WASHINGTON – In a drab office suite just blocks from the White House, seasoned political operatives are drawing up detailed plans for a government in waiting. Another identical suite in the same government building is dark and idle.
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are running markedly different transition efforts to be ready for the potential responsibility of taking over the federal government. It's a below-the-radar effort for now that will snap into sharp focus as soon as a winner is declared.
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But already, their approaches speak to their divergent thinking about governing.
Harris' transition effort is going by the book
Harris’ team is being led by the former U.S. ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Yohannes Abraham served as executive director of the Biden-Harris transition in 2020 and is running a meticulous operation.
The team reached an agreement with the Biden administration to use government office space and other resources and to begin vetting potential key national security hires. As a precondition, the team released an ethics plan and promised to cap donations at $5,000 and release a list of donors.
Trump, by contrast, has assembled a team of friends and family that includes former Democratic presidential candidates Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard, as well as his adult sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, and his running mate, JD Vance. It is being co-chaired by Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick and Linda McMahon, the former wrestling executive who formerly led Trump's Small Business Administration.
Trump has thus far eschewed federal support for his transition team. His aides have yet to reach the required agreements with the General Services Administration, which manages federal property, and the White House on federal office space, technology support and security clearance procedures.
While aides say they expect an agreement soon, others suspect it may only come after Election Day if Trump is victorious. Part of the holdup, according to a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations, stems from the congressionally mandated ethics requirements and private contribution limits set by the Presidential Transition Act.
That act, which is meant to ensure that all major party nominees are ready to assume the presidency on Inauguration Day, calls on the GSA to secure an agreement with eligible candidates by Sept. 1 and for the White House to reach one by Oct. 1. Both dates have long passed.
Trump reached similar agreements with the Obama administration in 2016 during his first White House run, but the law was modified after the 2020 election to put limits on private contributions to the transition effort and to tighten ethics rules.
A Biden administration official said the White House “is actively working with the Trump transition team" to complete an agreement.
Trump's transition team is charting its own course
Even if Trump isn't following the government's proposed roadmap, his transition work is moving forward. Their primary focus so far has been on personnel.
A number of allied outside groups, including the America First Policy Institute, where McMahon serves as chair of the board, have spent years assembling policy guides, model executive orders and legislation aimed at giving future Republican administrations a head start.
The Heritage Foundation has also assembled extensive policy plans and a personnel database under its “Project 2025" banner, but Trump has distanced himself from and criticized the effort as Democrats have seized on its more extreme proposals.
Trump and his campaign are particularly distrustful of the current administration, accusing them of launching investigations and indictments in order to hobble his election chances.
Following a pair of assassination attempts, Trump has accused President Joe Biden of failing to provide him with sufficient Secret Service resources, forcing his campaign to reschedule and cancel rallies. Aides have also accused the administration of reacting too passively to ongoing threats against Trump from Iran.
Trump’s transition co-chairs said in a statement that they expect to sign all the recommended memos of understanding soon.
In a statement, Lutnick and McMahon said that Trump-Vance transition attorneys “continue to constructively engage” with the Biden administration toward the required agreements, which they expect to sign. They said “any suggestion to the contrary is false and intentionally misleading.”
They also said all transition staff are required to sign their own ethics pledge.
Delays could make it harder to confirm key personnel for Trump
The foot-dragging by Trump's team has ramifications not only for the peaceful transfer of power but also potentially for national security.
Only after the agreements are in place can the transition team send the FBI the names of potential appointees so that the agency can begin the time-consuming process of vetting them for top secret security clearances before Election Day.
Harris’ team is well on its way to lining up agency review teams — teams of ex-government officials and policy experts who would do top-to-bottom assessments of federal agencies to determine how to align their activities with Harris’ agenda.
If she wins, Harris will run the first same-party presidential transition since 1989, when George H.W. Bush took over from Ronald Reagan.
Customarily, all the political appointees in the departing administration will be expected to offer their resignations so Harris can choose whom to retain and replace. The ability to retain officials could be an asset, especially if Republicans take control of the Senate. Keeping some officials who were already confirmed under Biden could limit messy personnel fights on Capitol Hill.
Trump’s decision to delay participating in the federally supported transition program exposes his team and national security to risk, said Max Stier, CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, which offers nonpartisan advice on transition best practices.
By foregoing federal support now, Stier predicted, Trump as president-elect would have a more difficult time bringing staff on board and scaling up the massive enterprise needed to steer the government in a new direction.
Because of the delay, Trump is also missing out on top-of-the-line government cybersecurity support at a time when his campaign has already been the victim of a cyberattack by Iran.
The end result "is who’s going to be actually ready to keep us safe and run our government effectively,” Stier said.
Both transition teams are keeping their heads down for now
For all the differences between the Trump and Harris efforts, there are some common strategies: Neither team plans to make personnel decisions before Nov. 5. And both teams are lying low so as not to tempt fate or distract from their candidates ahead of Election Day.
“There is no transition without a successful campaign, and that’s where the focus is," a Harris transition spokesperson said on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter. "Consistent with precedent and responsible best practice, the transition is laying the foundation to be ready.”
Lutnick, one of Trump's transition co-chairs, told The Associated Press that he has been pulling together lists of candidates for Trump to consider. He said he doesn’t talk about the process with the notoriously superstitious former president.
“What I do is paint. I consider myself a mosaic painter,” Lutnick said. “I go and find the greatest candidates for the role." He said his goal is to find about “eight amazing candidates” who can win Senate confirmation for each job opening that he can later bring to Trump.
He said he's following the model he used in rebuilding Cantor Fitzgerald after 9/11, when the investment banking company lost 658 employees, including top talent, in the attack on the World Trade Center. He said he learned from that experience that the best way to hire the best people was through word of mouth.
“You go to world-class people who you know and say, ‘Help me. Send me people that you vouch for,’" he said.
Lutnik said this year’s operation is “about as different as possible” from the 2016 effort that was first led by former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. After he won, Trump fired Christie, tossed out his plans and gave the job to Vice President-elect Mike Pence.
In an interview with The Financial Times, Lutnick said he would steer clear of the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 transition work.
“Project 2025 is an absolute zero for the Trump-Vance transition,” the billionaire told the paper. “You can use another term — radioactive.”
Donald Trump Jr., who has not been involved in the team’s day-to-day work but is expected to step up his involvement after the election, has said he views his primary role as vetoing those who are not deemed loyal to his father’s agenda.
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Colvin reported from New York.