From Biden to Trump: U.S. Governance and the Presidential Transition

Reflecting on past experiences, panelists discuss the critical aspects of the U.S. presidential transition, including the importance of a peaceful transfer of power, potential challenges that may confront the incoming administration, and strategies to prevent leadership gaps in essential roles during this period.

This meeting is part of the Diamonstein-Spielvogel Meeting Series on Democracy.

 

WOODRUFF: Hello, everybody. Welcome to today’s Council on Foreign Relations virtual meeting. The subject, as you know, is “From Biden to Trump: U.S. Governance and the Presidential Transition.” 

I’m Judy Woodruff, senior correspondent for the PBS NewsHour. I’m very pleased to be presiding over today’s discussion. 

And we have two excellent, esteemed panelists joining us. They are: 

Chris Christie, former governor of New Jersey from 2000 (sic; 2010) until 2018. In 2016, he chaired the first Trump transition team from May of that year through election week. 

Also, Dave Marchick. He is dean of the Kogod School of Business at American University. He was COO of the U.S. Development Finance Corporation early in the Biden administration. He was director of the Center for Presidential Transition at the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service in 2020. 

Welcome, gentlemen, to both of you, and to CFR members who are joining. 

This meeting is on the record. My plan is to ask questions of our guests for the first half-hour, then we are going to open it up for questions from members for the second half. 

First I want to turn to you, Governor Christie. I think it’s fair to say that this has been an unusual transition for the modern era. We are just two weeks out since the election. There have already been dozens of announcements from former President Trump about top jobs in his administration, including four very controversial ones. None of these have gone through an FBI check yet. And at the same time, former president and his team have apparently not signed what are called memoranda of understanding with the Biden administration. These trigger the sharing of essential information. 

Governor, what do you make of all this? And how does this compare with his first term? 

CHRISTIE: Well, thanks for having me, Judy. 

I think there was reluctance on Donald Trump’s part to have any type of transition—formal transition in the first go round either. Ultimately, in May of that year, of 2016, he acquiesced to being involved in the formal process. But it was a struggle all the way through to get him to allow us to hire people to do the transition, to get people to—ultimately, then, when we won, to sign the agreements that you talked about, the different varying cost-sharing agreements and information-sharing agreements. 

But we did have a very formal transition process from May to November. We had about 120 employees, most of whom were volunteers with varying degrees of expertise in different areas that we had to go into. We wound up putting together twelve binders of information for the president-elect, everything from a minus-thirty-day plan to a day-one plan, day-ten plan, day-100 and day-200 plan, literally set out day by day, set out in those things; and also had at least four, if not six suggested folks for each of the Cabinet-level and upper agency positions and White House staff; and had all those people at least initially vetted by a group of volunteer former United States attorneys from the Bush 43 administration. All of that was presented to the president-elect on the day—the day before he became president-elect, on Monday before the election, and on that Friday after the election I was fired, as were all of the senior leadership of the transition, and Steve Bannon, Jared Kushner, and Reince Priebus took over, along with Vice President-elect Pence, to start from scratch. So very different kind of approach than any transition we had seen before. 

WOODRUFF: And how much of what you had done in preparation was followed? 

CHRISTIE: Well, hard to tell. There were a lot of people that stayed on and avoided the purge—you know, people like Bill Hagerty, now the United States senator from Tennessee. Senator Hagerty was the guy I hired to run personnel. He stayed on. And I suspect that Bill used—sub-rosa used a lot of the material that we had developed over time but just didn’t let the president-elect know that he was doing it. 

And as for the rest of it, it appeared very little of the planning of the beginning of the administration was used at all. And I think that there are a lot of us who believe that that led in large part to the rough start to the administration, because there was no plan. 

I would tell you that I think this transition looks very much like the one that began the Friday after the election in 2016. The only thing you don’t have is the kind of Apprentice-like—is interviews that went on mostly at the Bedminster Trump golf club. We had people parading in and out for interviews and photographs as they were being considered. But anybody who tells you that many people had a role in picking those folks in 2016, they don’t know what went on. It’s Donald Trump casting a television show. That’s what he was doing in 2016, and so far it appears to me it’s a different kind of TV show in 2024 but he’s casting. 

WOODRUFF: Dave Marchick, what do you make of the transition so far? 

MARCHICK: I agree with Governor Christie. I mean, I think that it’s a pattern. So the pattern is that President Trump, before this candidate Trump, has good people around him—Governor Christie, Rich Bagger, Senator Hagerty. They did a—they did a very good job by the playbook, followed all the rules, consulted with experts before. And when Trump got elected, everything blew up. 

In the 2020 exit of Trump, the same thing. There was a fellow in the White House named Chris Liddell, deputy chief of staff. He followed best practice for preparing for the possibility of a Trump victory or a Trump loss, under the law. And the day after the election, Trump decided he didn’t recognize the outcome of the election even when it was clear that Biden won, and that the transition was delayed. 

Here, I think he had competent people working for him in the transition. And my—I’m not in the room, but my gut I that Matt Gaetz and Tulsi Gabbard were not on the list of five or six candidates for them to consider. The reporting is that, you know, Gaetz was on a plane down, and he said I could blow up the Justice Department, and Trump said you’re my guy. So I think it’s very, very untraditional. 

He has, I think, some good, credible candidates, like Marco Rubio. Whether you agree with him or not, I think he’s going to be a credible secretary of state. And then some of the nominees, I said to Peter Baker the other day, it’s like a Star Wars bar scene of nominees. So I think that’s what Trump intends to do, is to create chaos, and he’s doing it. 

WOODRUFF: Governor Christie, what about these, I think it’s fair to say, at least four controversial picks in addition to a number of more conventional picks like Senator Rubio? Just today I guess Howard Lutnick was named Commerce—the Commerce Department choice. But what do you make of the more controversial choices that seem to come from a place no one expected? 

CHRISTIE: That’s the mystery to me, Judy, is why no one expected it. I mean, this is what he said during the whole campaign he was going to do, and I think people just didn’t believe him. But I know him long enough—twenty-two years now—to know he meant exactly what he said. And the choices in the main, I think, reflect exactly what he promised he was going to do. 

And so I think the more unusual choices are picking people like Marco Rubio for secretary of state or John Ratcliffe for head of the CIA. That surprises me a little bit because they are kind of conventional choices. I expect most of this to be pretty unconventional. 

And even Howard Lutnick’s not a conventional choice. To select someone like the head of Cantor Fitzgerald to be the head of the Department of Commerce is also unconventional. I’m not questioning his credentials to be able to do it, but it’s not a conventional choice. And certainly the other ones are not as well. 

But I think this is exactly what Donald Trump said he was going to do. And the thing I’ve been the most surprised about has been the surprise that people have expressed. I was saying this all through the campaign in 2023 and early ’24, that a second-term Donald Trump would be significantly different than the first-term Donald Trump was, and that he would not be worried about following any type of conventions of any kind; in fact, would do the exact opposite. And I think a number of these choices reflect that. 

WOODRUFF: And so these choices, Governor, become a test, if you will, of members of the Senate, Republican members of the Senate. Do you think they’ll be confirmed—Matt Gaetz, Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard? 

CHRISTIE: Hard to tell, right? Judy, I think—I think the one that’s raised the most public concern from members of the Senate that I’ve seen so far is Matt Gaetz at Justice. But I wouldn’t be willing to bet anything right now on any of these people not being confirmed. I just think that, you know, Donald Trump will push very hard to get these things done, and it’s going to take some—you know, at least four members of the Republican caucus to say no to him on any number of these choices. And so if I were—if I were betting on all this—and I’m not, but if I were—I wouldn’t bet a whole lot of money on the fact that there’s going to be a wholesale rejection. 

But what I would say is that I hope that what the Senate does is protect its prerogatives here. There should not be recess appointments. And they need to do their job. Recess appointments are abrogating their job. They should do their job, give full hearings to these folks, let both sides question them closely, and then make a judgment based upon their background, experience, and their answers to those questions as to whether they can be entrusted with the leadership of some of these really important departments like Justice and Defense and the, you know, director of national intelligence, et cetera. 

WOODRUFF: And, Dave, what about these choices? We’ve just—in terms of—the outgoing Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, has signaled he thinks recess appointments are a bad idea; incoming Senate Republican Leader John Thune, majority leader, saying he prefers the traditional way of confirmation. What do—what do you see? 

MARCHICK: I think it’s going to be a struggle. I think that, as Chris said, you know, the Senate does protect its prerogatives, but they’re also scared of the political consequences, particularly senators—Republican senators that are up in the next cycle and could be primaried. You know, my gut is that there will be some rejections of some of these nominees, but not as many as people expect. I suspect for some of the more controversial nominees all the Democrats will vote against them, and then you have several camps of Republicans. You have call it moderate senators, and you may throw Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, maybe Todd Young, the new senator from Utah as well in that camp. And then you have Senate traditionalists like Mitch McConnell who want to protect the Senate’s prerogatives. 

Then the next question is, will the Senate actually vote to go on recess for more than ten days, which is the period of time that the Supreme Court has said is the minimum amount of time for a recess. And there you need either one of two things happening. One is fifty-one votes in the Senate need to be in favor of going on recess, or the second is there’s a little-known provision of the Constitution which has only been used three times in the history of the United States—once by Thomas Jefferson, once by Harry Truman, and once by Dwight D. Eisenhower—which allows the president to put the Congress in recess should there be a difference or dispute between the House and the Senate. Now, there’s never been a dispute between the House and the Senate over appointments which has triggered the president putting the—pulling the trigger on this recess clause, but one could imagine the speaker of the House saying I’m going to create a controversy that allows the president to force an adjournment or a recess for more than ten days in order to allow him to put his picks in place. 

One other thing is I do think that, you know, Trump may be playing chess while others are playing checkers. So, you know, if Gaetz does not make it through, then the question is the next three most senior appointees that Trump has named to the Justice Department are credible attorneys but they happen to be the attorneys who were President Trump’s personal defense lawyers. And so traditionally, both Republicans and Democrats in the traditional sense have said, all right, the White House counsel is the—is the president’s lawyer inside the White House; the attorney general is the people’s lawyer or America’s lawyer. I think Trump sees the attorney general as his lawyer. And so the question is, if Gaetz does not make it, will we have the president’s personal lawyers running the Justice Department? That’s a decent possibility as well. 

WOODRUFF: Governor Christie, if you want to comment on that, and also on the fact that there have been no FBI vetting. I mean, these names have come so fast, clearly there hasn’t been time to vet—to vet them, which traditionally was done. 

CHRISTIE: Well, yeah. And you know, the president-elect has made clear that he has no use for the entire Department of Justice, so I’m not the least bit surprised that he wouldn’t wait around for that. But the Senate will demand it, and so FBI background checks will be done on these folks because the Senate will demand that they be done. 

And, look, I would say this on the folks that he’s put at deputy attorney general and PADAG, as we call it in the Justice Department—the principal associate deputy attorney general—that, you know, these are credible former prosecutors. And I think there would be a lot of people that—both of them, I believe, came out of the Southern District of New York, and they are credible folks. And there is history for folks putting their personal lawyers in as the attorney general. Richard Nixon put John Mitchell in. Ronald Reagan put in William French Smith, who was his personal lawyer. So there is precedent in the past for doing that. 

I don’t think that’s what Donald Trump wants. I think he wants Matt Gaetz. But would he settle for the others? I don’t know whether he’d willingly settle for it, but if the Senate were not to confirm Matt Gaetz do I think that would be his next choice? I think it would certainly—they would certainly be high on the list to be the next choice. 

And you know, but I don’t think anybody should misunderstand this, Judy. Like, I’ve read some speculation about, oh, this is Trump putting up someone who he knows can’t be confirmed so he can get his other choices either at AG or in other Cabinet—this is not likely, in my view. He’s nominating Matt Gaetz because he wants to see if he can actually get Matt Gaetz confirmed. That’s who he wants. 

WOODRUFF: What does all this—well, let me—let me back up because I quickly want to ask both of you the significance of these memoranda of understanding. It sounds like, you know, a term that, you know, what is—why does that matter. But it triggers the sharing of information from the Biden administration. Dave, how much difference does it make whether they sign this or not? 

MARCHICK: So it’s a very technical aspect of the transition process, but it’s really important, and let me try to explain it. There are three separate memoranda of understanding that are typically required and which Chris Christie signed on behalf of candidate Trump in 2016. 

There is a memorandum of understanding with the General Services Administration. That’s probably the least important. That gives them access to space, which they don’t want to use because they’re in Mar-a-Lago, and then access to secure computer systems provided by the federal government, OK? They haven’t signed that. 

The second is a memorandum of understanding with the White House, which gives them the ability to send transition team members into the agencies to start the consultation process: What’s happening at DOD? What’s the strategy on Iran? How are we dealing with bird flu? What are we doing on the potential next pandemic? These are really important conversations which should be taking place so that the Trump team at all levels can start on January 20 and be ready. 

So while there’s serious policy differences in a lot of areas, take Iran. Both Biden and Trump want to take a very tough line against Iran. And having Trump collaborate—Trump’s team collaborate with Biden officials and career officials throughout the government, including the intelligence agencies, is deeply in our national interest right now. 

And then the third is an MOU with the Department of Justice, OK, and that governs the ability for the Trump team to start putting people through security clearances and FBI background checks. That’s really important because Trump members of his transition team are not getting access to intelligence briefings right now, which they should. And more importantly, under the rules, as Governor Christie said, he can’t actually send nominations up to the Senate for consideration by the Senate for confirmation until those candidates have FBI background checks. So technically, while he’s naming people, he can’t actually send them up to the Senate to get confirmed until he signs that memorandum of understanding and these candidates have background checks. 

Importantly, it’s also a Senate tradition for there to be confirmation hearings in the interregnum between the election and inauguration. So, for example, Obama had twenty-five Senate hearings during the confirmation process so that eight Cabinet officers were approved on January 20. George W. Bush had eight Cabinet officers approved on January 20. That’s really important so that the government can be fully staffed so the—so the country is as safe as possible and the government’s running as effectively as possible. None of that is happening today. 

WOODRUFF: And just to be clear, you said the president-elect is not receiving intelligence briefings? It was my impression that he was. 

MARCHICK: To my knowledge, he’s not. 

WOODRUFF: Governor Christe, how much does it matter that these agreements haven’t been—memoranda haven’t been signed? 

CHRISTIE: I mean, look, I would agree with David that it hinders them to some extent, right? If you’re not getting regular briefings on the status of certain issues that are going on in the country, some of which will be known to us and some which are unknown, that doesn’t help you be most prepared to take the keys to the car, so to speak, on January 20. 

Now, I’m sure what the Trump—some of the Trump people think is, well, he was just president four years ago, and so he understands a lot of this, and that it’s a little bit different than when he was coming in in 2016. You know, not getting intelligence briefings is a problem. And I think, you know, given the complexity of a number of the issues around the world we have right now with two, you know, hot wars going on right now in the Middle East and in Ukraine, that you would want to be getting that kind of information on a real-time basis. 

And the vetting stuff’s going to have to be done. 

Now, like I said off the top, I did sign those, ultimately, but it was a struggle to get the authorization from the candidate to sign it. I, ultimately, impressed upon him how important this was. And—but I’ll give you an idea, like, with an anecdote, Judy, of one of the things Donald Trump said to me in Fall of 2016. He said to me, Chris, I know you’re serious about this transition stuff, but I don’t want you to spend too much time on it because, look, you and I are both so smart, he said, that we could leave the victory party on election night two or three hours early and get the whole transition done. And so that’s really the way he felt about it. I don’t think he feels any differently today. He’s not right and he wasn’t right then, but that’s the way he feels. 

And these choices being announced the way they are; and plans which I am sure Stephen Miller, his deputy chief of staff-designate for policy, and others are working on behind the scenes right now; I’m sure would benefit from some of this other input. But I don’t know whether he’ll ever sign this stuff. And eventually, the Senate’s going to have to force his hand on saying we won’t consider, you know, any of these nominations for confirmation without the appropriate FBI background check, and then that will happen as well. But only then. 

MARCHICK: Judy, let me—let me jump in. 

WOODRUFF: We’ve only got a couple of minutes before we go to—go to members, so, yeah. And I have one more quick question. 

MARCHICK: I think one of the reasons that he’s not signing it is because it’s a precondition to sign these that you have to have an ethics agreement and you have to disclose who funds the transition. So my gut is that that is why they’re not signing it; he doesn’t want to be subject to the normal ethics codes and he doesn’t want to disclose the funding of the transition process. 

We already know that Elon Musk and a bunch of other very wealthy people have made huge contributions to support his campaign. I’m not sure what additional disclosures are going to surprise people, as Chris said, that suddenly, you know, there’s a lot of wealthy people that are funding Trump-related activities. So my gut is that’s what’s holding him back. 

WOODRUFF: Last question to both of you before we turn over—turn to members for question is, what does all this say—apologies about the phone—(laughs)—what does all this say about what we can expect in terms of governing from this president? Governor Christie? 

CHRISTIE: Exactly what he promised. (Laughs.) You know, look, I’ve been saying all along that, you know, Donald Trump is going to govern by the seat of his pants. That’s the way he does it. That’s the way he was in business. That’s the way he was in the first term. I don’t know why anybody would expect anything differently, Judy. And there were a number of us during the campaign in the primary, myself and Asa Hutchinson in particular, who warned about this, you know, that the guardrails were going to be less. 

And I think the folks he’s shown—he’s picked so far show that he’s going to let them—you know, what did he say about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.? I’m going to let him go wild on health. You know, when this stuff was said during the campaign, the response of many people who were supportive of Donald Trump at the time was, you know, well, you’re overreacting; that’s just something he said at a campaign event or whatever. I’ve known him long enough to know he rarely says anything without a purpose, and I think he was signaling what he was going to do. And now we’ve seen three weeks or so of it, and I think it confirms what I said during the campaign, which is he’s going to govern the way he does it, which is by the seat of the pants. 

WOODRUFF: And in terms of consequences for the country, I mean, the bottom line is what, Governor? 

CHRISTIE: Well, the bottom line is that, you know, I heard many folks who supported the president-elect say, all right, yes, we don’t care for his personality or some of the conduct of his life, but we like the policy so we’re going to vote for him. These are the people who will be charged with implementing those policies. The president of the United States doesn’t implement those policies by himself. These people will be implementing these policies, at least charged with trying to implement them. And so the competence, experience, and quality of a president’s Cabinet nominations have a lot to do with the success or failure of his administration. And so folks need to look at this and say, you know, would I want some of these folks running important areas like the Department of Justice, director of national intelligence, Health and Human Services, and the Pentagon? 

WOODRUFF: Dave, how would you assess what the consequences are of an approach to governing that is like what we’re seeing in this transition? 

MARCHICK: So, as you know, Judy, I wrote a book on this and I studied transitions throughout history, and I interviewed Chris Christie for that book as well, and there is a high correlation between the success of a transition and at least the president’s first year. So, for example, both Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter had very poor transitions, and those in charge of the transition and chiefs of staff in the—in the early stages of their presidency would all say that the chaotic transition imperiled our first year at a minimum. And I remember when I interviewed Governor Christie for the book, you know, he basically made the point that Trump never recovered. 

So I’ll give you a couple datapoints. At a hundred days in the first term, there are 1,250 Senate-confirmed positions that a president needs to appoint. Trump only had twenty-eight confirmed officials. So this is call it May 1-ish of the first term; twenty-eight officials throughout the government in the whole of the United States government. 

Then you look at some of the speed and some of the chaos. If you take the agencies where the most controversial picks have been named, the security agencies—Homeland Security, DOD, DNI, and DHS—the average term in those positions was less than one year in Trump’s first term. So he had four secretaries of defense, four secretaries—four attorney generals. He had four heads of DNI. And he had six secretaries of homeland security throughout his term. So the secretary of homeland security only lasted an average of ten months. So even if he pursues recess appointments, my gut is that you’ll see the same level of chaos and turnover in this—in this term as you did the last. 

WOODRUFF: All right. We are at the halfway point and I am going to turn it over to our operator, Sophia, so you can tell us what questions are coming through Sophia? 

OPERATOR: (Gives queuing instructions.) 

We will take the first question from Aaron David Miller. 

Q: (Off mic)—this one’s for you. It’s often said in Washington that personnel is policy. But let me just ask you flat out: Do you believe that Donald Trump has any conception of the national interest, or is anything subordinated, particularly in foreign policy—you saw it during Trump 1.0—is everything subordinated or tethered to his whims and fancies, his financial interests, his politics, his personal interests, or his vanity? And do these appointments reflect that? 

WOODRUFF: Governor Christie? 

CHRISTIE: That was for me, OK. Look, I think that Donald Trump sees his personal interest and the national interest as analogous. And again, I don’t know why anybody would be surprised. Why would anybody be surprised by this? So this is democracy. This is what we voted for. It is not as if Donald Trump campaigned by saying, hey, I realize there was some chaos in my first term; I realize that I didn’t do some of these things in a way that led to effective governance, meaning being able to accomplish the things I want to accomplish; so if you give me a second term, I’m turning over a new leaf in the way I run these things and make these decisions. He did the exact opposite. He doubled down on it. And so, as I say about some of these other comments, like, what surprises me is that people are the least bit surprised about this. They shouldn’t be. This is what they voted for. 

WOODRUFF: Sophia, next question. 

OPERATOR: We will take our next question from Andrew Borene. 

Q: Hey, everyone. Andrew Borene. I’m a CFR member, longtime, and I’ve been in government. 

I have a question, actually, kind of away from the very center of the flagpole. We’re hearing a lot about Donald Trump and about the inner core Cabinet-level picks, but I’m curious to get all three of your thoughts on what you’re hearing or if there’s any insider talk about the actual implementation level of the incoming administration and who those picks are. How is that shaping up? Because, I mean, I think that’s where we’re going to see a lot of the consistency and the muscle movement, things like undersecretary level at a number of departments. Pentagon reform doesn’t go anywhere without a really solid SES corps and Schedule C corps. And so I’m wondering what your thoughts are, again, on kind of the business of the business level of the next administration. How do you think that’ll shape up? And is that underway? Because I’m not sure I saw a huge departure from professionalism in a lot of those types of roles. Folks like Chris Krebs jump to mind from DHS, others. And so I’m wondering what your—again, your thoughts are, implementation level, right? Think SES, non-Senate confirmed, or maybe even the Senate-confirmed ASD undersecretary level positions. 

WOODRUFF: I’m going to defer to the two of you. Dave, are you—what would you say is your— 

MARCHICK: I think it’s still very early. You know, we’re only two weeks from the election and he’s named fourteen Cabinet-level officials. That’s faster than—that’s twice as fast as he did his first transition and it’s three times as fast as Bush did. He’s moving fast. 

Typically, what happens is, as you know, a Cabinet officer is approved or confirmed, and then there’s a balance between the White House and the Cabinet officer in terms of picking the undersecretaries, the assistant secretaries, and others. In the first term, Trump really did not have as—a lot of Senate-confirmed officials in those positions. At the Department of Homeland Security, for example, I think at the high point he only had about 40, 45 percent of the positions filled with Senate-confirmed officials. So my gut is that he will appoint a lot of people to be, you know, deputy assistant secretary, then make them acting assistant secretary, and really try to fill those spots without going through the normal checks and balances of the United States Senate. 

WOODRUFF: Governor Christie? 

CHRISTIE: Yeah. Look—(laughs)—you know, I think that, you know, we don’t have any transparency into it, Judy, so we don’t really know. I think he may also try to backdoor use this faux Department of Government Efficiency being run by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy—which is not really a department; I mean, it’s going to be an assignment within the executive branch, you know, probably at the White House—he may use that to try to determine who are going to be in those next levels of decision-making, and if so who he’s going to replace in those spots, which I would assume will be a lot. And I assume that they’re going to try to eliminate some of those. Now, the fight with Congress will be significant over some of that, but that’s what I think they’ll wind up doing. And as far as those levels, though, in terms of names, et cetera, there’s not been much transparency from the Trump folks, so we don’t really know who they’re considering. Although— 

WOODRUFF: Hasn’t he—go ahead. 

CHRISTIE: While we were on he just named Dr. Oz to be the head of CMS. 

WOODRUFF: Correct. 

CHRISTIE: And so, again, it fits the loyalist category. Now, I know Dr. Oz very well, consider him a personal friend. He’s an extraordinarily bright guy, hardworking guy. And so he’s got a big job on his hands running Medicare and Medicaid. But Mehmet Oz is a very smart guy, but he’s also been very loyal to Donald Trump. So he has both factors, one that, you know, certain members of the public may be looking for and one that is the exclusive litmus test for Donald Trump, and that’s loyalty. 

WOODRUFF: Operator? Sophia? 

OPERATOR: We will take our next question from Tamara Keith. 

Q: Oh, hold on. Yes, you can hear. This is Tamara Keith from NPR. Sorry. 

And my question is to Governor Christie; and, David, please weigh in as well. But you suggested that eventually the Senate is going to ask for these background checks, they’re going to ask for these ethics agreements, and that’s the way it’s going to happen. How confident are you that that is actually going to happen? Or do you think that the Trump transition could just blow past some of these traditional requirements? 

CHRISTIE: I don’t know about the ethics portion of it because, quite frankly, I don’t know how much the transition’s really costing them. It’s not like they had a transition team, at least not one that was very visible and very large, going back a number of months where some people had to be paid and office space that had to be occupied. That’s the stuff that we had, Tamara, and why we had to raise money, and it was important for us to raise money in the president’s name. I don’t think you’re going to find anything—I don’t think he’s trying to avoid it; I just think he doesn’t care, you know, because, quite frankly, the same names are going to be on there that are on his FEC disclosures. 

So I don’t know whether the Senate—how they’ll deal with that, but I don’t think that the Senate is going to consider people for confirmation without having the very basics of their—of their background checks done by the FBI. So I—that’s why I’m confident that will be done. I can’t speak to the ethics part of it. And quite frankly, having raised the money for the 2016 transition, there was nothing exotic in there at all anyway, at least in my recollection. It was pretty standard Republican/conservative fundraising. 

WOODRUFF: Dave, anything to add on that? 

MARCHICK: Yes. That’s a great question, Tamara. 

The rules of the Senate currently say that you have to submit an FBI background check, an ethics agreement negotiated with the Office of Government Ethics, and then there’s a questionnaire that each committee has that has been negotiated over years between the majority and the minority that lawyers and staffers on the Senate committees review before they will agree to a confirmation date. So one could imagine that we get through the transition period and he is inaugurated, and then the issue of these memoranda of understanding is moot because he's president, OK? But then the question is, will the Senate waive their traditional requirements to have an Office of Government Ethics agreement with each nominee, an FBI background check, and the Senate questionnaire? My gut is—going to what Governor Christie said, is that Senate prerogatives are very, very strong, and there will be a majority of senators—even if there are a number of Republican senators that are very, very loyal to or scared of Donald Trump, there will be a majority that will insist that these basic norms need to be followed before confirmations take place. 

Now, a recess appointment does not require these agreements to be in place. So if they—if he pursues the approach of a recess appointment, then the normal processes don’t apply. So that, again, is an exception. But I would think that the lack of an FBI background check, the lack of an ethics agreement, the lack of the standard requirements would be strong incentives for the Senate to not allow broad recess appointments. 

WOODRUFF: OK. Operator? Sophia? 

OPERATOR: We will take our next question from David Diaz. 

Q: Good afternoon, everyone. Dave Diaz at Georgetown and a CFR member. 

We’ve heard so much today about how specific, deliberate planning has been tossed aside both after the election in 2016 and it seems like this time. My question is about Project 2025, which is very much a roadmap for not just the strategic goals of the administration but implementation of resources and personnel to achieve those goals. My question—specifically to Governor Christie, but I’d also love to get David’s insights on it—is, how can we expect the administration to implement and pursue Project 2025? Will they use it as a roadmap once they’ve got some traction and have people in place? Or should we expect them to really have to take some time to get there because they just won’t have the people and the resources in the right place? Thank you. 

WOODRUFF: Governor? 

CHRISTIE: David, these things always take more time than you think they will, or that’s when you become governor in a state government and certainly when you become president. And so I do think there will be a lag there. But do I think, despite his protestations to the contrary during the campaign, that Project 2025 will play some role? Believe me, it’s not going to be sitting on Donald Trump’s desk in the Oval Office, but I bet you there will be people who are part of his administration who will be using it for guidance. And so, you know—but I don’t think that abrogates any of the need for trying to do some things in transition which gets you ready to take the keys to the car and be able to drive it responsibly. 

Now, will that mean that there’s going to be some cataclysmic disaster because of this early on in the administration? I’m not predicting that. I mean, who knows? But we’re talking about best practices here. What can best get you prepared to four years later once again assume the presidency of your country, and whether you like it or not the leadership role in the world? 

WOODRUFF: Governor, I just want to quickly follow up before we go to Dave on that. What is—what is your sense of Project 2025? I mean—I mean, how much of it do you think is—are things that we’re going to see this president try to carry through? 

CHRISTIE: Look, impossible to tell, Judy. But what I’d say is that I don’t believe Project 2025 happened without at least the tacit approval of Donald Trump. I mean, I don’t think they would go about all the work and the expenditure of funds if they thought it was just going to collect dust and sit on a shelf. But how much of it, what percentage of it gets implemented, which particular things get implemented, I would have no idea. But I’d tell you this much: I’m not alone in having no idea; my guess is Donald Trump has no idea either. 

WOODRUFF: Does it—does it—but, well, let me just ask you the basic question: Is it something that reassures you or something that alarms you? I mean— 

CHRISTIE: Both. Both. I mean, look, there’s things in there that I would have absolutely no objection to seeing happening, and there’s things in there that I would find problematic politically and from a policy perspective. So I’d say both, Judy. 

But I—you know, again, nothing—not Project 2025 or anything else—is going to make the Trump operation look organized. It’s never looked organized, and the reason it isn’t is because—it hasn’t looked that way is because it isn’t. 

WOODRUFF: Dave, Project 2025 and the implementation. 

MARCHICK: I agree with Governor Christie. I mean, I don’t think there was some conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Heritage Foundation that this is their plan. I think a bunch of folks that—some of whom were in the first Trump administration, some of whom were not wrote some ideas down. Some of them will be picked up. Some of them won’t. I think it became very politically unpopular and Trump did not want to own everything in that document, so he distanced himself. But we know that the vice president-elect wrote the intro, we know that Trump’s border czar wrote the immigration section, and we know that his designate for FCC chair wrote the communications section. So there will be—parts of that will be picked up and implemented, and there will be parts that won’t. 

But I—my gut is that it’s just like any other document that a think tank or, you know, advocacy group writes. There are a million—there are a thousand organizations in Washington that write papers and plans for the next president, and this is one of them. I just think it became politically unpopular and he distanced himself from it. 

WOODRUFF: OK. Operator? Sophia, next question. 

OPERATOR: We will take our next question from Ken Kraetzer. 

Q: Oh, good afternoon. Pleasure to ask a question. Ken with CaMMVetsMedia in Westchester. 

Just asking about NATO expansion, there seemed to be so much enthusiasm to Sweden and Finland joining NATO, and there seemed to be a lot of strength growing in the mutual defense agreements in the Pacific. With Marco Rubio nominated for State Department and Pete Hegseth for the Defense Department, how do you see they will look at allies? And will that come up in their confirmations, do you think? 

WOODRUFF: Governor, do you want to tackle that? 

CHRISTIE: Yeah. Sure. I think—I think it clearly will come up in their confirmation hearing. And I think Marco Rubio has a pretty solid, transparent record on how he views America’s role in the world. You know, Marco’s been a senior—the senior Republican on the Intelligence Committee. He’s been involved—he’s run for president. He’s someone who’s thought a lot about these issues. And so I would say you’re going to hear from Marco at the time of his confirmation hearings some very well-formed, well-thought-out positions on what he thinks the United States’ role in the world is and our interaction with allies. And I think you’ll hear that pretty clearly from Marco. You know, as for Pete Hegseth, I—look, I just haven’t heard enough from Pete Hegseth from a policy perspective to know in what direction he would take the Pentagon in that regard. But I do feel confident in Marco and feel like Marco could do a very good job at the State Department. 

WOODRUFF: Dave, thoughts on the NATO— 

MARCHICK: I don’t have anything to add on NATO. That’s outside my expertise. 

WOODRUFF: Do we have a question in the queue? Because I have a question if not. 

OPERATOR: Yes. We will take our next question from Elise Labott. 

(Pause.) 

We seem to be experiencing technical difficulties. Ms. Woodruff, back to you. 

WOODRUFF: OK. I have a question while we’re waiting for Elise. 

What is—if what the two of you are saying, and Governor Christie in particular what you’re saying about what Donald Trump’s—former President Trump’s intentions are and what we can expect from him in office, what are the—how is there any accountability? Where are the guardrails? Are there any guardrails in this next Trump administration? Where do you see accountability? 

CHRISTIE: Well, look, we’re in the immediate aftermath, right? It’s two weeks or so since Election Day. So we’re in the immediate aftermath of it—of a significant victory for Donald Trump, and so you’re not going to hear a lot of people giving any discouraging words. But I would say to you that the Congress has to play their role. The Senate and the House have to play their role. They’re in Republican majorities, that is true, but there’s going to be a decent amount of disagreement about what the priorities are and how they should be implemented. So I think Congress is a place where you can—you can have that type of back and forth. 

And I also think the nation’s governors. You know, they are often the ones charged with having to implement at least some parts of any federal scheme or idea, and the governors can push back appropriately and use the powers of the courts to try to stop certain actions if they think they’re extraconstitutional or unconstitutional in some way. 

So, you know, that’s the way I would look at it, Judy, is I think the governors are out there as a guardrail, even Republican ones. House and Senate, they still protect jealously their prerogatives they’ve been given over the course of the nearly 250 years that we’ve been around. So that’s the way I’d look at that issue. 

WOODRUFF: And, Dave, from your perspective, where do you see the guardrails? And speaking of the courts, I mean, former President Trump made a statement today that—his office—that he doesn’t want any more judicial appointments confirmed during the—until he’s president. Democrats immediately pointed out that this was something that they certainly granted when Biden was coming into office, but it just—it just raises another set of questions about the judiciary. 

MARCHICK: So, yeah, I think there will be—that there are lots of checks and balances in our system. And even though Trump is coming off a victory, a large electoral victory but a smaller delta in vote counts than initially thought, there will be many checks and balances in the House, in the Senate, in the press, in the agencies, by our allies, by the courts. 

You recall that when Trump came in this was one of the problems with not following Governor Christie’s transition plan. I’m confident—and Governor Christie can agree or disagree—that they had really good lawyers drafting potential first-day executive orders on the Trump priorities, and Trump didn’t use any of that, and so a lot of the early executive orders that Trump promulgated were invalidated by the courts. Only—you know, he later issued a number of executive orders that passed muster, but it was delayed by six months or a year or two years. And that’s one of the problems with not having an effective transition. 

So there are checks and balances in the systems. We have—we’ll have an election in two years that will come up very quickly. And the House is governed by the slimmest of majorities. There are moderate Republicans that want to protect their seats. And the Senate is only a four-vote delta. So I’m confident that Trump will get a lot of what he wants, but not everything. And there are important checks and balances in the system. 

You know, he tested and stressed our institutions in the last cycle, particularly around January 6, and our institutions bent but they weren’t broken. And my suspicion is that will happen again. 

WOODRUFF: And just quickly before we go to Elise Labott, who’s back, Governor Christie, does it matter that the margin—that the popular vote margin is now for president—former President Trump is now under 50 percent? It’s forty-nine-point-something (percent). It looks like it’ll be only about a point and a half between him and Vice President Harris. Does that matter? 

CHRISTIE: Probably not, Judy, because it’s representative of the vagaries of our—the way we count votes in this country. I mean, think about it: It’s two weeks ago today; we still don’t have a final vote count. What the hell are they doing in California, counting it on an abacus? I mean, it’s absurd. The laws in some of the states are absurd. And this, once again, needs to be revisited because, for instance, if we had known that information on election night or soon thereafter, the day after the election, this entire myth of a Trump landslide would not be able to take hold nearly as easily. But nature abhors a vacuum, and when you can’t give people the final vote—I heard Donald Trump say the other day on TV he had won by 7 million votes. I mean, it’s not even close to that. But we have no way of countering him because California is still counting. And that is the fault of the governor of California and the state legislature in California, who continue for whatever reason to allow their vote-counting system to drag behind the rest of the nation. And when one-fifth of your country in one state, you know, is dragging their feet, it slows down the whole nation. 

WOODRUFF: Yeah. I was told it’s California, New York, and a couple of other high-population areas. 

Elise Labott, I think you’re back with us with a question? Operator? 

OPERATOR: Yes. We will go to Elise Labott. 

Q: OK. Can you hear me now? 

MARCHICK: Yeah. 

Q: Hi. Elise Labott. Good to see you, Governor. And thanks, David and Judy, too. I’m the press fellow here at—the Edward R. Murrow press fellow here at the Council on Foreign Relations. 

Governor, you said, and I—and I would tend to agree, that when Senator Rubio goes to give his testimony you’re going to hear, you know, a relatively traditional conservative view of American foreign policy and America’s role in the world, which does seem to be kind of in at least some opposition, if you will, to President Trump’s vision and foreign policy priorities. And I’m wondering if you could look a little past the transition. I mean, obviously, he’ll be paying attention closely to these hearings. What happens when these—when this kind of—you know, antithetical policy visions happen? I mean, I’m not surprised that he would accept the nomination, but how long is it before, you know, a Rubio vision of foreign policy and a Trump vision of foreign policy clash? And what does—what do you think then-Secretary of State Rubio would do at that point? 

WOODRUFF: Governor? 

CHRISTIE: Well, first off, I think you’ll see that Marco will hedge a little bit in some of his answers and remind people that he acts for the president, and that he has his own views but that he’s there to execute the vision of the president of the United States. I think that if there becomes a conflict between Senator Rubio and the president, Marco will have to make a decision about how fundamental that conflict is and whether or not it’s disqualifying for him to stay in the job or not; or whether it’s just a place where he says, well, he got elected president and it’s my job to go out and execute his policy, and whether he does that. And we’ve certainly have that done, I’m confident, any number of times by prior secretaries of state who wouldn’t always agree, necessarily, with their president. 

But, look, I think that Marco will lay out kind of—that will be part of his background and experience. I think he’ll answer questions as carefully as he can to not commit the president to anything one way or another, but say that, like, I’m here to serve at the pleasure of the president, which is exactly true. 

WOODRUFF: And, Dave, you want to comment on that? We’ve only got—we’ve got about a minute. 

MARCHICK: Yeah. 

WOODRUFF: But I—and I also want to ask what you’re looking for between now and January 20. 

MARCHICK: So things tend not to end well for senior government officials in Trump administrations. You know, if you look at the record, there were seven White House communication directors, six homeland security secretaries or acting secretaries, four secretary of defense, four national security advisors, four White House chiefs of staff. You know, we want—whether we like a president or not, we want good people to go in with a president. My gut is that there will be some skeletons and some blood on the floor in the not-too-distant future because, as Governor Christie said, that’s what you get with Donald Trump. So I think that’s what you’ll see. How long Secretary Rubio—Secretary-designate Rubio can last I don’t know. 

WOODRUFF: Well, we want to thank both of you, Dave Marchick and Governor Chris Christie, for this candid conversation that we’ve had over the last hour. Thank you for answering our questions. It’s been—and we’re so glad to have had these questions come in from Council members. 

Thank you again. This has all been on the record, and I’ve been honored to take part. Thank you very much. 

CHRISTIE: Thank you, Judy. 

(END) 

This is an uncorrected transcript.