Obama didn't want a 'what now' moment if he won. Trump didn't plan and now we have chaos.
In April 2008, then-Sen. Barack Obama tasked me to start planning for a possible presidential transition. Even for a politician who had called one of his books “The Audacity of Hope,” this was pretty audacious. At the time, Obama was waging a hard-fought primary contest against Hillary Clinton. If he prevailed, there would be five months of general election campaigning.
In discussing the need for early preparation, our conversation turned to the 1972 film “The Candidate,” in which a political novice wins an improbable race for the Senate. After his victory, in the final scene, the candidate (played by Robert Redford) turns to his campaign manager and says, “What do we do now?”
Obama didn’t want to be that kind of candidate, especially since our transition would be the first transfer of power after the 9/11 attacks. That’s why planning for an Obama presidential transition began six months before Election Day 2008 and continued for 77 days afterwards until he took the oath of office on Inauguration Day.
New reporting by Axios shows how another candidate with long odds barely planned at all. And then he won.
Based on a leak of over 100 documents evaluating potential personnel selections, the Axios report reveals that Donald Trump’s 2016 transition was hampered by disorganization, inadequate personnel screening and missed red flags about ethical issues and conflicts of interest. Adding to the dysfunction was Chris Christie’s dismissal as transition head three days after Trump’s victory and the disposal of his transition plan.
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According to Axios, Trump’s personnel vetting operation relied heavily on inexperienced Republican National Committee researchers in their 20s. These researchers often had no idea what jobs they were vetting people for and faced tight deadlines to vet candidates chosen by Trump on a whim. In follow-up reporting, one unidentified staffer involved in the vetting told Axios that the process was “a clown show“ and another described it as "a disaster," with “so many unqualified people coming through.”
When these junior researchers did raise red flags about potential nominees, the problems were often ignored by President-elect Trump.
Unlike Trump, we recruited proven people
In contrast, Obama’s 2008-09 transition took a methodical approach focused on the three P’s: People, Policy and Process. We identified the people who could occupy more than 4,000 political positions in the White House and federal agencies. We drafted the policies that would translate our campaign promises into legislation and regulation. We put in place the processes — ethics, transparency and accountability — that would guide the work of the administration. And we did all of this while facing the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression.
We had a team of experienced vetting attorneys whose work was supplemented by: personnel reviews conducted by nominee John Kerry’s 2004 transition team; materials prepared by outside attorneys with deep subject matter expertise; a 63-item nominee questionnaire requesting detailed legal and financial information and previous public statements; and FBI background investigations that had begun before Election Day.
Our selection process was helped by the fact that many of the people considered for senior positions had already been scrutinized as elected officials. For instance, Obama’s first Cabinet included four governors, two senators, three House members and the mayor of a large city. Other senior-level nominees had gone through the Senate confirmation process during the Clinton administration.
We vetted first, announced names later
In addition to an exhaustive check of records and statements, prospective nominees were interviewed by a vetting attorney, who typically ended the interview with this question: “Is there anything you haven’t disclosed that might be embarrassing to you or the president?” The answers to this final question — and the willingness of the nominee to share these answers — were often telling.
Personnel appointments were almost never announced by Obama until the vetting was complete, and it was not unusual for a potential nominee or appointee to withdraw from consideration when a problem was identified.
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Despite our best efforts, not every personnel issue was identified in advance. In January 2009, the Cabinet nominations of both Tim Geithner and Tom Daschle ran into trouble due to previously unpaid taxes. Geithner ended up getting confirmed; Daschle did not.
The Obama personnel process certainly was not fast, and not every pick worked out as we thought. But the overwhelming majority of nominees did work out, and we ran a government remarkably free of drama and scandal.
As the country moves into another presidential season, it’s notable how little attention is paid to a candidate’s ability to assemble a team to manage the federal government. Yet the past 2 1/2 years have made clear that chaos and dysfunction in preparing for the presidency often lead to chaos and dysfunction in running the government.
Chris Lu, a senior fellow at the University of Virginia Miller Center, was executive director of the Obama-Biden presidential transition in 2008-09. Follow him on Twitter: @ChrisLu44
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Obama didn't want a 'what now' moment if he won. Trump didn't plan and now we have chaos.
