Trump machine churns out plans for transition; campaign team smooths out bumps of 2016

Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign is more of a well-oiled machine than his first scattershot bid when he learned on the fly and threw together an operation that ignored the traditional nuts and bolts of running for president.

The more professional nature of his campaign’s structure and the legwork his allies are putting in to prepare for a presidential transition is setting the stage for a far less chaotic scene if Mr. Trump seizes the nomination and then returns to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

The America First Policy Institute, a think tank founded in 2021 to promote Mr. Trump’s policies, is doing some of the heavy lifting through a transition project launched last year. Doug Hoelscher and Mike Rigas, a couple of Trump administration alumni, are leading the initiative.

They are tasked with drawing up a Day One road map that allows Mr. Trump — or whoever the conservative nominee is — to hit the ground running when it comes to filling posts, carving out policy and advancing the America First policy vision.

“This unique, experienced, never-before-assembled team has developed the playbook of how a new America First Administration can begin operations to save this country on Day One,” said J. Hogan Gidley, vice chair for the Center for Election Integrity and senior adviser for communications at the America First Policy Institute. “We are grateful to others in the arena who’ve been around for a long time doing the vital clerical work of compiling resumes needed to staff AFPI’s new, innovative Transition Project for 2025.” 

Mr. Hoelscher, who served as director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs in the Trump administration, said the plan marks a seismic shift from 2016, when preparation for a Trump administration started less than four months before Election Day.

“I think us being around and being in this space has caused other people to have more pep in their step, and that is a good thing because if you look back at transitions, historically the left has done a much better job of being prepared to govern,” he said.

Mr. Hoelscher said President Biden was ready to staff 1,200 positions and signed 19 executive orders into law during his first 48 hours in office. Mr. Trump, meanwhile, had 500 people ready to go and signed a single executive order.

“We’re working on that,” he said. “We’re writing draft executive actions right now. We are working on legislative packages and working with a variety of folks on that.

“We have experienced practitioners, people have been in the trenches, what we call ‘Wise Warriors,’ that have been in government,” he said. “They know how it works and how it doesn’t. They know how to get things done [and] how to avoid the land mines.”

The Trump campaign also has matured.

Mr. Trump has had more seasoned political hands leading the charge, including Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, the mastermind behind the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth attacks against Democratic nominee John Kerry in the 2004 presidential race.

The Trump team announced this month that it had collected more than 27,500 pledge cards from Iowa voters — more than in 2016. What’s more important, the Trump camp is intent on doing something it failed to do in 2016: follow up with those voters before the caucuses to make sure they turn out.

Mr. Trump plans to deliver remarks at a “commit-to-caucus” event on Wednesday in Iowa.

That sense of professionalism was lacking when Mr. Trump took the oath of office in 2017 surrounded by a motley crew of campaign loyalists and a few more established Republican Party players. The group, which included the likes of Steve Bannon and former Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus, struggled to corral Mr. Trump and put forward a unified vision, but they often wound up in his doghouse.

Indeed, Mr. Trump set a modern-day bar for administrative turnover, said Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, a fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution who tracks turnover at the White House.

“President Trump’s turnover was off the charts. It was just an outlier,” Ms. Tenpas said.

On the one hand, Ms. Tenpas said, it is normal for the White House to be a revolving door because of the grueling nature of the work and the high levels of burnout.

On the other hand, she said, the Trump White House was filled with more “drama related to personnel,” and the president would “publicly fire individuals and do so frequently.”

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson learned that he was fired on Twitter. Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper also got canned in a tweet.

Ms. Tenpas’ tally shows that Mr. Trump burned through 92% of his executive staff over four years. Most of the departures were during his first two years on the job.

He also lost 14 of his Cabinet members, including three chiefs of staff — Mr. Priebus, John Kelly and Mick Mulvaney — and blew through security advisers and press secretaries.

That was far more than his predecessors. President Obama lost three Cabinet members and 71% of his executive employees over his first four years. Mr. Biden has had 58% turnover among the senior-level executive staff and lost a Cabinet member.

The turnover in the Trump administration has provided ammunition for critics who warn that a second Trump term would be just as messy as the first. 

“Who is he going to hire: Rudy Guilliani, Sidney Powell and John Eastman?” said Bill Palatucci, a longtime adviser to 2024 Republican presidential contender Chris Christie, a top Trump critic. “If he is lucky enough to be president again, most of the staff will be serving because they got a federal pardon.”

Those questions will continue to swirl around the Trump campaign operation over the coming months as the former president looks to navigate 91 felony charges and fend off a field of rivals who say it is time to move on from the Trump-inspired drama.

Yet the efforts to slow him have failed.

Mr. Trump dominates polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, the leadoff states in the nomination contest.

Jim Merrill, a New Hampshire-based Republican Party strategist who helped lead Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign, said Mr. Trump is running a more polished show.

“In 2016, it kind of felt like they were building the airplane when it was taking off from the runway,” Mr. Merrill said. “I think they are better organized, both from a grassroots standpoint and from a communication standpoint.”

Mr. Merrill said it remains to be seen whether the newfound strength of the Trump campaign is a harbinger of a less-chaotic second term in office.

“I wouldn’t write it off, but I am certainly not prepared to make that leap right now,” he said. “With Trump, the one thing we have learned from him over the last 8 years is expect the unexpected.”