Transcripts For CSPAN Miller Center Discussion On Presidenti

Biden administration can prepare to take office in january. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to another Miller Center webinar. Bill im going to moderate todays conversation. It is a real pleasure to be with you all and have these terrific guests. Guests. Actpresident ial transition was adopted by congress in 1963 to provide statutory framework for the peaceful transfer of power. It has been updated several times since. We are going to discuss rising issues coming out of that in the current transition and transfer. It has been almost a week since most Major Networks designated joe biden as president elect. The biden team has been moving forward on a transition and selected a new white house chief of staff, have launched a Pandemic Task force, and soon will be announcing other white house and cabinet level positions. Theyve started conversations with foreign heads of state and a number of american political leaders. A small but growing number of senior Republican Leaders have acknowledged the outcome of the election, including former president bush, his chief of staff andy card, counselor karl rove, and a handful of republican senators. And yet, we still have not had a formal concession by President Trump. That may be a personal matter of his continuing to file legal claims in a number of states, but by not conceding, he has also held up a formal ascertain ascertain should ascertainment, sorry. Of when the beginning of transfer of power should begin. President trump and his administration not transferring knowledge and knowhow and technology and real estate to the incoming chief. Incoming team. How big a problem is this . How important is it that this happen now . When does it need to start . When should it start by law and what are the consequences of the delay . Those are some of the questions we will address today with a terrific panel. We are joined today by Michael Chertoff, who served as secretary of Homeland Security under president george w. Bush from 2005 to 2009. Before heading up dhs, mr. Chertoff served as a federal judge on the u. S. Court of appeals for the third circuit. Earlier during more than a decade as a federal prosecutor, he invested and prosecuted cases of political corruption, organized crime, corporate fraud, and terrorism, including the investigation of the 9 11 terrorist attacks. He is now cofounder and executive chairman of the chertoff group, a Risk Advisory Risk Management advisory service. Janet napolitano is professor of Public Policy at the Golden School of Public Policy at uc berkeley. She served as the 20th president of the university of california, the nations largest Public Research university. Prior to joining the university of california, professor napolitano served as secretary of Homeland Security from 2009 2 to 2013. Shes a former twoterm governor of arizona and former u. S. Attorney for arizona. In 2019, napolitano published how safe are we Public Security since 9 11. She earned her bs degree at Santa Clara University and her law degree from the university of virginia. Finally, Dave Marchick is a retired executive from the Carlyle Group who worked at the state department. He is serving in a volunteer role as director for the center of president ial transition and t the partnership for Public Service. He is also an adjunct at the tuck school of business at art must. He spent 12 years at the Carlyle Group where he served as managing director and global head of external affairs and led carlyles regulatory and Government Affairs communication and branding and sustainability efforts. We are delighted to have this terrific group. Let me start with this stalled gsa determination or the ascertainment. What is that and why does it matter . Let me start with dave since the center for president ial transitions plays a role in connecting transitions for a couple of cycles. Dave, give us a sense of what this ascertainment is and what are they trying to ascertain, and what happens when it happens . Dave thank you, bill and thank you to the Miller Center. Let me give a salute to Michael Chertoff, who i have known from the Holocaust Museum and also to secretary napolitano. I wish you were still president of the university of california because im on the board at ucsd , but more importantly, my daughter is at berkeley and i would like her to check in on how her studies are going. Maybe she still has that influence. Bill, you struggled with the word ascertainment because it is not supposed to be a word that is commonly known because the issue of ascertaining the winner of an election has never been controversial, never been politicized. There is a provision in the 1963 president ial transition act which gives the gsa administrator the responsibility of ascertaining the outcome of the election. There are many other Government Agencies that have similar responsibilities to act when there is a new president elect. The secret service on saturday morning significantly expanded their protection around president elect biden because he was going to be president elect biden. So that was not a politicized decision, the secret service just did that. Unfortunately, even the most noncontroversial ministerial acts in this world, in this town are being politicized today and this is one of them. The subject, the criteria is that basically the outcome is clear and the outcome is clear. All the networks have called the election, as you said in your piece from last sunday, four states would have to be turned over, the likelihood of a recount changing the outcome is almost zero. Even president bush stated in his own statement that the outcome is clear and so, we will get into this, but the gsa should make this ascertainment and then the biden team should be able to get access to all the support which we can talk about some more. Bill let me bring in mr. Chertoff and miss napolitano into this conversation. Because i do think the first thing that should be on peoples mind in a peaceful transfer is who is watching the home front . Is there something in these two months that poses a threat to the American People and how is that being managed in this cap . Gap, and does the ascertainment hold the protection of the American People up . Chertoff i can go first. I think there are two things creating risk from a security standpoint. First of all, having a transition that begins right away. Getting clearances for the incoming team, giving president elect access to current intelligence, these are all part of the process of preparing so that when the new administration comes in, they can hit the ground running and not have to then figure out what the threats are and what the capabilities to respond are. We can talk a little later about how we did the handoff from the Bush Administration to the Obama Administration because that was very much in the front of our minds and we worked very cooperatively across both the outgoing and incoming folks, to make sure we fully briefed the people coming in with president obama, how they had access to intelligence information and we even ran an exercise about a potential pandemic so they could really get a feel for how things would work in the levers of government. There is another compounding problem. We are seeing a purge of security personnel. We have seen the department of defense decapitated. There is rumor about dhs having people fired or being forced to resign and that exacerbates the problem because it means in this window of time when our foreign and domestic adversaries could perceive weakness and opportunity, we are signaling we are dropping our guard and that is a very risky thing to do and it holds the American People hostage. Secretary napolitano . Sec. Napolitano yeah, i dont have much to add. I was going to emphasize first the need to have a smooth handoff from a National Security perspective and not to have any kind of a gap. We are fortunate that the president elect has so much experience that even with this delay, he will be able to catch up quickly, but nonetheless, this is an unnecessary risk that President Trump is putting on the country. And secondly, michaels comment about the removal of department of defense personnel and their replacement by political loyalists, President Trump, two key personnel at the department of Homeland Security resigned yesterday according to the washington post. These are troublesome moves from key departments necessary to protect the security of the American People. So if you were to ask me whats the greatest risk factor confronting the United States today, i would say the greatest risk factor is actually President Trump. Bill i would like to pivot off that to start focusing a little bit on when we might get the ascertainment so the biden team can have access to intelligence and can start processing security clearances. Typically, as we saw in the last transfer to President Trump or, as secretary chertoff mentioned, the transition from bush to obama, the ascertainment happened relatively quickly. In 2004, it didnt happen right away. It only happened after the recount. So dave, im curious to get from you and to hear from secretary chertoff and napolitano what might trigger the ascertainment in the days ahead . Where are you looking and what are you seeing . Is it simply the mounting calls from Republican Leaders and legislators . Is there something that can happen in the counting of ballots and certification of the states . Dave its a little unclear to me what the trigger will be. The trigger should have been made last week when the outcome was clear. That is the standard under the law. I do think there is a significant shifting of political opinion on this and perhaps that growing, snowballing impact will have an impact. You are seeing more and more republicans in the senate and in the governors saying we should get this going. In the last few days, you had governor dewine, governor hutchison, governor sununu these are not never trumpers. Obviously, dewine comes from a state, secretary napolitano knows politics better than i will ever learn but he comes from a state trump has dominated and is not a never trumper. Obviously, in arkansas, trump has been very popular and having governor hutchinson say what he said i think is very important. In the congress, i think you see growing concern from republican senators, particularly on the Armed Services and intelligence committees. I also think there is growing awareness of the nonSecurity Risks, which i think is greatest which i think michael and janet articulated the Security Risk. But to me, the most important thing in the world is the pandemic. The Trump Administration should get credit for developing something called operation warp speed, which is a joint hhs, dod effort to develop and distribute the vaccine. One would think every american would want the incoming biden team to have access and starting to coordinate with the people responsible for operation warp speed so that when the biden team takes office on january 20, they can move forward to get that vaccine in the arms of 300 million people. That is not a policy issue, that is a logistics issue and one would think that would make sense. I think there is a growing, snowballing effect because people are being educated, the risks of not moving forward and grow every day and i am hopeful this can move in the right direction very shortly. Bill im going to ask our team to put up a slide here developed by daves partnership for Public Service and to get secretary chertoff and napolitano i dont know if you knew this was coming but this is an assessment in year four of the Trump Administration of the various cabinet agencies and how many key positions have been filled. The darker turquoise line lists how many confirmed officials in key slots. There is a slightly lighter shade of turquoise which is how many have been nominated. We put in blue boxes the far assessment of the five key agencies if there is a National Security crisis and there is a sixth agency which is equally critical, but we highlighted it in red because in the current moment, it is so understaffed. I would like to get reflections from you, how important is it to fill these positions quickly, particularly when there is a crisis that is ongoing. How do some of these agencies Work Together in addressing the crisis or any other crisis that is out there . What does the next few months look like in terms of filling these positions . Sec. Chertoff ironically, the problem usually is in an whonistration are people are confirmed leave go on to their next job, so you often find vacancies in the last month or two. The irony here is the positions were never filled. So its not a question of people leaving. Its a question of people not arriving. We have seen particularly with Homeland Security is the actions of confirmed positions have made it very difficult for the agency to carry out its mission. Across a spectrum of issues. It made it difficult for the agency to deal with the pandemic and take a leadership role that was originally envisioned by the National Response framework and that both i occupied and janet occupied when we had the office. It has also created a feeling of creeping politicization as the white house staff has increasingly seen vacancies as an opportunity to micromanage the departments in the political interest of the president and that has created a trust deficit. Much of the story of this last administration and the next couple of months is a disdain for the workings of government and the efficient carrying out of government missions. Its almost as if it is a determination they want to wreck government and make it as hard as possible to do its job so they can say see, people in government are bad. The problem is that leaves a lot of people dead, as we have seen with the virus. Bill as the new team comes in, the importance of confirming people will the biden people just put people in acting positions to just get started and get away with it or is it important to go back to the confirmation standard, particularly when there is a crisis going . Sec. Chertoff i would say this i believe the biden team will honor the traditional norm of getting people confirmed. That depends upon the senate cooperating. If you get a senate that blocks everything, that creates a different set of problems, but im hoping cooler heads in the Republican Party will cooperate with getting people confirmed in the normal course. I also need to be candid at some point, congress has to revisit the appointment vacancy process which was abused over the last four years and may need to be tightened up. Sec. Napolitano one example is when we had the transition from president bush to president obama, a number of us on the Security Side of the cabinet, theres a luncheon in statuary hall in the capital immediately after the inaugural ceremony and the senate went into session and they immediately confirmed a number of members of the obama cabinet, particularly those on the Security Side of the cabinet. So we were actually confirmed as we were watching the inaugural parade go by. That is how two branches of government can cooperate with each other and that is how you help effectuate a smooth transition of power. Bill between now and then, its a great segue to the importance of the confirmation process. What happens when someone gets confirmed and what happens between now and then . Dave this gets back to ascertainment because this cant go forward. Ron klain, who has been designated as chief of staff, he cannot get his final security clearance until he has been ascertainment. He can get an interim but he cannot get a final. What happens is the president elect will start naming his team, presumably in the next week, typically it is done in waves. They bunch the National Security professionals, the economic people, the Health Professionals i assume those will be the top priorities. Then they start to name the people underneath. Heres why, again, ascertainment is so important. I will give you the data. President obama, in his first 100 days, had twice as many people in their seats as president bush. The bush team had a great team. They were experienced. Vice president cheney led the transition. He and john podesta are probably the two most experienced transition People Living because they have been involved in four or five transitions each. The bush personnel operation was buttoned up, but they could not get every thing processed quickly. The security clearances, the ethics agreements, working with the Agency Ethics officials on the extremely painful process of divestments, disclosures, recusals, all of those things with michael and janet presumably remember from