the 1960-1961 transition. “I must make the appointments now,” Kennedy

remarked to economist and confidant John Kenneth Galbraith; “a year hence I will know who I

really want to appoint.”8 And while the president-elect is mulling over lists of potential

appointees, others are searching for clues to policy directions of the new administration. “The

original cabinet is a symbolic show window for an incoming President,” Richard F. Fenno, Jr.,

writes, “and he must expect the critical scrutiny of all those interested in sizing up the

administration.”9

7 Elizabeth Warren, “One Way to Rebuild Our Institutions,” New York Times, January 29, 2016. 8 John Kenneth Galbraith, Ambassador’s Journal (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1969), p. 7. 9 Richard F. Fenno, Jr., The President’s Cabinet (New York: Vintage Books, 1959), p. 82.

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An element of the president-elect’s choices for the administration is providing

reassurance to important constituencies, especially the business community and the foreign

policy establishment, that the new administration will act in responsible ways. John Kennedy

reappointed Eisenhower CIA director Allan Dulles to the same post in his administration,

reached out to Republican businessman C. Douglas Dillon as treasury secretary, and turned to

Dean Rusk, a veteran of the State Department during Truman’s presidency and head of the

Rockefeller Foundation, for important economic and foreign policy positions to assure relevant

constituencies that the young president would have stable, experienced advisors in critical

posts.10 Other presidents have followed similar paths. Jimmy Carter named state department

veteran Cyrus Vance as his secretary of state and experienced Washington insider Harold Brown

as secretary of defense. Bill Clinton opened his presidency with Washington veterans in several

key positions, including Warren Christopher, former deputy secretary of state and deputy

attorney general, as secretary of state; Lloyd Bentsen, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, as

secretary of the treasury; and Les Aspin, chair of the House Armed Services Committee, as

secretary of defense. George W. Bush appointed Colin Powell, a man with thirty-five years of

experience in the military who had served as the national security advisor under Ronald Reagan

and as chair of the joint chiefs of staff under the first president Bush, to serve as secretary of

state.11 Similarly, to lead the Treasury Department, Bush chose Paul O’Neill, the former CEO of

Alcoa Corporation whose governmental experience included a senior position in the office of

management and budget during the Ford administration to provide a “steady voice” who would

10 Robert F. Kennedy, John F. Kennedy Oral History (1964), John F. Kennedy Library, pp. 2-12); Arthur M.

Schlesinger, Jr., A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965), pp. 121-140; David Halbertam, The Best and the Brightest (New York: Random House, 1969), pp. 8-10.

11 Jay Root, “Bush Picks Powell for Cabinet Job,” Fort Worth Star Telegram, December 17, 2000, p. 31A.

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“calm people’s nerves, calm the markets, calm those who speculate in the dollar.”12 The

presidency of Barack Obama continued in the same vein. His selection of Timothy Geithner,

who had served as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and had helped arrange

the bailout of the huge conglomerate AIG during the financial crisis of 2008, clearly had the

impact of assuring New York’s financial markets of having a stable hand in charge of the

nation’s treasury.13 In a rare move for an interparty transition, Obama retained Secretary of

Defense Robert Gates as a signal that his administration’s policies concerning Iraq and

Afghanistan would not stray far from those of the final two years of the Bush administration.14

The selection of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state was unusual in the sense that she had no

prior experience in that department, but as first lady and senator, Clinton had interacted with the

foreign policy establishment extensively.

At the same time, presidents-elect must be attentive to the constituencies of particular

departments. Tradition holds that the secretary of the interior will hail from a western state

where public lands make up large percentages of state acreage and the secretary of agriculture

will come from a state where farming is a key component of the economy. The secretary of

commerce commonly is a businessman while the secretary of labor will have ties to unions or

other working-class groups. The secretary of housing and urban development and of

transportation will be chosen from a highly urbanized state. The secretary of veterans affairs will

be a veteran of military service and preferably have experience as an advocate for veterans. A

12 Root, “Bush Picks Powell for Cabinet Job.” 13 Jeff Zeleny, “Obama Unveils Team to Tackle ‘Historic’ Crisis in Economy,” New York Times, November 24,

2008, A1; James W. Riddlesperger, Jr., and James D. King, “The 2009 Presidential Transition: A Preliminary Examination,” paper presented at the 2009 Meeting of the Southwestern Political Science Association, Denver, CO.

14 Peter Baker and Thom Shankernov, “Obama Plans to Retain Gates at Defense Department,” New York Times, November 25, 2008.

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newly inaugurated president can expect both public outcries and congressional opposition if

cabinet selections stray far from these norms.

The administrative organization and staffing are not the only major challenge during the

transition, as presidents must also plan to work with Congress. Members of Congress also have

just enjoyed electoral success and normally have won elections in their districts by larger

margins than the president-elect. Laurin Henry warned that the president must pay “close

attention—or neglect at his peril” nurturing relationships in Congress. James P. Pfiffner

underscores Henry’s observation, noting that “courting of Congress should be done early and

often.”15 In the age of polarized politics in Washington, developing working relationships with

Congress is now even more difficult, making the likelihood of success in working across party

lines—as inevitably becomes necessary—lower but the need to have success in doing so more

important. With the declining number of cross-pressured congressmen, those whose ideological

leanings place them closer to the other political party’s core position than to the core position of

their own party, a president must be mindful of how the administration’s policy positions mesh

with the party on Capitol Hill.16

The principal responsibility of a president is presenting and implementing a policy

agenda. A president’s policy legacy begins with the adoption of a new federal budget, a process

that begins on day one of the administration. As a result, presidents are well-advised to put into

place an accomplished budget staff—especially in the Office of Management and Budget—from

the outset of the administration. While policy debates often dominate media coverage of

15 Laurin Henry, Presidential Transitions (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1960), p. 717; and James P.

Pfiffner, The Strategic Presidency: Hitting the Ground Running 2d ed., rev. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1996), p. 188.

16 Richard Fleisher and Jon R. Bond, “The Shrinking Middle in the U.S. Congress,” British Journal of Political Science 34 (2004): 429-451.

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presidential campaigns, the policy priorities of the new administration are best reflected in the

budget that is put into effect in October of his first year in office. As far back as Kennedy’s

administration, Richard Neustadt recommended that a budget director be appointed very early on

so that the budget requests of the other senior appointees and their department could be reflected

in budgetary action.17 The consequences of not preparing budget priorities are illustrated by

comparing the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. Reagan spent the lion’s share of

his time in the early months of his administration focusing on the budget while Clinton’s

administration lacked “discipline, order and focus.”18 As a result, Reagan was able to pass

sweeping changes to the nation’s tax laws while Clinton’s administration often found itself

addressing issues tangential to his budgetary proposals allowing his economic plan to be

substantially watered down by Congress.19 President Obama immediately focused on a major

economic stimulus package as he entered office and was able to push it through Congress,

though almost exclusively with backing from Democrats. While there was debate about how

effective the stimulus package was, it clearly reflected the early goals of the new president.20

Beyond the budget, presidents need to establish working relationships within the

administration and across the many relevant constituencies influencing policy-making and policy

implementation in Washington. Brauer notes that this early period is critical:

The first days and months in office present a rich opportunity to exercise that power. Although a long-term view would lead to skepticism about the likelihood of much changing when the Presidency changes hands, Presidents-elect, the press, the public, and even Congress are apt to take a more hopeful view. Man’s innate and Americans’ special fondness for the new, relief at the end of a partisan season and the passing of a fatigued administration, and celebration for the orderly

17 Richard E. Neustadt, Presidential Power (New York: Wiley and Sons). 18 Jack H. Watson, Jr., “The Clinton White House,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 23 (1993): 435. 19 Pfiffner, The Strategic Presidency, pp. 173-178; Bob Woodward, The Agenda: Inside the Clinton White

House (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994). 20 Peter Baker, “Education of a President,” New York Times, October 17, 2010.

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transfer of democratic authority together create an atmosphere rife with possibility, which newly elected presidents should prepare for, nurture, and exploit.21

The passage of time has changed the nature of transitions to some degree. Clearly, political

polarization has made the prospects of using an election mandate as leverage for enacting the

presidents’ priorities more difficult.22 The presidents’ honeymoon period barely lasts until

inauguration. But at a minimum, the transition marks a period of new beginnings, and new

beginnings yield new opportunities.

New opportunities must be selected wisely. Presidents must identify and pursue their

highest priorities lest they lose control over the discussion of policy. A prime example of this

was Clinton’s “don’t ask don’t tell” approach to incorporating gays into the military. Clinton

assumed that he could dispose of this campaign promise quickly and with little fanfare. Instead,

a firestorm of reaction occupied the attention of the administration, Congress, and the national

news media for several weeks, demonstrating that quick action on ill-conceived or ill-timed

policy was a detriment to the administration’s higher priorities.23 Clinton’s successors learned

the lessons of his difficult early months. George W. Bush and Barack Obama both highlighted

their economic programs, Bush with tax cuts and Obama with a stimulus package that included

both spending increases and tax cuts, during their early months and kept other issues out of the

spotlight. What became the signature domestic policy programs of their administrations,

21 Brauer, Presidential Transitions, p. 267. 22 Thomas E. Mann and Norman Ornstein, It’s Even Worse than It Looks, 2nd ed. (New York: Basic Books,

2016). 23 John P. Burke, Presidential Transitions: From Politics to Practice (Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner Publishers,

2000), pp. 303-305; Anthony J. Eksterowicz and Glenn Hastedt, “Modern Presidential Transitions: Problems, Pitfalls, and Lessons for Success,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 28 (1998): 317.

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education policy for Bush and health care reform for Obama, were pressed only after Congress

had taken action on the administration’s proposals for the economy.

A key to avoiding many of the pitfalls that can confront a new administration is careful

self-examination. Bauer notes that particular care should be given to weaknesses that the

incoming president may have.24 Strengths of incoming presidents will naturally exert

themselves. Political opponents, however, will quickly exploited weaknesses. These

weaknesses can be overcome by appointing aides with strengths that can complement the

president’s. Jimmy Carter had no experience in Washington before becoming president, yet he

chose as his congressional liaison, budget director, and legal counsel Georgians who lacked

Washington experience. In contrast, Ronald Reagan, another Washington novice, balanced his

appointments of long-time aides such as Michael Deaver and Edwin Meese with experienced

Washington hands such as James Baker, Martin Anderson, David Stockman, and Max

Friedersdorf.25 George W. Bush wanted to overcome his lack of Washington experience and did

so by appointing an ultimate insider, Andrew Card, as his Chief of Staff. Card had served as a

White House aide and the vice president’s chief of staff during the Reagan administration, and as

deputy Chief of Staff and transportation secretary during George H.W. Bush’s administration.

His Washington experience eased Bush into Washington life.26

The centrist nature of American politics means that extreme swings in policy do not

occur from one administration to the next, even when partisan control of the executive branch

changes. Nevertheless, with the change of party control of the White House comes the largest

24 Brauer, Presidential Transitions, p. 257. 25 Stephen Hess and James P. Pfiffner, Organizing the Presidency 3d ed. (Washington, DC: The Brookings

Institution, 2002). 26 Elaine Sciolino, “Washington Insider and Family Loyalist Poised for Job of Bush Chief of Staff,” New York

Times, November 28, 2000.

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change in policy agenda. After all, the incoming president campaigned explicitly against the

opposing party’s platform and differentiated himself in some explicit ways from the priorities of

his predecessor. The law and order campaign of 1968 suggested that Nixon would differentiate

himself from the “permissive” attitudes of his predecessors. The Watergate scandal prompted

Jimmy Carter’s promise never to lie to the American public--a direct slap at Richard Nixon and

Gerald Ford regarding illegal activities of the Nixon administration and Ford’s controversial

pardon of Nixon. As a candidate Ronald Reagan promised a large, targeted tax cut plan, a plan

born of the poor economic performance of the Carter administration and his philosophy favoring

pro-business policies. The economy was the theme of Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign as well and

was built on the notion that George H.W. Bush had not been attentive to domestic issues. Barack

Obama campaigned with the slogan “change we can believe in,” specifically arguing that the

nation required a new economic policy to recover from a deep recession in Bush’s last year in

office. Foreign policy differences also appear, evidenced by Nixon’s 1968 pledge to end the

Vietnam War, Reagan’s 1980 commitment to increasing America’s military capabilities, and

Obama’s 2008 criticisms of the war in Iraq. These promises stem from failings—real or

perceived—of the prior administration and define the new administration’s policy agenda.

For the most part, presidents involved in interparty transitions enter office in favorable

environments. As seen in Table 1, the popular vote margins of incoming presidents in recent

interparty transitions have varied greatly, from Eisenhower’s double-digit win in 1952 to

Kennedy’s slim victory in 1960 and Bush losing the popular vote in 2000. Electoral vote

margins show a similar range, from the landslides of Eisenhower and Reagan to the narrow wins

by Carter and Bush. More important resources for advancing the new administration’s policy

agenda are public approval and party control on Capitol Hill. Except for Reagan, new presidents

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Table 1 Political Environment of Interparty Transitions

President Popular vote* Party controlling Initial Electoral vote* House† Senate† approval rating§ Eisenhower (1953) 54.9%-44.4% President’s President’s 68% 442-89 Kennedy (1961) 49.7%-49.5% President’s President’s 72% 303-219 Nixon (1969) 43.4%-42.7% Opposition Opposition 59% 301-191 Carter (1977) 50.1%-48.0% President’s President’s 66% 297-240 Reagan (1981) 50.7%-41.0% Opposition President’s 51% 489-49 Clinton (1993) 43.0%-34.7% President’s President’s 58% 370-168 G.W. Bush (2001) 47.9%-48.4% President’s Split‡ 57% 271-266 Obama (2009) 52.9%-45.7% President’s President’s 67% 365-173 Trump (2017) 46.0%-48.1% President’s President’s 47% 306-232 Sources: * Harold W. Stanley and Richard G. Niemi, Vital Statistics on American Politics

2013-2014 (Washington: CQ Press, 2013), Table 1-7; and The New York Times (www.nytimes.com/elections/results/president).

† Harold W. Stanley and Richard G. Niemi, Vital Statistics on American Politics

2013-2014 (Washington: CQ Press, 2013), Table 1-10. § For 1953-1981: George C. Edwards III with Alec M. Gallup, Presidential Approval:

A Sourcebook (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990). For 1993-2009: Gallup Poll website (www.gallup.com/home.aspx). For 2017: Rasmussen Reports

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website (www.rasmussenreports.com/public_ content/politics/trump_ administration/december_2016/trump_breaks_even_in_job_approval).

‡ The 2000 election resulted in an even number of Republicans and Democrats in the

Senate, giving Republicans control on Vice President Dick Cheney’s tie-breaking vote. Democrats took control in May of 2001 when Jim Jeffords of Vermont left the Republican Party, became an independent, and caucused with Democrats.

in interparty transitions have seen their initial approval ratings well exceed their vote

percentages, as the American public either found aspects of the new administration with which it

agreed or simply gave the new president an opportunity to prove himself. More importantly, five

of the eight interparty-transition presidents had their party in control of both chambers of

Congress. George W. Bush enjoyed Republican control of Congress for the first five months of

his presidency while Republicans controlled the Senate during Reagan’s first years. Only

Richard Nixon faced opposition control on both sides of the Capitol. Political scientist Paul

Light has termed party support the “gold standard” of presidential resources for achieving a

policy agenda and a resource that most new presidents appreciate and of which they take

advantage.27

The Trump Transition

Transitions between administrations now are more structured than in the past. Before

2008, transition planning was done on an ad hoc basis, though some presidential candidates were

more attentive to transition than others. Jimmy Carter was the first presidential candidate openly

to plan for a transition into office prior to the election; candidates before that time feared that

27 Paul C. Light, The President’s Agenda: Domestic Policy Choice from Kennedy to Clinton 3rd ed. (Baltimore:

Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), p.27.

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appearing to plan for office would be interpreted as taking for granted their election.28 Ronald

Reagan followed Carter’s lead, but the size and scope of Reagan’s pre-election transition

planning led both George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton to keep transition planning out of the

spotlight.29 Nonetheless, transition planning is still fairly low on candidates’ list of priorities

since the transition cannot happen unless the candidate is elected. This has led to the reality that

“you have the most important takeover of any organization in history, and it is done in a

dangerous and terrible way,” Max Stier, the president of the Partnership for Public Service,

observed during the 2016 campaign.30 Legislation requiring the outgoing president prepare the

successor through briefings has largely been a success as the 2008-2009 transition was an

excellent model for future presidents.31 Under the Pre-Election Presidential Transition Act of

2010, funding for transition activities was increased and for the first time the General Services

Administration provided office space to the major-party candidates to begin planning their

governments months before the election.32

After securing a sufficient number of delegates to the Republican National Convention to

guarantee his nomination, Trump named New Jersey governor and former rival for the

28 For example, John Kennedy asked former Truman aide Clark Clifford and Harvard professor Richard

Neustadt to prepare memoranda on transition issues he would face if successful in the election, but kept their activities out of the public view. See: Brauer, Presidential Transitions, chapter 2.

29 On transitions of this period, see Burke, Presidential Transitions: From Politics to Practice, and Charles O. Jones, Passages to the Presidency: From Campaigning to Governing (Washington, DC: Brookings, 1998). On earlier transitions, see Henry, Presidential Transitions, and Brauer, Presidential Transitions: Eisenhower through Reagan.

30 Russell Berman, “The Most Important Takeover of Any Organization in History,” The Atlantic, April 22, 2016.

31 Martha Joynt Kumar, Before the Oath (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 2015). 32 Berman, “The Most Important Takeover of Any Organization in History.”

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Republican nomination Chris Christie to head his transition-planning team.33 Following the

November election, the president-elect expanded his transition team and named Mike Pence,

Indiana governor and vice president-elect, as director of the transition operation. The weeks

following the election witnessed something of a bifurcated transition effort, as the Pence-led

operation continued working in Washington while President-elect Trump remained in New York

and met with various potential members of his administration at his offices at Trump Tower.

Political Environment

Conditions in Washington will provide a mixed environment for Trump. He enters office

as the second president in sixteen years who failed to win the popular vote and with the third

lowest electoral vote margin of the post-World War II era (Table 1). Most presidents-elect claim

a mandate from the voters, if grounded on nothing more than simply winning the election.34 Any

such claim from Donald Trump, however, will ring hollow. Also not providing a resounding

endorsement is Trump’s job approval rating, which according to Rasmussen Reports splits

evenly between those approving and those disapproving: 47% to 47%.35 Not only is Trump’s

approval rating lower than any previous president entering office during in an interparty

transition, his disapproval rating is substantially higher. First approval polls taken after a

president enters office show between one-fifth and one-third of Americans as “undecided” about

the new president. The public has no such uncertainty going into the Trump presidency.

33 Jose A. Del Real, “Trump Campaign Appoints Christie to Chair White House Transition Team,” Washington

Post, May 9, 2016; Lisa Rein, “Trump, Clinton Planning Their Transitions Side-by-Side in Washington,” Washington Post, August 18, 2016.

34 The president-elect of the modern whose circumstance most closely resembled Trump’s was George W. Bush. To his credit, Bush made few claims of a mandate from the voters during the 2000-2001 transition but instead took a conciliatory approach.

35 “Trump Breaks Even in Job Approval,” Rasmussen Reports; www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/trump_administration/december_2016/trump_breaks_even_in_job_approval.

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Additionally, Trump’s favorability rating, a metric used throughout the campaign, according to a

mid-December Gallup Poll was at 42% with 55% rating him unfavorably.36 Viewed together,

the election returns and opinion polls certainly will not convince Democrats in Congress to

follow Trump’s leadership based on public support.

In Trump’s favor are the Republicans’ majorities in both the House of Representatives

and the Senate. The 115th Congress will have six fewer Republicans in the House, but the GOP

maintains a 47-seat advantage over Democrats. This will permit the Republican leadership to

put forward legislation of its liking with little need to seek Democratic support. The Senate will

prove more challenging to the new president. Republicans retained control of the upper chamber

despite early optimism by Democrats and several pre-election forecasts of a Democratic victory.

But Republicans can expect Democrats to use the filibuster to block more extreme measures

advocated by the president or congressional Republicans. Whether congressional Democrats

will adopt a stance of opposing everything on the Trump administration’s agenda—as

congressional Republicans did to President Obama in 2009—remains to be seen. What is

evident as the transition moves forward is that President Trump cannot expect reflexive

congressional sanctioning of his legislative proposals.

Appointments

Donald Trump has not filled all positions in his cabinet,37 in the Executive Office of the

President, and on the White House staff, as of this writing (December 18, 2016). However, the

36 Gallup Poll, December 7-11, 2016; www.pollingreport.com/trump_fav.htm 37 For our purposes, the term “cabinet” refers to the heads of the major departments of the United States

government, currently totaling fifteen. It does not include individuals holding positions in the Executive Office of the President or on the White House staff whom the president grants “cabinet status.”

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appointments made to date demonstrate breaks from the patterns of recent presidents (Table 2).

The most notable characteristic of Trump appointees is that fewer have experience in

government generally and in the national government particularly. Of thirteen cabinet officers

identified thus far, slightly less than half (46%) have served in either national or state

government positions. This compares with only one-sixth of initial cabinet appointees in the six

most recent interparty transitions. Whereas three-fifths of other presidents’ appointees to cabinet

positions previously served in either the executive branch of the national government or in

Congress, fewer than half of Trump’s expected nominees have similar experience. Among

initial cabinet officers, 48% in prior administrations but only 23% in the upcoming Trump

administration held positions in the national executive branch. It is not surprising that Trump’s

cabinet officers would arrive with less national government experience, as Trump’s campaign

rhetoric emphasized his outsider status and included vows to change national government and its

processes. Observers are left to wonder what the absence of experience among Trump

appointees portends. New York Times blogger Neil Irwin comments that “Mr. Trump seems to

be betting that nuts-and-bolts experience running government agencies and wrestling with the

hard technical details of public policy just don’t matter.”38

The one form of experience where Trump cabinet nominees exceed prior administrations’

concerns career military service. Between the Nixon and Obama administrations, only three

cabinet officers came from the career military ranks: Alexander Haig (State, Reagan), Colin

Powell (State, Bush II), and Eric Shinseki (Veterans Affairs, Obama), all former Army generals.

The Trump cabinet will match this number, with the anticipated nominations of former Marine

38 Neil Irwin, “Donald Trump Is Betting That Policy Expertise Doesn’t Matter,” The Upshot, December 1,

2016.

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Table 2 Prior Experience of Senior Executive Branch Appointees: Interparty Transitions

Democrats Republican Trump presidents* presidents† administration§ Cabinet Departments National government 62% 56% 46% U.S. Congress 22% 15% 23% National administration 45% 51% 23% Department of appointment 18% 13% 15% Governor 18% 15% 8% State and local government 48% 41% 31% Military (career) 2% 5% 23% No governmental experience 12% 20% 46% Business 28% 62% 54% Law 52% 38% 15% Academics 28% 12% 0% Number of appointees 40 39 13 Executive Office of the President and White House staff National government 53% 70% 40% U.S. Congress 9% 10% 20% National administration 49% 62% 20% Agency of appointment 13% 32% 0%

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Governor 0% 5% 10% State and local government 29% 25% 30% Military 7% 0% 10% No governmental experience 27% 15% 40% Business 16% 41% 60% Law 27% 30% 50% Academics 27% 38% 0% Number of appointees 45 40 xx * Democratic presidents include Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama. † Republican presidents include Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush. § Trump administration appointments as of December 17, 2016.

general James Mattis as secretary of defense, former Navy commander Ryan Zinke as secretary

of the interior, and former Marine general John Kelly as secretary of homeland security.39 While

there is no connection between Zinke’s appointment at the Department of Interior and his

military career, there are direct lines between the military careers of Mattis and Kelly and their

appointments to the Trump administration. Regarding non-governmental career experience,

Trump’s expected cabinet nominees are drawn from the business community in a proportion

similar to that of other recent Republican administrations.

39 The appointment of Zinke has not attracted attention from the national media because he did not attain flag

rank in the Navy. However, Zinke served in the Navy for more than two decades and entered public service (election to the state legislature) shortly after retiring from the military.

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In contrast to recent administrations, Trump’s choices for positions in the Executive

Office of the President and on the White House staff are drawn much more heavily from the

business world and much less from governmental service and academics. Trump’s choices for

EOP and White House staff positions demonstrate similar career patterns, notably less

experience in government at any level, in the national government, or in national government

administration than the appointees of recent presidents. And, contrary to recent practice, Trump

has not selected for an academic for any position in the EOP. Posts such as the assistants to the

president for national security affairs, economic affairs, and domestic policy and the chair of the

Council of Economic Advisors frequently are staffed by academics. National security advisor

Michael Flynn is a retired Army general and economic affairs advisor Gary Cohn is president

and chief operating officer of the investment and securities firm Goldman Sachs.

As yet unclear among Trump’s cabinet appointments is his commitment to traditional

constituencies of particular departments. The choices of Congressman Ryan Zinke of Montana

and of Wilbur Ross fit the traditions of a westerner guiding the Department of the Interior and a

businessman heading the Department of Commerce, respectively. At the same time, the

appointment of business executive Andrew Puzder as secretary of labor is an undisguised poke in

the eye of the Labor Department’s clientele and naming Ben Carson as secretary of housing and

urban development, with little background in the department’s policy responsibilities, offers little

confidence to the nation’s cities. Two important positions in clientele departments, secretary of

agriculture and secretary of veterans affairs, are as yet unfilled. Trump’s selections for these

departments will determine how the president-elect will be graded concerning his respect for

departmental constituencies when making cabinet appointments.

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Until 1933, the president’s cabinet was the domain of males of European ancestry. In the

years that followed, the occasional appointments of a woman or an African American provided

rare breaks in the pattern. Only with Jimmy Carter’s administration did a president-elect make

more than a single appointment reflecting gender and racial/ethnic diversity.40 The three most

recent presidencies have demonstrated significantly greater commitments to diversity,

particularly in the cabinet (Figure 1). Assuming no changes in the president-elect’s announced

cabinet selections, as of mid-December it appears that the Trump administration will not match

the records for diversity of recent administrations. Only three of the thirteen announced cabinet

selections provide diversity: Ben Carson (HUD); Elaine Chao (Transportation); and Betsy

DeVos (Education). Senator Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota has been rumored to be named

secretary of agriculture, a move that would increase representation of women in the Trump

cabinet to the levels of the Clinton and Bush administrations. On the whole, however, Trump

will not meet the standard of diversity in the cabinet set by his three immediate predecessors due

to fewer minority appointments. Chao (Asian American) and Carson (African American) are the

only minority cabinet officers identified to date. The new administration likely will be the first

in nearly three decades without a Latino or Latina at the cabinet table. The omission is notable

because Latinos are the fastest growing minority group in the United States and are an important

component of the electorate in several key states. These factors, combined with Trump’s

campaign rhetoric regarding immigration from Mexico, including derogatory characterizations of

Latinos and a promise to construct a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border to prevent further

immigration, portend continued difficulty for Republicans with this influential voting bloc. The

40 James D. King and James W. Riddlesperger, Jr., “Diversity and Presidential Cabinet Appointments,” Social

Science Quarterly 96 (March 2015): 93-103.

23

Trump transition’s selections for major positions in the Executive Office of the President and on

the White House staff are less complete, but of the appointments announced only Nikki Haley,

Trump’s choice for ambassador to the United Nations, is not a white male. Again, this marks a

significant departure from the patterns of recent administrations.

Throughout his presidency, Trump’s dealings with Congress will focus on public policy.

But the first interactions between the White House and Capitol Hill concern Senate confirmation

of nominations to top-level executive positions. Throughout most of the 20th century, the

Senate’s response to presidential executive nominations was one of deference. Capturing this

perspective was Senator Robert Dole (R-KS), who once argued that “the President of the United

States, whether he is a Democrat or Republican, has a right to choose people he wants to serve in

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his Cabinet.”41 Since the Nixon administration, however, the Senate has acted more aggressively

in challenging presidents’ cabinet nominations. It remains rare for the Senate to reject outright a

cabinet or similar high-ranking nomination, but presidents can no longer take for granted Senate

confirmation of their nominees and several nominations from a newly inaugurated president will

encounter a significant number of “no” votes on the Senate floor.42

Early signals are opposition in the Senate will focus on five Trump nominations. Both

Republican and Democratic senators have expressed reservations about Secretary of State-

designate Rex Tillerson because of his business ties with Russia; the bipartisan coalition might

be of sufficient strength to force Trump to make a different selection.43 Senator Jeff Sessions,

tapped for attorney general, was nominated for a federal judgeship by Ronald Reagan but failed

to navigate successfully the confirmation gauntlet because of allegations related to attitudes on

racial matters; the greater familiarity of Sessions from his time in the chamber likely will

facilitate his confirmation as attorney general but opposition likely will arise. Secretary of the

Treasury-designate Steven Mnuchin will encounter difficult questioning as Democrats challenge

his background in public policy and attempt to discredit the administration’s economic message

by questioning how a Wall Street executive can relate to middle-class and working-class

concerns.44 The pro-business stances of Secretary of Labor-designate Andrew Puzder on the

41 The Congressional Record, February 23, 1989, p. S1619. 42 James D. King and James W. Riddlesperger, Jr., “Senate Confirmation of Cabinet Appointments: Congress-

centered, Presidency-centered, and Nominee-centered Explanations,” Social Science Journal 50 (June 2013): 177-188.

43 Byron Tau, “Confirmation Battle Looms for Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State: Some Republican Senators Question the Exxon Mobil CEO’s Closeness to Russian Leaders,” Wall Street Journal, December 13, 2016.

44 Julie Pace and Julie Bykowicz, “Democrats Eye Confirmation Fight over Trump’s Treasury Pick,” Washington Post, December 16, 2016; Andrew Ross Sorkin, “Steven Mnuchin, Expected Treasury Pick, Is an Outsider to Public Policy,” New York Times, November 30, 2016.

25

federal minimum wage and federal government regulation of the workplace will likely draw

opposition from Senate Democrats. Betsy DeVos’ nomination as secretary of education is likely

to encounter resistance in the Senate as she has no prior governmental experience related to

education policy, has been a vocal advocate of charter schools and using public funds for

parochial schools, and opposes “common core” educational standards.45 There was early

speculation that Secretary of Defense-designate James Mattis, a retired four-star general of the

Marine Corps, would be opposed because his appointment would strain, if not violate, the

concept of civilian control of the military; this concern seems to have abated and is now probable

that Mattis’ appointment will pass the Senate.46 A general concern is that the Trump transition

team has not vetted potential nominees carefully and thus there might be surprises in store.47 It

remains to be seen if Senate Democrats will garner a sufficient number of Republican votes to

block any of Trump’s nominees, but few of the new cabinet members are likely to sail smoothly

through the confirmation process.

Policy

Evaluating the policy preferences of President-elect Trump can become akin to shooting

45Tawnell D. Hobbs, “Education Nominee Betsy DeVos: A ‘Disrupter’ Willing to Fight: Trump’s Choice Is a

Prominent Charter-School Advocate and Supporter of School Vouchers,” Wall Street Journal, November 23, 2016; and Valerie Strauss, “Trump’s Choice for Education Secretary Vows to ‘End’ Common Core,” Washington Post, December 10, 2016. There is an additional concern that a political action committee founded by DeVos did not pay a fine imposed by Ohio for illegal contributions during the 2008 campaign. If the fine is paid before the nomination is made official in January, the issue likely will be raised during confirmation hearings but unlikely to affect the vote on DeVos’ nomination. See: Matthew Daly, “Dems: Education nominee DeVos must pay $5.3M election fine,” Washington Post, December 14, 2016.

46 Federal law requires an officer to have been separated from military service for seven years before appointment as secretary of defense. A modification of the law will enable Mattis to accept the appointment despite retiring from the Marine Corps less than four years prior.

47 Damian Paletta, “Donald Trump’s Nominees Are Likely to Face Heavy Senate Vetting: Cabinet Picks Have Been Named Without Extensive Reviews of Their Background and Financial Records, People Familiar with the Process Say,” Wall Street Journal, December 14, 2016.

26

skeet—the target is always moving. Clearly, the constant changing of positions comes from two

distinct factors: Trump is continually learning the nuances of public policy as he prepares to

govern instead of running a campaign for office and he sees the job of president as that of “deal-

maker” rather than as a bureaucratic leader. As a deal-maker, he actively takes “first positions”

in negotiations. These are not the outcomes he anticipates or perhaps even wants. But rather,

they are starting points in negotiations. Because of this, it is impossible to know what the

president-elect’s real policy goals might be. Trump sees himself as “negotiator-in-chief” as he

repeatedly said during the campaign.

Most dramatically, this strategy is revealed in foreign policy. Note Trump’s words about

how to deal with the Islamic State (ISIS) in his first major speech on foreign policy during the

campaign:

And then there’s ISIS. I have a simple message for them. Their days are numbered. I won’t tell them where and I won’t tell them how. We must as a nation be more unpredictable. We are totally predictable. We tell everything. We’re sending troops. We tell them. We’re sending something else. We have a news conference. We have to be unpredictable. And we have to be unpredictable starting now.48

While this statement suggests an approach in just one arena of policy, it reflects a more general

characteristic that Trump believes he possesses: that of a master deal-maker. To be successful in

deal making, the partner in negotiation is greatly disadvantaged if (a) there is no clear agenda for

the opponent and (b) there are potentially negative outcomes if the deal goes awry. Because of

his understanding that deal-making is the primary duty of the president, Trump is comfortable

sending out conflicting clues as to his real goals, obfuscating his true purposes, and taking

extreme positions rhetorically to keep his opponents off balance in negotiations and fearful of the

48 “Transcript: Donald Trump’s Foreign Policy Speech,” New York Times, April 27, 2016.

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possible negative consequences that Trump might pursue if no deal is reached.

Trump’s understanding of the office of the presidency, then, places him in an unusual

position, combining elements of a Neustadtian understanding of the president as using

persuasion to bargain with political competitors and a going public strategy, often through his

short statements delivered on his Twitter account. In a “bargaining model” of politics such as

advocated by Richard Neustadt, presidents should keep their public positons vague and hold out

information until it can be used most advantageously: “He makes his personal impact by the

things he says and does. Accordingly, his choices of what he should say and do, and how and

when, are his means to conserve and tap the sources of his power.”49 Trump embraces this

element of the bargaining model. But for Neustadt, the primary rules of being successful in

bargaining are the “public prestige” and “professional reputation” of the president. Prestige has

to with how the public perceives the president, and with Trump’s low public approval and

favorability ratings and roughshod style, he risks being unable to bridge the polarization within

the American electorate. Professional reputation has to do with how key officials view the

president, such as members of Congress, governors, military leaders, leading politicians, and

leaders of foreign nations. Here again, Trump has done little to reach across the aisle to gain

support from Democrats or to reach out to the international community to develop a cooperative

foreign policy.

In contrast, a “going public strategy” is one where the president seeks to invoke his

influence on citizens who in turn will influence their elected representatives, most notably in

Congress, to support the president on his policy initiatives.50 Going public is first dependent on

49 Neustadt, Presidential Power, p. 150. 50 Samuel Kernell, Going Public: New Strategies of Presidential Leadership, 4th edition (Washington, D.C.: CQ

Press, 2007).

28

the president being able to deliver negative consequences on those who do not support him. But

in the polarized environment of American politics, where few members of Congress live in

competitive districts and are almost universally more popular in their districts than Donald

Trump, who won the Electoral College vote but lost the popular vote, the president might not be

able to mount a credible threat to his political adversaries. Second, going public violates a vital

principle of bargaining: taking a public position on an issue precludes negotiating away from that

position. The most notable example of the liability of going public is perhaps the promise that

George H.W. Bush made at the 1988 Republican Convention not to increase taxes, when he

famously promised “Read my lips. No new taxes.” Later, in dealing with a Democratic

Congress, he negotiated a deal that included new taxes, thus jeopardizing his credibility with the

American public and opening the door for Bill Clinton’s election in 1992. While Bush might

have been successful in negotiating a deal using Neustadt’s bargaining model, because he had

gone public on the issue of taxes, the deal lessened his prestige.

Trump’s leadership style wishes to use the Neustadt bargaining model, but does so

through “going public.” In his case, he sends out “first positions” on issues by making sweeping

promises of changes: building a wall between the United States and Mexico and making Mexico

pay for it, banning all Muslims from entering the United States for a period of time, repealing the

Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) in its entirety, and backing away from the one China policy

stand are but a few examples. Later, Trump might take more nuanced approaches to these

issues.51 Such morphing of positions risks losing credibility by stepping back from positions that

his most loyal supporters saw as key to his candidacy. Trump clearly thinks that his unique

51 Jose’ A. DelReal, “Trump and advisers hedge on major pledges, including Obamacare and the wall,”

Washington Post, November 11, 2016.

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talents as a leader will allow him to take multiple public positions as a basic tactic of negotiation

without suffering the consequences of losing his prestige and professional reputation.

A major question is how well this will play in the long run. In a world that values

transparency and consistency, and in a nation that values democratic values, can “governing by

chaos” and misinformation play well as negotiations necessarily involve backing away from

positions he has made publicly? For Trump, misdirection might be a basic element of his public

positions, but might the public tire of a president who makes contradictory statements over time

on many of the most critical issues confronting the nation?

Can his approach, that of a real estate developer who has always been about making

profits (as is the case with nearly all business transactions) translate well into pursuing the public

interest, where many other issues—fairness, healthy environment, equality, as so forth—are also

important issues? Clearly, for example, negotiation of trade agreements is a complex process.

While Trump widely panned the deals that the United States has entered into during the last two

decades, most explicitly the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the North American Free Trade

Agreement (NAFTA), his criticism was directed primarily at the impact those pacts have had and

might have on the American economy. Leaving aside the question of whether those agreements

are good for American business, political elements inevitably enter into trade agreements. For

example, there are environmental concerns, issues regarding labor laws, and concern for

international military security problems. All of these also are included in trade deals. One major

issue, for example, that might be an immediate consequence of abandoning the TPP is “one of

China rushing forward to lead the world’s next trade agreement, with U.S. allies such as

30

Australia and Japan in tow.”52 Trade deals represent but one major difference between business

leadership and political leadership—many elements beyond business and profit come into play.

At a minimum, the Trump administration must adapt to the public sector environment.

Will his approach play well in working with Congress that, while controlled by

Republicans who want to work with the new president, also will jealously protect the

prerogatives of the legislative branch? The lessons of recent history suggest that there will be a

bumpy road for Trump in his relationships with Congress. Though there are signs that Trump

has begun to develop better relationships with leaders in Congress, especially Speaker of the

House Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, their reluctance to support him

during the campaign cannot be put aside completely (though Trump’s naming of McConnell’s

wife Elaine Chao to the Transportation post might help a bit). Jimmy Carter was another

outsider president who came to Washington with high hopes of changing the environment in the

nation’s capital. Although he did not propose to “drain the swamp” as Trump did, Carter

presented himself as an honest leader in a nation still reeling from the dishonesty of Watergate.

“I’ll never lie to you” he said repeatedly in criticism of the corruption and the “normal politics”

of Washington, D.C. And he soon found that among his harshest critics were Congressional

leaders of his own party pushing back in part against what they saw as his naive piety. While he

had some legislative success in his first year, not surprisingly given Democratic majorities in

both chambers of Congress, congressional scholar Charles O. Jones concluded that “No modern

president had experienced as difficult a first year with Congress as did Jimmy Carter.”53 Clearly,

52 William Mauldin and David Luhnow, Donald Trump Poised to Pressure Mexico on Trade, Wall Street

Journal, November 21, 2016; and Ann Swanson, “Trump just announced he would abandon the TPP on day one. This is what happens next,” Washington Post, November 22, 2016.

53 Charles O. Jones, The Trusteeship Presidency: Jimmy Carter and the United States Congress (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988), p. 153.

31

Carter is a different personality than Trump, but their similar goals of coming in as outsiders to

change the atmosphere in Washington pose difficulties in dealing with the ultimate Washington

insiders, the leaders of Congress. A classic illustration of the complexities that Trump faces in

Congress is the issue of the filibuster in the Senate. It is, arguably, the single biggest barricade in

Washington to Trump accomplishing his policy agenda and the Republican majority could

abandon it in favor of simple majority governance. Yet, among the strongest supporters of the

technique are senior Republicans in the Senate, including Orrin Hatch and Lindsey Graham.

Says Hatch: “I’m one of the biggest advocates for the filibuster. It’s the only way to protect the

minority, and we’ve been in the minority a lot more than we’ve been in the majority. It’s just a

great, great protection for the minority.” And Graham chimes in that any attempt to end the

filibuster is “a horrible, terrible idea.”54 In other words, having been in Congress for many years,

Republican leaders take a long view of politics while Trump, like other presidents before him,

want to do as Lyndon Johnson recommended: “strike while the iron is hot.” The key point is that

Trump will find the institutional prerogatives of Congress frustrating and little sympathy from

Senate Republicans for altering rules simply to benefit his administration.

And can it work in an environment controlled not by business ethics, but rather by fairly

well defined constitutional constraints? Trump has never had to answer even to a board of

trustees in his time in business—his business has been a one-man show. But the constitutional

constraints of Washington limit presidential action. Harry Truman commented as Dwight

Eisenhower prepared to assume office that the new president would find politics in Washington

difficult: “He’ll sit here, and he’ll say, ‘Do this! Do that!’ And nothing will happen. Poor Ike—

54 Ed Kilgore, “Two Senior Republican Senators Say the Filibuster Must Stay,” New York, November 18, 2016.

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it won’t be a bit like the Army. He’ll find it very frustrating.”55 In the constitutional context,

Trump might find that his instincts often run directly into limits beyond his control. For

example, soon after the election, Trump expressed his opposition to the ability of citizens to burn

the American flag as an act of political protest, clearly not appreciating that there was a bright-

line Supreme Court decision to the contrary. And he said, speaking to a police association in

2015, that “One of the first things I’d do in terms of executive order, if I win, will be to sign a

strong, strong statement that would go out to the country . . . anybody killing a police officer, the

death penalty is going to happen.” Such a statement might play well to an audience, but ignores

the federal nature of criminal law and the procedures of due process.56 In similarly strident

language, Trump has threatened to use presidential power to jeopardize the independence of the

judiciary and the press in violations of central tenets such as separation of powers and the First

Amendment. One scholar has noted the following: “The very notion that there are government

agencies that operate independently of presidential whim seems alien to Trump.”57

One clear theme is this paper is that “personnel is policy.” For a president-elect who is

elusive in his policy preferences, the personnel he chooses to appoint might be the best hints at

his policy priorities in certain arenas of policy as they are the “symbolic show window” of which

Richard Fenno wrote.58 In Trump’s notion of the presidency as “deal-maker,” his nominees

55 Neustadt, Presidential Power, p. 9. 56 Adam Liptak, “Trump v. the Constitution,” New York Times, November 29, 2016. 57 Peter Binart, “Trump’s Indifference to the Constitution, The Atlantic, October 19, 2016. Another issue

related to Trump’s leadership has to do with the “emoluments clause” of Article I of the Constitution. That clause bans conflicts of interests between public officials and foreign nations. Trump’s business interests provide the biggest challenge to the emoluments clause in U.S. history but are not directly related to his policy agenda. See Norman Eisen, Richard Painter, and Lawrence H. Tribe, The Emoluments Clause: It’s Text, Meaning, and Application to Donald Trump, Washington, D.C.: Brookings, December 16, 2016; https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-emoluments-clause-its-text-meaning-and-application-to-donald-j-trump/

58 Fenno, The President’s Cabinet, p. 82.

33

might be seen as representatives of first positions rather than finished policy proposals. Clearly,

Trump’s naming of corporate CEOs for major positions (Tillerson at State, Mnuchin at Treasury,

Ross at Commerce, Puzder at Labor, and DeVos at Education) indicate that he finds comfort in

policy-making using a corporate style as opposed to a traditional coalition-building political

style, and his comfort with generals (Mattis at Defense, Kelly at Homeland Security, and Flynn

at the National Security Council) indicate a comfort with a military style command structure.

Those appointments might foreshadow a decision-making style but they offer little in the way of

understanding policy preferences.

However, Trump has made a number of appointments that are far more direct in

suggesting his policy preferences in several policy areas. These appointees too are part of the

Trump strategy to disrupt things in Washington, and they are intended, according to Andrew

Card, who held White House and cabinet positions in the last two Republican administrations,

“to make the governing people uncomfortable. . . He clearly picked people to lead some of these

departments who will be challenging to the insiders.”59 They might represent his approach to

governing well, but they also might represent “first positions” in his notion of negotiating public

policy:

• Tom Price, Trump’s Health and Human Services Department nominee, is a medical

doctor who is one of Congress’s most outspoken critics of the Affordable Care Act

(Obamacare). He also wishes to pursue responding to the conservative religious

community’s objections to the requirement that employers provide contraception

coverage to their employees. In 2010, Price questioned the need for health insurers to

59 Michael D. Shear, “Outsiders Selected by Trump Aim to Unnerve Washington,” New York Times, December

17, 2016.

34

offer birth control at no cost, saying he didn’t believe there were women who

couldn’t afford coverage. He could perhaps end enforcement of that provision

through immediate executive action without Congressional approval and without

repeal of Obamacare as a whole.60 He has unfailingly supported the interests of the

medical profession, and especially its financial interests, since coming to Congress.

One of his critics has suggested that “Instead of having a secretary for the people, you

have a secretary for the medical profession.”61

• Andrew Puzder, nominated to head the Labor Department, is an outspoken critic of a

federal minimum wage and federal regulations extending worker overtime pay

benefits. In a department that has traditionally been seen as one to advocate for labor

interests within the federal bureaucracy, Puzder, a CEO of a fast food chain that often

pays low wages, offers a hint that the corporate management perspective, rather than

a labor perspective, will dominate that department. “Perhaps the biggest question

surrounding Mr. Puzder is how he would be perceived as a wealthy chief executive

charged with looking out for worker’s interests.” While supporters argue that Puzder

“is more nuanced than people want to give him credit for,” under traditional views of

business/management relationships, having a CEO in charge of the interests of labor

is a chilling prospect.62

60 Lesley Clark, “Trump Choice for HHS Secretary Could Repeal Free Birth Control without Act of Congress,”

Fort Worth Star Telegram, November 30, 2016. 61 Christina Jewett and Marisa Taylor, “Price poised to protect doctors’ interests at HHS, USA Today, December

8, 2016. 62 Noam Schieber, “Trump’s Labor Pick, Andrew Puzder, Is a Critic of Minimum Wage Increases, New York

Times, December 8, 2016; Melanie Trottman, Julie Jargo, and Michael C. Bender, “Trump Picks Fast-Food Executive Andy Puzder as Nominee for Labor Secretary,” Wall Street Journal, December 8, 2016.

35

• Three senior-level Trump selections—Interior Secretary-designate Ryan Zinke,

Energy Secretary-designate Rick Perry, and Environment Protection Agency

administrator Scott Pruitt—have records that suggest policies friendly to traditional

energy sectors such as coal and petroleum production. Zinke’s voting record during

his time in Congress has been described as favoring increased resource extraction on

public lands and decreased regulation on industry.63 As a presidential candidate Perry

once proposed abolishing the Department of Energy and as governor of Texas he

advocated decreased regulation.64 As attorney general of Oklahoma, Pruitt repeatedly

has sued the Obama administration on climate-related issues.65 Perry and Pruitt are

on record as questioning the science on man-made climate change. Together these

appointments herald significant changes in energy and environmental policies in

Trump’s administration.

• Representative Mick Mulvaney, designated to be director of the Office of

Management and Budget, is considered a fiscal hawk who will press for reductions in

federal government spending. Associated with the conservative House Freedom

Caucus, Mulvaney was among the representatives opposing deals between

Republican leaders and President Obama to raise the government’s debt ceiling,

advocates a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution, and challenged former-

63 Jonathan Lemire, “Trump Picks His Interior Chief, a Supporter of More Drilling,” Washington Post,

December 15, 2016. 64 The authors have noted that Perry was something of an “omnivore” in terms of energy policy in Texas when

he served as governor. Under his leadership, Texas became a leading state in the development of wind energy. Perry’s primary focus was on economic development, and that emphasis persuaded him to endorse renewable energy. Alex Daugherty, “Rick Perry turned Texas into a wind powerhouse by getting out of the way,” Fort Worth Star Telegram, December 16, 2016.

65 Chris Mooney, Brady Dennis and Steven Mufson, “Trump Names Scott Pruitt, Oklahoma Attorney General

Suing EPA on Climate Change, to Head the EPA,” Washington Post, December 8, 2016.

36

Speaker John Boehner.66 Nonpartisan analysts are skeptical that Trump’s budget

proposals will reduce the budget as he claims; Mulvaney will be on the vanguard of

the administration’s efforts to enact those proposals.

• Betsy DeVos, nominated to head the Department of Education, is an ultra-

conservative advocate of school choice. She neither attended public schools nor has

experience teaching or administering schools. Instead, she has been a tireless

advocate for developing charter schools, often run by for-profit companies, and

offering government vouchers to families who send their children to private schools.

One critic has said that what drives her educational perspective “has been her

conviction that any nontraditional public school is better than a traditional one,

simply because it is not operated by government.” In other words, she has little

connection to traditional notions of public education, clearly preferring creating

incentives that prefer private initiatives.67

• Retired General Michael T. Flynn, who Trump has named national security advisor

(among the few major offices in the cabinet or Executive Office of the President not

requiring Senate confirmation), is known as an extreme hardliner on foreign policy

issues. He has convinced the president-elect that the United States war on with

Islamist militants requires working “with any willing allies in the fight, including

66 Abby Phillip, “Trump Names Rep. Mick Mulvaney, a Fiscal Hawk, to Head Budget Office,” Washington

Post, December 17, 2016; Nick Timiraos and Peter Nicholas, “Donald Trump to Nominate Rep. Mick Mulvaney as Budget Director,” Wall Street Journal, December 17, 2016.

67 Mark Landler and Maggie Haberman, “Trump Diversifies Cabinet; Picks Nikki Haley and Betsy DeVos,” New York Times, November 23, 2016; Rebecca Mead, “Betsy DeVos and the Plan to Break Public Schools,” The New Yorker, December 14, 2016.

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President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.”68 He is a leader in nurturing Trump’s desire

to resist advice from the foreign policy establishment and has gained prominence “by

fueling conspiracy theories and Islamophobic rhetoric that critics warn could create

serious distractions—or alienate allies and embolden enemies—if it continues.”69

• David M. Friedman, nominated as Ambassador to Israel, brings a hard line stance to

Middle East policy. While that position is not of cabinet rank, it is an important

signal regarding American policy in that important region. Friedman is an advocate

for settlements on the West Bank and for moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.

Both positions fuel conflict in the area and abandon long-standing U.S. policy,

notions that do not bother Friedman who has asserted that Jews who support a two-

state solution are “worse than kapos,” a reference to Jews who were assigned by

Nazis to supervise forced labor in concentration camps.70

These appointees signal clear advocacies in specific policy arenas. They suggest a

president with a strong conservative agenda in those areas with a disregard for long-standing

policies, in some cases bipartisan policies, and a desire to “shake up” politics in Washington.

More than other recent presidencies, these appointments signal a president who wants his

transition into office to be a disruption of politics as usual. Donald Trump’s approach to policy

promises might be characterized as serpentine—intended to bring surprise twists to the political

68 Matthew Rosenberg and Maggie Haberman, “Michael Flynn, Anti-Islamist Ex-General, Offered Security

Post, Trump Aide Says,” New York Times, November 17, 2016. 69Steve Peoples, “Critics worry after Trump security chief fuels conspiracies, Fort Worth Star Telegram,

December 7, 2016. 70 Karen DeYoung, “Trump Picks a Supporter of West Bank Settlements for Ambassador to Israel,”

Washington Post, December 15, 2016.

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process. But substantively, Trump has allied himself with conservative elements in the

Republican Party.

Conclusion

Donald Trump’s campaign for the White House was remarkable for its flaunting of many

of the customs of modern presidential elections. Similarly, Trump’s transition into office breaks

from practices of recent presidents-elect. The challenges of an interparty transition for Donald

Trump are in many ways be similar to those of Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton,

Ronald Reagan, and Jimmy Carter. But as an outsider president like none before him, Trump

has chosen not to build an administration of veterans of the Bush administration, perhaps in part

because many Bush veterans resent Trump’s rhetorical treatment of his Republican predecessor.

The usual pool of candidates for high-level positions in many instances has been passed over in

favor of men and women who have no experience in government or who are hostile to the

missions of the departments and agencies they have been chosen to lead. The most definitive

signals on a Trump administration’s policy preferences are found among his appointees who

favor conservative policies. And yet Trump’s habit of stating strong, even outlandish, policy

positions and then retreating to more convention conservative positions leave observers

pondering what the president-elect’s true policy agenda might be.

Having a Republican Congress predisposed to accepting Trump’s agenda is an asset that

cannot be overstated. But Trump’s rocky relationship with congressional leaders poses the

possibility of tensions between the White House and Capitol Hill not unlike those of the Carter

presidency, when an outsider president failed to work effectively with a Congress controlled by

his party.

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The lessons of past presidents aid a new president preparing to govern. Yet Trump has

been consistently dismissive of any notion that useful lessons can be learned from previous

occupants of the White House. His open desire to disrupt politics in America will without

question lead to some innovation in the conduct of the presidential office. Clearly, as is the case

with all incoming presidents, Donald Trump faces significant challenges as he enters office but

also has the gift of a new beginning. As observers have long argued, a fresh start by a new

president opens opportunities for success, and Mr. Trump has demonstrated that underestimating

his abilities is a mistake. However, success is made possible both by innovation and by avoiding

the mistakes of predecessors. Whether the Trump experiment is one of sophisticated method or

one tht may reveal a madness is an open question. The type of student Trump might be remains a

mystery to be revealed in the coming months.

Appendix Major Executive Branch Appointees of the Trump Administration

(December 17, 2016) Cabinet Department Nominee Experience State Rex Tillerson Businessman (ExxonMobil)

Treasury Steven Mnuchin Businessman (Goldman Sachs), campaign advisor Defense James Mattis Military (retired U.S. Marine Corps general)

Justice Jeff Sessions U.S. Senator (AL), Alabama attorney general Interior Ryan Zinke U.S. Representative (MT), state legislator, career U.S. Navy officer Agriculture to be determined

Commerce Wilbur Ross Businessman (investor) Labor Andrew Puzde Businessman (CKE Restaurants)

Health and Human Services Tom Price U.S. Representative (GA), state legislator Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson Physician, presidential candidate

Transportation Elaine Chao Secretary of Labor, Deputy Secretary of Transportation, businesswoman

Energy Rick Perry Governor (TX), presidential candidate, businessman Education Betsy DeVos Businesswoman, Republican Party activist

Veterans Affairs to be determined Homeland Security John Kelly Military (retired U.S. Marine Corps general)

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Executive Office of the President and White House staff Position Appointee Experience Chief of staff Reince Priebus Republican National Committee chairman

Senior advisor Stephen Bannon Campaign advisor Assistant, National Security Affairs Michael Flynn Military (retired U.S. Army lieutenant general)

US Trade Representative Dan DiMicco Businessman United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley Governor (SC)

Director, National Intelligence to be determined Director, CIA Mike Pompeo U.S. Representative (KS)

Assistant, Economic Affairs Gary Cohn Businessman (Goldman Sachs) Director, OMB Mick Mulvaney U.S. Representative (SC), state legislator

Chair, Council of Economic Advisors to be determined Assistant, Domestic Policy to be determined

Legal Counsel Don McGahn EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt State attorney general (OK), state legislator