OPINION:
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who was running for president, announced in April 2012 that he was starting up a “readiness team,” headed by former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt and Chris Liddell (who would later reappear in the Trump administration). The readiness team — hailed at the time as highly organized and efficient — was designed to prepare for a Romney administration that never happened.
In May 2016, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump appointed former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie as head of his transition team, intended to plan for the transfer of power in the event Mr. Trump won the election that November.
Mr. Christie and his team carefully prepared for the potential transfer — developing plans, identifying candidates for jobs and tracking the actions taken by the outgoing Obama administration in its waning days. That effort turned out to be wasted, as the president-elect’s team decided in the wake of his victory to head in an entirely different direction. Mr. Christie’s team was sacked and replaced by people who in many cases had less than a plenary understanding of the federal government, how it worked and where the relevant leverage points might be.
Mr. Christie himself was replaced by Vice President-elect Mike Pence. Adviser Steve Bannon made a point of throwing out the briefing books that the transition team had created. Registered lobbyists on the team were asked to resign, and other registered lobbyists were recruited to help with the confirmations of Cabinet secretaries. Personnel selection was slow. On Inauguration Day, fewer than a dozen Trump appointees were ready to go into most agencies.
In short, what was a measured, informed, robust effort that would have started Mr. Trump’s tenure on a much better trajectory devolved into something less effective.
This is relevant to the current moment. We are about 100 days from Election Day, with early voting in Virginia and Minnesota starting Sept. 20. While there have been rumors of impending announcements, the Trump campaign has yet to identify the leaders, let alone the worker bees, for a transition effort. They are, at this point, about three months behind Mr. Christie’s effort, and four months behind Mr. Liddell’s effort on behalf of Mr. Romney.
The challenge for transition this time will be exacerbated by an unexpectedly energetic Biden administration, which has created hundreds of policy brushfires across the federal government that need to be extinguished. The good news is that a host of skilled, well-informed people are ready to help. In the wake of the 2016 experience, however, they will probably need some specific direction and a belief that the rug underneath them will stay firmly in place.
The other reason to focus on a solid, effective transition is that Mr. Trump will be a lame duck from the moment he takes the oath of office. Time will not be his friend, and a sense of urgency will be imperative. A running start and complete personnel roster will be enormous assets; a lack of either or both will be substantial impediments to a Trump administration’s success. Given the size and scope of the federal government, the work will need to start more or less immediately for such an administration to have anything meaningful and material in place by Jan. 20.
Mr. Trump’s hesitancy to tempt fate by assuming — or even appear to be assuming — victory is understandable. But to borrow from Hesiod, the Greek poet who wrote 700 years before Christ: “Timeliness is best in all matters.” Or as former White House chief of staff James Baker used to preach to those who worked for him, “Prior preparation prevents poor performance.”
• Michael McKenna is a contributing editor at The Washington Times. He worked on the 2016 Trump transition.
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