Former President Donald Trump would have a crisis on his hands if he wins in November, warned David M. Marchick, a scholar who specializes on the history of presidential transitions. His dire warning was published by Bloomberg Monday.
Presidential transitions, he wrote, are always a challenge even for winning candidates with managerial skill.
"In fewer than 75 days, the president-elect needs to appoint hundreds of White House staffers, select a cabinet and fill more than 4,000 politically appointed positions," he wrote. "The new administration needs to quickly prepare a budget and engage allies. No business would ever run a changeover of chief executives like this, and no other country follows a similarly flawed process, either."
When Trump last took over, Marchick wrote, the transition was "the most chaotic in modern history" — largely because Trump himself interfered in the process, firing then New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie as his transition manager halfway through the process. His exit and handover to Biden was similarly a mess, largely because Trump refused to accept the election results and many of his staffers dragged their feet for weeks, refusing to cooperate.
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This time around, wrote Marchick, Trump may have no choice but to rely on the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 staffing operation to vet and hire people for his administration. This plan, which also lays out a policy blueprint for weaponizing the administrative state and gutting any program or office opposed by the right, has come under heavy fire, causing Trump to distance himself rhetorically from the program.
But it may be the only option he has. And that in itself is unusual, wrote Marchick, even for the haphazard way U.S. presidents usually handle transitions.
"This runs against best practice, which dictates that a candidate has his or her own staff to review and vet potential White House and agency officials," he wrote. "Yes, the campaign can take input from partisan (and nonpartisan) organizations and interest groups, but transition staffers still need to make independent judgments on competing priorities. You can’t outsource personnel."
