20th, 2017. mark your calendars and help us spread the word to student film makers. >> now a look at the presidential transition process when two former white house officials in the clinton and bush administrations. they discuss how leadership positions are filled to ensure that the next president is ready to govern on inauguration day. this is an hour. >> people are filing in. i want to thank everyone for coming out today. on behalf of our president thomas burr and the 3,000 members of the national press club i want to thank everyone who braved metro road closings and construction here at the press club for coming out today. and i think one of the reasons we have such a good crowd is to talk about a presidential transition gives people hope that there's light at the end of the tunnel after the long campaign but at the same time i learned that sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is a locomotive coming at you. and so today what we're going to do is we're going to talk about sort of that tunnel. what's going on in terms of presidential transition and what needs to be done to get us to noon on inauguration day. we have a really great panel for this discussion. and so with us today, we have clay johnson who served as the deputy director for omb in the bush white house beginning in 2003 and before that he was an assistant to the president that handled presidential personnel and he was responsible for over 4,000 presidential appointments. we also have thomas, more commonly known as mack, that served as president bill clinton's chief of staff and he experienced the early years of a presidential administration firsthand and the president and ceo of the partnership for public service and through the partnership he has hosted transition conferences in three election cycles and played an active role in planning for this transition. we want to allow time for each of our speakers to speak and have about 20 or 30 minutes for questions afterwards. so without any further adieu, why don't i turn it over to max and he'll be followed by the other speakers. thank you. >> thank you. it's a pleasure to be here and thank you to the extraordinary pan panelists that are part of the advisory board and are themselves public servants. and really i think the vanguard and evangelists around effective transition planning, have done extraordinary work. as you heard from jamie, i'm the president of the partnership for public service. and we are a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization focused on trying to make the federal government work more effectively. we do lots of different things, including the best places to work rankings in the federal government. but we came to the notion about nine years ago that a source point for dysfunction in the government was the presidential transition. and, again, there is an irony here because we all learn as children that the peaceful transfer of power is one of the great things about our country. you're told it's peaceful. but no one told you it's ugly. and usay ugly, it's a phenomenal operation. you think about a $4 trillion organization with 4 million people, hundreds of operating units. and the typical transition has involved at best some substantial activity between the election and the inauguration, which is 70 some odd days, not enough to take over a tiny company, nonetheless the most important critical organization in the planet, probably in the world. so we began this work about nine years ago, taking a look at what needed to change. and that included both legislatively as well as operationally. and it became obviously even more imperative when you think about the world that we live in today, post-9/11 where transition is not only a phenomenally complicated operation, it's not only vital for presidential candidates to be thinking about this, because it in essence is whether it really sets the groundwork whether or not they're going to be able to full the promises they're making on the campaign trail. but it's also a national security imperative. it's the moment of maximum weakness for our government. james clapper, the director of the national intelligence had some chilling comments that he made a couple of weeks ago how in his 53 years doing intelligence work that he has never seen the world scarier. and he likewise presented the point that transition is the point of maximum vulnerability. what is attractive about this topic is there is actually things that can be done about it. it's not one of the things where you look and say oh my god, this is horrible and think that nothing can be done. and in fact, a lot is being done in a very, very important way. and it begins with changing the rules of the road. and there are three laws that have been passed over the course of the last six years. the first of which very importantly moved the data support from after the election to after the convention for transition support. and the reason why that was so essential is one of the things that prevented earlier campaigns from focusing intensely on transition planning was the political risk that they saw in doing so. and they were concerned about being viewed as presumptuous. and job number one obviously is to win. when you're in the campaign, you're not going to do anything at all that might get in the way of it. and this legislation i really opened the floodgates. and you saw four years ago with the romney readiness project a phenomenal effort at preparation, better than i think any had happened before up until the point of the election and no further. and you're seeing today both campaigns operating at a level of intensity that fundamentally has not existed previously. so that's a huge improvement. there is still lots of room for improvement to go here. and i just want to focus on one comment before turning it over to the experts on either side here. and that is with a goal. so one issue really is to get the campaigns to set up a transition apparatus earlier, to start earlier. because if all you have is 70 some odd days, you can't be ready. and you need more. so you increase the runway. but the second piece, and this is something that i bet we hear from clay who is a very, very compelling speaker on this, it's about setting the right goals. and one of the goals ought to be to have your leadership team in place in realtime. and one of the extraordinary things about our system is we have a very large cohort of new political appointees that come in. 4,000 people. and i would they'd if you look across the globe at any democracy, there ain't nothing like it. in my view, an overly large number. in my view it's a vestige of the spoil system and ought to be changed. but that's a longer term issue. it's a very important requirement for new team coming in to be prepared for. of the 4,000, 11 hundred of them have to be senate confirmed. and absolutely 400 or so of those are really the fundamental leaders of the government. and our proposition is that the new teams coming in ought to make sure that they're getting in not just a few people by inauguration, but bluntly, their core leadership team, the top 100 by inauguration. and that 400 plus group by the august recess. and we believe it's doable if you set that as your goal and if you actually work with the senate in order to make that happen. so when we look at what ought to be occurring here and what is feasible, one of the things we would propose is both the transition teams should be setting that as their goal. the senate should be cooperating to make that happen there are some very tactical things that would enable that to occur. and an example would be to imagine bringing in leadership teams at the front end, rather than just the lead over the agency. you look at the data, it's fascinating. on average over two months between when the first person comes into an agency, the secretary usually or the head of the agency and the second person. dial back to 2009. worst economic crisis we've seen in this country since the depression. and what did you have? you had tim geithner home alone. he came in february. the next person into treasury was may. what happened at dod, they brought in a slate of people at the front end. that slating is something that ought to occur across the government. another aspect of this is the prospect itself is too hard, too difficult, and it doesn't need to be. of the 1100 senate confirmed position, every single one of them requires a top secret sci clearance. that means the most robust, intense investigation of each of those individuals. when you lock at who those people are, you realize that that is silly. you shouldn't have to have that level of clearance, that level of background check for someone who may be serving on a part-time commission on student scholarships like to mo udall scholarship fund. but that's what we have as a system today is largely a legacy that folks have not focused enough on that can get better. it is doable. and we need to see it happen. i want to stop so i can get the wisdom from clay and from mack. we should note also in the audience there are folks like josh gottbaum who have incredible experience on this subject, and i'm looking forward to the conversation. so thank you so much. >> i'm clay johnson. i was also in addition to the positions i had in the bush administration, i was the planner of and executive director of the bush transition whereas now they're causing the candidates to have 200, 300 people work on transition matters with president bush 43, at this point in the election cycle, he had one person working on transition. let's just say the bar was set very low. and i think we got over it, even though we had half the time. i'm delighted about max's remarks because i counted, he used the word "goal" 21 times. if he had been given these remarks a year ago, he would have hardly been able to hear the word goal. you've heard of one-trick ponis. my trick is the goal man. if you need someone to talk about goals, what are our desired outcorp., that's me. every president, candidate for president is promising to be a very effective leader. but it comes a point in time where the presidential candidates have to start figuring out what does it mean to prepare to be that very effective leader. and our contention is and the amount of attention given to this is the most important thing a president can do is to put his or her team on the field with him or her at a point in time where he can be very -- he or she can be very effective at leading this country as promised. and that means not as soon as you can get to it, but that means like right away. like 12:01 on january 20th of the first year of the mission. as max talked about the complexity of our world, the challenges, the opportunities that we faced domestically, internationally are so astounding that we need to be assured, we the american people, we deserve to have assurance that our president is going to be capable of leading whatever needs to be led the minute he or she is sworn in. historically, what preparing to govern has meant, say the last 30, 40 years is that about three or four weeks in the administration, a new administration would have gotten through the senate and been able to nominate and get through the senate, confirmed 30, 35, 38, 41, 29. some number like that of senate confirmed positions. and that by the august recess of the first year, about 225 plus or minus. why is it always so consistent? the reason it's so consistent is because no administration has been challenged, including our, bush 43, to set a goal. how many people are you trying to put in place around you, in your team to be able to get a lot of things done by when? how many by when? the reason it tends to be the same in all the administration is the size of the personnel operation in the transition and in the white house has always tended to be exactly the same size as the previous administrations. every administration is reluctant to spend more on white house staff than their predecessor. because they don't want to be blamed or accused of being big spenders. so they say okay, well, a president in the last administration had this many people. that's how many people you get. how many people can that group typically put through the senate and get in position? the same number of people that the last administration did. not until ever has administration said i want to get 100 people in place by february 15th, march 1. and i want to have 350 or 400 people in place by the august recess. and then figure out -- and the reason is that's how many important positions there are. people look at the 400 or they look at the list and they rank it. they say this is important, this is important, this is important. it's 375. not 225. or look at the 225. what jobs are not filled. oh many i gosh, this is not filled? this isn't filled? thank goodness nothing happened here. how do you do that? you set the goal and figure out what you need do. it's not only a body and a job, it's a body and a job prepared to do really good work. first of all, really well qualified. that's a separate issue. and what might be a really well qualified person for one administration may not be for another one. it has to be administration specific. then the people have to be briefed on what is going on in the agency, what is going on in the world. one of the big challenges in any transition and the responsibility falls on the outgoing administration is to brief the incoming administration on all the threats in the world. all the health threat, all the war threats, all the packing threats. so the new people coming in are aware of all the possible bad things are. and so the people in place, well qualified and well briefed. that's the goal. and that doesn't always happen. so you set the goal. what is required to make that happen? you have to do a tremendous amount of work in a transition. there are no brain surgeries performed during a transition. it's very straight forward things, but thousands of them. and you ostensibly have 73 days i guess this time to get all those thousands of things done. well, you can't do all those things in 73 days with 375 people or 100 in the first two or three or four weeks. so what do you have to do? you have to expand the capacity to do the work. you to have more people working on it than have typically worked on it. and you have to have more time devoted to it than are typically devoted to it. so you need to begin the transition planning sooner. you can't wait to see if you're the president-elect. you have to assume that you will be. and you have to be checking your heart and remember that you are really committed to being a really effective leader as soon as we need to have an effective leader. and today that means minute one of the administration. so you have to begin early. and they typically begin in april and may. and typically by that point in time there ought to be hundreds of people working on transition matter, primarily in the personnel arena. that's what i understand is happening. that's what the romney people did. it just needs to happen. you expand the capacity by expanding, creating, devote mortgage time to it and more people. instead of five or six special assistants to the president, president and personnel, that's how many our predecessor had, you need 10, 12, and the related staff associated with that. and then after the fall of the first year, in the fall after the august recess, you don't need that many more. you've done 400 and you can hit more of a maintenance -- not a maintenance. but you've got all the really key people in place. the goal comes first. the commitment to reach the goal is first. the commitment to being a really, really effective leader as soon as it's likely that effective leadership will be called for means that's the goal. and everything focuses on that. so it's been fabulous to watch this evolve over the last you said 11 years? nine years. obama and mccain got the message, and they both devoted more people to it than ever before. the romney people did a fantastic thing. it's sort of the poster child for it. and the candidates this year are doing the same thing. it's absolutely what needs to be expected. it's what -- and the press has a responsibility, i think, it's a great thing to cover, if i do say so myself, and i'm a press person, easy to say for you all. but you can help raise the expectation. it should be what our -- any new president is committed to do, to be prepared to govern from the get-go. because so many things that are not on the playbook raise their ugly head or pretty head by february 1st or january 21st. but they are highly likely to do so. so that's my elaboration on max's comment. let me turn this over now to max. oh, let me make one other comment. we're talking about preparing to govern. this is not only in the subcabinet, this is also in the white house. typically, as i understand it, in my case it was, the chief of staff drives the staffing of the white house. they say let's go the cabinet first and white house second. if there is nobody in the cabinet, there is nobody there to orchestrate with the subcabinet. they have to be done in concert. it's white house and cabinet. the second thing is we're talking what the administration has to dlochlt is alo. there is also a program going on where the agencies are preparing career staff, not the outgoing staff, but the career staff are preparing their agencies to receive their new bosses. and guess what? they're highly motivated to do this. how do you want to be really impressed when they first come in? your new boss. so it's fascinating to see them working on this. because they come up with fabulous ideas about how to best brief their new people and get them on board and so forth. let me get mack, turn it over to mack mclarty. >> clay, thank you. jamie, thanks for organizing and hosting us today. i'm delight to be with you. i always enjoy working with clay johnson who is a friend and someone i respect. and i'm glad this is a bipartisan effort. clay and i have traveled in this vineyard for a number of years working on presidential transitions, and trying to streamline the process. and in that regard, i don't think anyone has done more, any organization than to lift the profile and the importance of the transition process than max stier and the center for the presidential transition. so max, thank you and your staff for such great work. all of you are familiar with the old saw so much to do and just not enough time to do it. and that probably sums up and reflects how most of us, or any of you would feel during a transition of less than 80 days to make this shift, this transition and get a government in place. as max noted, it is a critical period. it is the hallmark of any working democracy, including our own. it is the peaceful transition of power. but to date it's kind of been a magical process somewhat behind the curtain. not in a secretive way, but just because of the nature of transition and some of the focus goes to kind of the change and ups and downs and who is going to be in the cabinet and so forth. i think a lot of that has changed in the past decade, which i will make a couple of comments about a little bit later. i think clay hit it just right in terms of being the goal man. i think you do need to have very specific objectives that are put forward. so i would try to make a couple of key points here as we move toward our program and get to your questions. first of all the key point in my mind in a transition is the pivot from the campaign, which we are currently in to governing. that is the key shift in this less than 80-day period. and that's what the next president of the united states and his or her team needs to focus on. and that is a pretty difficult shift to make after working so hard to get elected. secondly, it is a monumental task. as max noted, and i can say from a business side, if you just think about it, as i speak to business groups, what if you had less than 80 days to organize a company with 4,000 people that you needed to get in place, senate confirmed as clay noted, $4 trillion budget, 2 million civilian employees, and a tremendously diverse set of activities and portfolios. that usually makes even the most fearless, confident, and competent ceos heads' spin a bit that is a monumental undertaking. thirdly, i would say that the transition process has come a long way from when president truman, who first initiated the thought of a transition, orderly transition with president-elect dwight eisenhower who by the way was not warm and receptive to president truman's overtures, which then got a tart vintage harry truman handwritten note back to ike saying the screwballs advising you are not giving you good advice, or something to that effect. but since that time, i think we have seen, and josh can speak to this, a readiness, a receptivity, a feeling of patriotism, responsibility, duty on the prior administration to work with the incoming administration, even if they are of another party. and probably the best transition that has taken someplace the bush 43 transition to the obama administration. and that is a good example. so there has not been a lack of good will or seriousness of purpose. what there has been a lack of is kind of order, definition and formality in the transition process. and that's what max and his team and the center is working diligently to really help frame that, particularly with the dramatic changes, dramatic changes that have taken place since 1992 in the clinton transition. but even in the last ten years. by that i think the two key points, and max alluded to them, in my mind, the biggest shift in transition is 9/11. 9/11 clearly changed the psyche of our country and our people. and with that tragic event, it really came the impact on transitions that was not the case in the early '90s and beyond. and that was there was an understandable feeling on almost every presidential candidate. certainly on the part of governor clinton that if you started the transition too early, it was viewed as certainly off key, arrogant, measuring the proverbial drapes. so every presidential candidate had a natural tendency to be very careful in putting too many resources and focus on a transition. 9/11 changed that. but yet anyone who has set through a security briefing as i was privileged to do the night before a president is sworn in, and the head of the joint chiefs of staff in our case, general colin powell talks about the passing of the football and the responsibilities of the commander in chief, it is obvious the most sacred responsibility of any president is the security and safety of the american people. and that goes right to the essence of a smooth transition, particularly in this day and time. you got to be ready minute one. and the obama administration is martha kumar, who has written about this subject, as max and others know. there was actually a potential terrorist threat when president obama was going to his inaugural. and you had extremely close coordination between the bush administration and the obama administration. but taken apart from that, you also had, as again, max alluded to, the 2008 financial crisis. and i think it's fair to say without a transition and working together between secretary paulson, tim geithner, who had been head of the new york fed, and chairman bernanke, we could have faced and would have faced. not could have, i think it's almost certain we would have faced much more, much more dire circumstances which were difficult enough. second key point, technology has changed. don't have to tell any of you that. the way you conduct your business ah fairs and write your stories and so forth, that's changed. so we need to take advantage of that. and that can help streamline the process, as clay has talked about. and thirdly, you now have federal funding that indeed itself validates and formalizes the transition process. the next key point, you've got to get a government in place to move forward. any president has to do that. the appointments process, and no one understands it better and more deeply than clay johnson does, that is key to getting your appointments, your team in place. now my experience was in the clinton administration that senator trent lott, who was head of the republican point person on confirmation was actually quite cooperative. we actually got our cabinet in place i believe at the time more promptly than any other administration had done in modern times. we had one exception with the attorney general portman. and usually if you look back there has been kind of one problem or one issue with a cabinet nominee. in our case, it was an important position. but that's essential. and of course you can just see -- >> sorry, i'm not sure what you said. >> i thought i was clear. i thought i was clear! i thought i was clear! >> who invited siri. >> well, siri is part of that technology i was talking about. give me my notes, max. >> you have to make this stuff up. >> no, that's it. that's it. i think i've sufficiently regroup. but i'm not sure. that's all right. i think clay also noted the other point. you do have to simultaneously appoint the cabinet and the white house. and in our case, because we did start late, because of what i just referred to, i think we really did a good job of appointing the cabinet, which proved to be a great asset for our prior administration. sat and talked about the clinton cabinet being one of the most effective and loyal and so forth. but we were a little slow getting our white house staff in place. and that's a mistake that i think or lesson learned that is certainly important for future administrations. i would say that the government employees that are already in place just do a remarkable job of stability in the transition of power. and the president has to set his or her priorities during this transition. the first 100 days are important. the first six months are important. the first year is important. finally, i would say you have a number of stakeholders in a transition process. and they all must be attended to. you start with members of congress. always had a waterford crystal right on my desk to prove to any member of congress that came in, it was the dome with the capitol, he or she was the most important person that i had seen that particular day. but that's essential. second, your supporters. those are the people that got you elected. you want to show respect for them and appreciation. but i would also suggest as jeff greenfield recently commented, it's pretty important to show you're nonsupporters of people that didn't vote for you. that they're important too if you're going to unified the country and govern. thirdly, there is all of you, the press. you're expected, you're expecting to be engaged in presidential transition in the first 100 days. that's critical. and then there is foreign leaders. because the new president is stepping on the world stage, in governor clinton's case kind of for the first time. that's critical. threaten is the governors, which i think increasingly play an important role in our governance, our country and so forth. max and have i talked about when we engaged with the national governors association quite interested in the transition. and then there is the washington, what i'll call establishment for lack of a better way to refer to it. and that's a mirriat of operation, not just industry and business, but myriad of organizations that have their own specific focus and agenda that have to be engaged during the transition and during the first 100 days. again, the key point i want to try to make, a transition is a time from pivoting and campaigning to governing. that's the shift that must be made. so i think to sum up, it's important and critical time for our democracy, for the president, the country, and indeed the world. most presidencies are judged at the end of the day with peace, which i would now say is peace and security in this day and time, and prosperity. and i think a transition is absolutely crucial to achieving those two major goals. and again, i really think the center and its work is helping to raise the profile and understanding of the transition process. so jamie, that, i'll turn it over to you for questions. >> thank you so much. so we're now going to open up the floor for questions. and when i call on you, please identify your name and your news organization. i want to point out that today is a professional development day for schools here in d.c. so i recruited my son joey here to pass around the microphone. so when i recognize you, joey will hand you the mic. so let's octuplet up for questions here. >> yeah, i'm charlie clark with government executive. the current transition teams to varying extents are fundraising through wealthy donors and appointing industry reps to the transition team. i'm just wondering what are some of the ethics surrounding that. new laws address that at all? and does it go more by tradition? >> i'm going to jump in on that one. so the transition activity as is the campaign activity, private activity transitions have a separate organizing vehicle, a 501 c that needs to be set up. and the law basically requires that in order to get the government support, you to abide by a limit of $5,000 from any individual. the truth of the matter is that the amount of money you're talking about in transition planning is tiny relative to what you see in campaigns. so all in, you're talk about maybe 10, 12, $13 million. and it is true that typically the campaigns will raise that money from the donors that have already maxed out. and that's the easiest place for them to go to. as a practical matter, though, you're not talk about huge sums of money. in terms of the engagement side, there are a lot of volunteers that participate. and again, transition teams choose their own set of rules as to who can and cannot participate. but the reality is it is a scramble there is more to be done than can possibly be done. and engaging a broader set of folks is important at the same time that there is a high degree of interest in secrecy in the process. the fact that these conversations are going on now will help. but by and large, there haven't been robust preelection transition operations until very, very recently. so you haven't seen a lot of activity in that respect. one thing i forgot to mention, and i can't resist, but do this real quick is you can see a guide book on transition planning for any of those here. you want to understand what exactly goes into transitions. this is version 1.0. it's all on our website. christine simmons who is back there is responsible for this and really all the transition stuff we're doing here. but that will give you a set of timelines, the sorts of things that are happening inside the transition. >> yes, sir? >> hi, dave kitros. the focus here is on top leadership, both political and career. yet if you look at things like the scandal at the v.a., what often determines the success or failure of an administration is what the people on the ground do. the front line people. and i was just wondering are there things that the career people at the top can do not just to get ready for new political people, but also to sort of work down with the career staff to get them prepared for new administration? >> again, what i experienced in 2008 was we identify very clearly for the career staff what we thought the definition of success was for being able to perceive the new leadership group in v.a., for instance. and it was to provide for a successful exit by the current group and a successful entry, and they would be briefed and so forth and so on. and they would identify four or five other people for the new political people what they consider to be the high priorities and hot and spicy items and the opportunities and the critical decisions that have to be made on this date and this date and this date. simply, the incoming administration sends industry review teams in. and there is a tendency to create a document about yay thick about everything you want the know about dod. and that ends up being a very nice little door stop. it's rarely opened. anything under 20 pages or so tends to get opened and used. so the focus for these things are the critical matters that need to be attended to in the first say 90, 120, 180 days. in the minds of the new administration. so the incoming group leadership has from the career stand, from their bosses, the political path, these two things. and if something that the rank and file is doing in the v.a. is a hot issue, then it's on to do list as a high priority. it's generally focused on and identified in that fashion. >> i think it's a great question. and the reality is while there are 4,000 political appoint three, are two million career civil servants as max said. the truth is new political teams come in thinking that they can recreate a command and control system with the people they're bringing rather than engaging the workforce that's there. i think a new administration, mack did a phenomenal job of laying out the complexity of the stake holders that you have to deal with. one of the most important are the career workforce themselves. anyone going into any organization, anybody who is in the private sector will understand that that's a vital function that they have to do. and by and large, it's overlooked. there are some very easy things that have to start. one is something clay said. you to be able to pick people who actually understand that leading an organization means managing people and see that as a priority. and that frankly doesn't happen often. they have to be prepared. operating in the government isn't the same in all respects as operating in a business. it's who you pick and how you prepare them. new administrations focus on the pick. they don't always get that right. and i'm being generous there. but they often don't focus at all on the preparation side. that's fundamental there are tools now that didn't exist previously there is a service requirement that every agency has to take a work point survey. that's vital. a new president ought to come in and say i want the most engaged workforce that exists in this country. and we should beat the private sector. right now that's not the case. you have high mission commitment from the federal workforce, but you have large concerns about the leadership that they're getting, the information that they're getting. and that's something that the new president ought to hold their leadership team accountable for. we have a set of rules and systems designed in 1949 to manage the career workforce. a new president ought to come in and say that's ridiculous. we have a very different world, whether it's the technology, the risks, whatever it might be. and civil service reform ought to be one of the top priorities there are four or five different things the new president could be doing. they could meet with the senior executive service, 7,000 career executives and the two million career general workforce. anyone again thinking about an organization would understand those 7,000 need to be brought together. they need to be engaged. and they need to be empowered to actually fulfill the agenda of the new president. meeting them in the very beginning is something that president bush did, would be vital. the meeting alone is not enough. they have v to be brought to focus on an enterprise-wide agenda. but the key point here in my view is that a new president has to understand to be successful, they need to understand that one of the critical functions of their job is to actually reason and lead and effect a federal government and that means run and effect a federal workforce. >> i'll just add a quick grace note, i think affirming what max just said. i noted in my comments we certainly found, i think it continues to be the case, just a reservoir, a reservoir of dedicated and capable people within the federal workforce that were ready to be supportive of the new president and in our case, his agenda. so that is a resource to be tapped to engage, managed, directed and led. but it really is the key point. and it's really one of the hall mashes of the passing of power. i think going back very quickly, you made i think an excellent point. i won't get on a soapbox about campaign finance reform, although that's clearly a hot button issue in our country. any contributions on transition, despite the fact they're mod shows be transparent. and i think probably a better word than secretive is discretion. discreet discretion in handling a transition i think is perfectly appropriate. secretive is maybe not. >> let's go right back here first. >> thanks. todd gilman with "the dallas morning news." i had a question about enthusiasm. and i'm wondering if you -- how concerned you are about when the transition is from one party to the other that it becomes less enthusiastic on the outgoing administration. and also, really about the candidate's teams themselves, if maybe there is a tipping point in the election. the last few weeks you can kind of see the writing on the wall that we're on the losing side, why are we going through these motions. how do you combat that, or is that not a problem? >> todd, it's a good question. i certainly -- certainly would reiterate that despite this cynical environment that maybe we feel is the case in government and our politics, i think the hallmark of transition in the last 30 years has been a true and sincere engagement, even if there was a transition from one party to the other. obviously bill clinton came in after 12 years of republicans being in the white house. so that's about as stark of an example or specific as an example as you can cite. but our engagement and cooperation from jim baker, from andy zell elect and many others, we could not have asked for better. i do think the process now is really encouraged to be starting much earlier, which is better, more formal, federal funding. all of that supports a much stronger, better transition. but as far as the really feeling of responsibility and patriotism is really probably not too strong of a word, we could not have asked for a better engagement. i think the same clay went from president bush 43 to president obama. i expect the same with president obama to whomever the next president. that's a hallmark of our democracy that is critically important. >> the campaigns themselves, the writing is on the wall. >> well, i think people throw their hearts over the bar in any campaign, starting with the candidate. it takes a lot of courage to run for office. the venerable senator from arkansas said you got to be prepared to face the day you might lose an election and then throw your heart over the bar to try to win it. i think it's unlikely any of the campaigns wouldn't continue to be engaged or that last dog died to use president clinton's famous phrase. but campaigns are filled with emotion. so you may have a bit of what you're speaking of. but i think again, you're kind of in it. you knew what you signed on for in the campaign. or for that matter, serving in the white house or in an administration. >> let's go to bob here. bob is a member of our newsmaker committee. a member of the press club. >> and proudly under you, jamie. i'm a member of the press club and i head up an op-ed writing group. this is a tough question to ask, and i'd like both mack and clay to ants. but it's the elephant in the room. when you have -- let's do this hypothetically. if one of the transition teams was headed by someone who is being investigated for political retribution who may be organized and directed people who closed a major thoroughfare in the united states that entered another state, just theoretically, if someone were to be in that kind of characteristic and is being investigated legally for political retribution, and you've made the point that you need to pivot from campaign to governing, mack, and clay, you made the point that you need to pick the best people in place, and both of you made the point that it has to be bipartisan as the stakeholders. do you go home at night and as you the specialists in this issue and have conversations at the dining room table about how worried you are about the political transition going on? and what is the recourse if that is the way that a transition team is headed? what are the options for the country and what are the options to take action? >> well, you better come up here with me, clay. >> bob, it's good to see you again, number one. max, really not to -- >> can't ask for me. >> i know that. i know that. but we talked about this earlier. he probably has the most thoughtful answer because i think the center has focused on this issue. and the real work of what the center for presidential transition is trying to do is encourage a better understanding and lift the profile of the process itself and to work in this case with both campaigns. i think i got your scenario early on before you even got to some of the punch lines in the description. but i think to date, bob, in my limited exposure to both secretary clinton's campaign and mr. trump's campaign, both of their transition teams have been fully engaged. i've not met with governor christie, who is head of the trump campaign. i have met with the point person, as max knows. and of course know john podesta well and senator salazar and others that are working on the clinton campaign. i think you raise the right point. i think, max, all kidding aside, i think from an effort standpoint of the organization, you've tried to keep this really more about the process itself rather than the individuals. i don't want to speak for you. but clay, i'll let you pick it up from there. >> i'll agree with that. i think it's important to understand what governor christie's role. as i understand it, he is the chairman of the campaign. the person that is driving all the work is rich bagger. and so it's important i think somebody, dick cheney was the clairemont of our campaihairman our campaign and i was the make it happen. particularly the chairman of this is somebody that has an understanding of washington, has been around. i had no understanding. dick knew everything. so christie would be somebody that would have had some knowledge of washington and the kind of things that need to happen and so forth and so on. so it's not somebody with his current challenges that's driving behavior. in other words, he is conflicted. can he be governor and this? can he be dealing with his legal problems and also do this? he is not being asked to do this. that's somebody else. >> i just want to say, just to follow up on the point you made, mack, which is i think the fundamental issue that both candidates ought to be judged by is whether they're doing the things that need to happen for them to be prepared to be president if they're selected. and i think that's the purpose of this exercise is to understand that, you know, promises are only as good as your ability to get them done. the transition is about your ability to run the government from the beginning. and that's both the national security imperative as well as an imperative if you expect to meet the commitments that you're making on the campaign trail. and our basic proposition is that this is actually a process that if you don't do, you can't either keep us safe or meet those commitments. and the american public ought to be judging the candidates on the care and the accomplishments that they demonstrate in this transition process so that win or lose on the campaign trail, they'll be ready on day one. and that to me is the most important piece. >> just to follow up, having said that, and your answer is the right one, are you worried it's not going to happen this time? >> well, everyone should be worried because this is not a process that in today's world has ever happened right. and the size of task is so large you're literally sprinting a marathon. it's impossible to believe that everything that ought to get done will get done. but the question will be are we going do a ton better? and are we getting better and better? our proposition is we at least need a learning system that what we've had up to now has been groundhog day. these operations have started from scratch. they haven't had access to the prior arch. and that's not the way we ought to be running the united states government. >> thomas in the back. >> during the transition from campaigning for governments, how you handle or what is the process of handling national security intelligence and the relation with the rest of the world? >> important question for sure. always important, maybe even more so in today's environment. my understanding and experience suggests number one i think both presidential candidates begin receiving national security briefings after they're nominated. so that's the first start from those qualified and involved in the government. so they have access to information that they otherwise would not have had earlier in the campaigns. that's number one. number two, again, i think this cooperation, and kind of seamless is what we're going for here. i think that's the key. and i think a formal transition can help that. and has helped it in the past. i think it will get only better. number three, i think each of the candidates has to recognize that the critical nature of the issues that you raise and how important it is to have an understanding of those and particularly day one when you come in the white house. in governor clinton's case, his national security advisers basically were tony lake and sandy berger and nancy soderbergh during the campaign. all three of those then went to the national security council immediately up on his election. so there was a seamless transition in terms of his campaign to his advisers on foreign policy. and that's -- worked i think pretty well. so that's the three or four aspects to answer your question. >> how about over here. >> yes. >> much appreciated. randy foreman. i write for political storm.com. i want to get the panel's thoughts on an article that ran in "the washington post" yesterday. that said memo to obama aides, don't [ trumpet playing ] or clinton on your way out? can you talk that arose in the 2001 transition and what came about from it? thanks. >> you mean when they took some keys out of the -- oh. i think that was determined to be some disgruntled interns. it was not an organized thing. it was those crazy college kids. so, you know, go figure. what will a college kid do? >> i was not if there in the last two and a half years. so i didn't have firsthand knowledge or engagement. and i'm glad i didn't have the responsibility, looking back. but i think clay's got it about right. i do think, however, as i have already noted, the transitions generally have had a good spirit about them. but i do think the incoming administration kind of flipped that one other point. it's pretty natural after you win an election to feel just a touch overconfident. that has usually proven not to be the wisest feeling to have after an election. be you raise a fair point both in terms of the transition and the new office holder going into office. >> how about right here up front. >> i'm frank lockwood. i'm with the arkansas democrat gazette. you're talk about all this work that goes on for months and months and months. you do it. you lose. what happens to all this stuff? does it get thrown away? archived? >> so in the past what happened to it, it either went into the garage or behind the desk, in a box or whatever it might be. and the answer is it has not typically been collected or accessible to anybody else. that's why you give me an opportunity for the second time that i can show this. and the basic point is that's what we're -- we're trying to create -- we're trying to create that learning system. so if you go to our website, either the partnership for public service's website or the center for presidential transition, you'll find you have access to the romney documents, the obama documents. and our goal is to make sure this material going forward is available to the next team that come in so they can get better and better on it. and sate fundamental issue. i do want to turn quickly to the question about the outgoing as well. we heard already, and it's true that the bush to obama transition was the best ever. the obama administration has committed to do even better than that. and i think there are ways in which they're working on that. one of the things clay talked about was the door stops and the notion that oftentimes what has happened is agency are with all good intent producing a lot of material that ultimately doesn't meet the needs of the customer, the incoming transition team. and what we're seeing now is an attempt to have a meeting of the minds. understanding for the agencies what exactly is necessary for the people coming in and to do a common format, as an example. think about it. historically, it's been hundreds of different formats. so that in alone is a bar of huge consequence. so, again, we are seeing more and more and progress. and in the world we have today, we need it. >> in the middle right there. >> hi, sarah olern. lucky to be in town at this. i was a crazy internal at fox's d.c. bureau after 9/11. i'm no longer in washington, but we're covering the candidates visiting a battleground state quite a bit. you can hear a lot of opinion about what one or the other nominees might do when they first take office. on the republican side people excite they'd can maybe shake things up in washington change things. from my outside perspective i imagine secretary clinton having so much experience in washington would know what to do as far as putting people in place on day one. there hesitation, nervousness, excitement, as far as how long it might take for someone completely outside of politics like donald trump to come in and hit the ground running, especially in this climate of so much going on with terrorism, et cetera? >> clay do, you want to take that? >> there is always a debate and a discussion about do you want veterans, d.c. veterans at the helm, or do you want fresh perspective, fresh voice, fresh legs, fresh whatever. the usual suspects are some new suspects running things. and the answer is yes. i mean, the thought of standing up a white house in 2001 with half of the 30 some odd day transition, visual transition without andy card, a white house veteran as the chief of staff, it's unthinkable. i can't imagine how ever it would have gotten done. so the answer is so there is some great value to having prior experience in a white house, in a cabinet agency on a particular subject matter at a very high level. but you also want the fresh faces of people to have done a fabulous job at the state level or in the regional level. or they whatever. so the answer is all of the above. diversity of all kinds. it's just proven time and time again. diversity leads to better decision making, greater wisdom, greater fact assimilation, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. the types of experience with state and local and private sector and so forth is something to pay attention to. so if it's all veterans, problem. all rookies, problem. all lawyers, real big problem. all whatever. so. >> we have time just for a couple more questions. sir? >> here. >> oh, i'm sorry. >> on that question, what about adding a former president to the mix? is that all upside or is it all downside? what is the mix? and are there real things that you've seen? >> that sounds like your question. >> and are there real things that you have seen given that the process is already under way about the influence of former president? >> it's always that last question that gets you. >> i have siri if you want. >> i may need her. no, i think -- let me break that into two pieces if i may. clearly, we have the prospect of possibly having a former president being in the white house as the supporting spouse of the president of the united states. so that's one aspect. but really taking your question more broadly about former presidents in general. i certainly think and president clinton reflected in his administrations and other presidents have as well that it's easy to become somewhat in a bubble and not have as broad a range of views in a white house that any president or senior staff experiences at a cabinet level. so i think the broader views is picking up on clay's point about the cabinet itself. the makeup is important. but every president i think has turned to former presidents in a careful and proper and appropriate manner either for advice and counsel. you obviously had an unusual situation with president bush 43 and president bush 41. and that had to be handled in a very particular, careful manner, just like obviously president clinton and secretary clinton would have to be handled if secretary clinton is elected. but as a general rule, i think any sitting president will consider and indeed use former presidents in specific situations, either for advice and council about other world leaders that they dealt with, other particular issues that they are knowledgeable about. and in many cases, ask a former president, as we did jimmy carter, to travel to north korea because he knew the north korean leader with the crisis we were facing there. or when we had certain bipartisan efforts where we had four presidents come to washington and endorse and affirm a particular legislative initiative. so i think you'll see that continued as a precedent has been set over the years. i think more in recent years than maybe 30, 40 years ago. i think that's a good thing. but it has to be done in a very careful, thoughtful, balanced way. you can't obviously overdo it. but i think any sitting president would be wise to consider using the knowledge and wisdom and ability of former presidents in a careful, judicious manner. >> you've been waiting quite a while. >> not 73 days, but yes. jesse rifkind with the national press club's the wire. when it comes to filling vacancies, there is one thing that makes this upcoming transition different than the others which there is a vacancy on the supreme court should. that be filled before anything else? later? around the same time as other positions in the white house and cabinet? >> who wants to take that one? >> i'll take it. i just won't answer it. look, i think the truth is that it's important. one of the areas that is really important to focus on is that the senate, a lot of folks when you look at the confirmation process point to the senate as being the bottleneck. and it's interesting if you look at the data, 70% of the time historically for filling jobs in the executive branch side has actually been held by the executive and only 30% by the senate. clearly some of the things the executive is doing is because they expect the senate to be asking certain questions or whatever it might be. but the point of that statistic is to say that there in fact are lots of things that the executive branch can do to speed up the process of getting leadership in place in faster time. and the senate needs to be a partner as well. you know, the judicial appointments are part of what also clogs out the system. and it's not just the supreme court. it's also, you know, at the court of appeals and the district court level too. there is a lot of balancing that has to go on in terms of senate floor time there is a lot of critical equations that has to be looked at. the important thing for this is to have an expectation, to have the goal that clay talks about getting the leadership team in place and understanding that there are going to be certain things that you have to face that are going to be constraints that you can anticipate, and there are going to be a bunch that you can't. and to have that be part of you those astroids will come in, has to be part and parcel what has to happen. whether that's the supreme court or anything else, there will be things going on. a financial crisis. and you have to prepare to deal with the unexpected in addition to the enormity of the task that you know you have to deal with. >> before we adjourn, i just want to mention a couple upcoming events that we have. on october 3rd, we're going to have the secretary of agriculture, tom vilsack, speaking another a lunchen. on the 7th, we'll have the director of the world trade organization. october 12th, we'll have the secretary of the navy. and so for those and other newsmaker events, i encourage everyone to go to press.org. i want to thank our panelists today. and i want to thank everyone who came for our news conference here and those watching on television and radio. thank you. [ applause ] >> our road to the white house coverage continues tuesday, with hillary clinton and former vice president al gore on the campaign trail in florida. watch that rally in miami live at 3:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. then later in the day, president obama campaigns for hillary clinton in greensboro, north carolina. that's live at 6:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2. and our live coverage continues in the evening with donald trump speaking to supporters in panama city, florida. that gets underway at 8:30 eastern, also on c-span2. right now, a look at donald trump's support among republicans, we spoke with a political reporter for more on that. >> in a conference call with house republican members, speaker paul ryan said the following. you all need to do what's best for you in your district. joining us on the phone is scott wong, two has been following today's developments for the hill newspaper and the hill.com. thank you for being with us. >> thanks for having me. >> those on the phone saying that the speaker of the house will not defend, will not campaign with donald trump, and yet he's not rescinding his endorsement. explain what this all means.

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