Whoever wins the presidential race on Nov. 5 will have 76 days to complete a complicated and massive effort to take over the federal government from outgoing President Joe Biden. That process has already begun for Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. While most of the attention will fall on what the president-elect is doing, some scrutiny may fall on Biden’s transition out of office, including on how his team handles classified documents. In this series, the Washington Examiner will look at the challenges ahead for all three leaders’ transitions. Part one will look at Harris’s transition effort.
Vice President Kamala Harris 's incumbency does not mean her transition into the presidency will be easy, a process that is poised to be complicated by the reality of two wars and the politics of being a nominee who did not take part in a proper primary.
Harris's transition will also be different from that of President Joe Biden , which was delayed in 2020 amid former President Donald Trump 's election denials.
Max Stier, the president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service and its Center for Presidential Transition, described Harris's transition as a "hybrid" between that of an incumbent and challenger because although she is the vice president, it is not her administration.
"The only modern, similar example is the transition from Ronald Reagan to George H. W. Bush in 1988 and ... most people prior to the transition from [Barack] Obama to Trump would have said that it was the most difficult transition of modern times," he told the Washington Examiner. "Just because you've gone from same party to same party or sitting vice president to president, that doesn't make it a piece of cake."
That is because there has been an average of 20% turnover in the roughly 4,000 political appointees between the first and second terms of recent former presidents, but the turnover rate for Reagan to Bush was 50%.
"The fundamental issue is that anybody who's coming in to be president, ultimately, is going to want to put their own stamp on our government," Stier said. "There was an expectation from a lot of people that the Bush election meant a third Reagan term, and that is not what former President Bush was expecting or wanting."
Virginia Tech political science professor Karen Hult, a transition expert, agreed with Steir's Reagan-Bush analogy, contending Bush had to conduct "a diplomatic effort" with the Republican Party and Congress during his transition.
"Vice President Harris will have that kind of challenge, probably many times over, because of her late arrival on the ticket and not having made a lot of these connections over time," Hult told the Washington Examiner. "The change in presidential terms from first term to second term, a whole range of political appointees want to leave anyway. They've taken enough personal and financial hits and sacrifices, and they're ready to move on to other things."
Martha Joynt Kumar, the director of the White House Transition Project, cited the faces of national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken and "how they've aged" as evidence for Hult's argument. Blinken himself indicated last month he is unlikely to become a member of the Harris administration.
But Kumar argued Harris is advantaged as an incumbent because there may be Biden administration appointees with whom she "feels comfortable" or who are at "a lower level" but have "impressed her" who she could promote.
Continuity is particularly important for national security and intelligence amid wars in Ukraine and the Middle East , but Harris's administration would ideally be a "mix" of institutional memory and fresh perspectives, possibly including her brother-in-law Tony West, according to Kumar. West was Obama's associate attorney general before becoming the chief legal officer of Uber and is disliked by liberal Democrats, a preview of pressure Harris could come under as president, which she has sidestepped without a primary.
"Her being in office as vice president is a great plus for her, both in knowing what the issues are, knowing what the problems are, what alternatives have been considered," Kumar told the Washington Examiner. "I think she also has an advantage as vice president in establishing relationships with foreign leaders."
Stier, of the Partnership for Public Service, similarly underscored the "enormous value to continuity" because the learning curve for new political appointees is "so steep" and that the confirmation process for them "is broken." Since George W. Bush's administration, the average time it takes to confirm one of the 1,300 political appointees who must have the Senate 's advice and consent has more than doubled, per Stier.
"Anybody you're able to retain from the Biden administration, who's Senate confirmed, does not need to be confirmed again for that same job" is helpful, he said, citing the example of Obama holding over Defense Secretary Bob Gates from the second Bush administration.
Speaking of advice, Hult, of Virginia Tech, added that Harris has been advised by Democrats not to seek the resignation of Biden administration appointees immediately because her appointments could depend on which party controls the Senate. The Republican Party is predicted to be that party based on polls of the Montana Senate race.
In past election years, transitions have been announced in the spring. This spring, Biden and not Harris was the Democratic nominee. But Harris named Yohannes Abraham, the former U.S. representative to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and executive director of Biden's transition, as her transition lead in August, and he has been "moving with dispatch" regarding potential appointees and agency reviews, according to Steir.
"They have a better ability to learn from the mistakes and also the good things that have been done to redesign a government, so the evaluation opportunity is very large," Steir said. "What they should be doing is looking at what's worked, what's not worked, and how can they do better."
"Vice President Harris, as does returning, possibly returning President Trump, have to make a range of decisions," Hult added. "What are my priorities? Where do I want to really focus on? What do I want to change? What do I want to keep going without losing too many steps? And in the midst of all of this, there are the natural disasters and a whole range of homeland and national security kinds of concerns that are going on."
Since August, the Harris transition has signed memorandums of understanding with the General Services Administration , the federal agency that manages transitions and was criticized after the 2020 election for not originally recognizing Biden's win, and the White House. The Electoral Count Act was amended in 2022 to rescind the GSA administrator's power to decide access to federal agencies and transition funds.
The GSA memorandum of understanding provides the Harris transition with government office space and infrastructure, including computer equipment, email addresses, and IT support, while the White House memorandum of understanding promises agency access and briefings. The Trump transition has not signed either memorandum of understanding after the former president alleged the onetime special counsel Robert Mueller illegally obtained his transition emails as part of the federal Russia investigation.
The GSA memorandum of understanding also restricts transition fundraising, but the Trump transition's refusal to sign it could present "real challenges" for the former president to be "ready on day one" because "it's connected" to the pre-clearance for his personnel and their ability to be properly briefed, Steir said.
For Kumar, Harris's transition will likely "mirror" that of Biden's because White House chief of staff Jeff Zients is the head of the White House Transition Coordinating Council and Abraham is a Biden transition alumnus. In 2020, the Biden transition held what it termed "a Saturday morning call" for campaign aides and transition officials, in addition to Zoom calls for its agency reviews, so it could "expand the number of people that could participate in them," she said.
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But regardless of the changes to the Electoral Count Act, to Hult, Harris also should be prepared "for a whole range of responses" from Trump and Republicans if she does win the election after Jan. 6 .
"That's a concern probably on both sides, both the Trump side and the Harris side, because the norms of a peaceful transition for the very first time in history were, of course, disrupted last time around," she said. "There's contingency planning going on right now."
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