Transition Lab: Recent Episodes
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Transition Lab is a behind-the-scenes look at presidential transitions. Join David Marchick, director of the Partnership for Public Service’s Center for Presidential Transition for candid discussions with former presidential chiefs of staff, transition team leads and other presidential transition experts. Transition Lab is a must-listen for anyone interested in developing a better understanding of what needs to happen before a president takes office or starts a second term.
During every presidential transition, flocks of people parachute into agencies across the federal government. From November to January, these agency review teams serve as the bridge between the president-elect and the mammoth organization they will soon oversee, relaying information back and forth to prepare for a smooth handoff of power. Organizing these teams is no small task, so today on “Transition Lab,” we speak with Melody Barnes, who co-led this work for former President Barack Obama’s 2008 transition, about what she learned.
Melody Barnes is a distinguished public policy expert, attorney, and political strategist with a decades-long career that spans government service in both the legislative and executive branches, as well as leadership roles in think tanks, the private sector, and academia. Currently, Barnes serves as the executive director of the Karsh Institute of Democracy and the J. Wilson Newman Professor of Governance at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. During the Obama administration, Barnes was an assistant to the president and director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, where she played a crucial role in shaping policies on health care, education, and economic mobility. She was also a co-director of the agency review working group during the 2008 Obama transition.
Read a complete transcript of the episode here.
The federal government seems broken, but it might not be for the reasons you think. In this episode of “Transition Lab,” Yuval Levin talks with us about the surprising ways in which a the U.S. Constitution—despite being centuries old—could help us address our most pressing modern social and political problems.
Yuval Levin is the director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the founder and editor of National Affairs, a senior editor at The New Atlantis, a contributing editor at National Review and a contributing opinion writer at The New York Times. Earlier in his career, Levin worked on Capitol Hill and in the George H.W. Bush White House. He’s the author of five books and numerous articles in several mainstream media publications. His work explores the role of institutions in American life, how they can and should operate to form citizens, and how they fail to do so today, with grave consequences for democracy and American political culture.
A complete transcript of this episode can be found here.
A law on presidential transitions bears former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt's name for a reason: he wrote the book on managing the peaceful transfer of power from one president to the next. Twelve years ago, Leavitt built “the ship that never sailed:” the Romney Readiness Project. He memorialized this work in a book by the same name, creating a playbook and record of what many experts consider to be the best, most thorough presidential transition ever organized. Today, as our first returning guest on Transition Lab, Leavitt shares his wisdom on how to build a cohesive and committed transition organization and steer it through the tumultuous waters of our current politics.
Leavitt served three terms as governor of Utah before joining the George W. Bush administration as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and later as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. In 2012, he became the chair of Mitt Romney’s presidential transition team and led a robust transition operation to ensure a seamless transfer of power that never came to pass with Romney’s loss to President Barack Obama. Leavitt subsequently worked with the Partnership for Public Service and Congress to apply lessons learned from his experience with Romney to create a law modernizing the 1963 Presidential Transition Act. The Edward "Ted" Kaufman and Michael Leavitt Presidential Transitions Improvements Act of 2015 now makes many of the practices that that Leavitt implemented on the Romney Readiness Project law for future presidential hopefuls.
Read a full transcript of this episode here
We remember the 2016 election as one of the most bruising, knockdown, polarized elections of our time, but behind the scenes, representatives for both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were quietly preparing each candidate to transition into office. Today, we speak with Ann O’Leary, co-executive director of the Clinton-Kaine Transition Project, and Rich Bagger, leader of the Trump for America transition operation, about what they learned from the 2016 transition, how to prepare for a transfer of power during a polarized election cycle and what advice they would offer this year’s candidates.
Ann O’Leary is a longtime Democratic political figure and a self-described policy wonk. She has held a wide variety of roles over the past thirty years, beginning with serving on the Domestic Policy Council in Bill Clinton’s White House in the late 1990s. She then became legislative director for Hillary Clinton’s Senate Office before spending more than a decade at the Center for American Progress. She returned to politics with Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, first as a senior policy advisor and then as the co-lead of her transition team. Since then, Ann has worked outside national politics, practicing law and serving for two years as chief of staff to California Governor Gavin Newsom, during which she guided his transition into office and steered his administration through the COVID-19 pandemic. She now leads the Government Controversies and Public Policy Litigation Practice at the law firm Jenner & Block.
Rich Bagger is a born-and-raised New Jersey corporate executive, politician and government leader. A lawyer by profession, he spent the 1990s and early 2000s as a New Jersey state legislator. From 2010-2012, he served as Governor Chris Christie’s chief of staff, using meticulous planning and political savvy to spearhead several legislative successes. Rich briefly returned to the private sector until 2016, when Christie, chairman of the Trump transition team, appointed him to run its day-to-day operations.
A complete transcript of the episode can be found here.
Red versus blue, Republican versus Democrat, liberal versus conservative. Today’s politics are driven by intense partisan conflict, but things haven’t always been this way. In this episode of “Transition Lab,” we talk to Lee Drutman about how our two-party system and winner-take-all elections have inflamed our political divisions. Not to worry, though: He also tells us how we can reform our government to reorganize our political conversations and create a healthier, more productive democracy.
Lee Drutman is a political scientist and prolific writer who covers a range of topics, from political history to voting reform to political psychology. Much of his work centers around the way that political systems and individual psychology interact with each other to create certain social and political outcomes. Currently, he’s a senior fellow at New America, co-host of the podcast “Politics in Question,” a lecturer at Johns Hopkins University and the co-founder of two different electoral reform organizations. He’s also the author of two books, including “Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America.”
A complete transcript of the episode can be found here.
Once we leave high school social studies behind, government can feel distant, complex, impersonal and overwhelming. On today’s episode of Transition Lab, we talk with Eric Liu, co-founder of Citizen University. Eric established Citizen University to rebuild a civic culture in America and help individuals engage with one another across partisan lines and create positive ways for people to participate in democracy. He tells us about this work and the importance of the peaceful transfer of power as a civic ritual and proof of the rule of law.
Eric Liu now serves as the CEO of Citizen University, a nonprofit organization working to strengthen civil engagement across the U.S. He began his career in Washington on Capitol Hill and then in the Clinton White House, where he worked as a speechwriter and domestic policy adviser. He’s worked in the media and the social sector, including as the executive director of the Aspen Institute’s Citizenship and American Identity Program, and he served on the board of Corporation for National and Community Service under former President Obama. He has written multiple books, given TED Talks and been a tireless advocate for people to embrace their civic power and connect across partisan divide.
A complete transcript of the episode can be found here.
As the 2024 presidential election approaches, you can almost feel the tension rising in the air. Today on Transition Lab, we talk with Harvard professor Archon Fung about why political discourse today feels so rough, why our democratic institutions feel so fragile and what we might do about it.
Archon Fung is the director of the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation and the current Winthrop Laflin McCormack Professor of Citizenship and Self-Government at the Harvard Kennedy School. He’s been at Harvard since 1999 and has authored five books, edited four collections and written dozens of articles for a wide variety of journals and publications.
A complete transcript of the episode can be found here.
Journalist Judy Woodruff spent the last two years “reporting on America” by traveling the country to speak to people and try to find out why we’ve become so polarized. Today on Transition Lab, she tells us about how politics has changed since she arrived in Washington, D.C., during the Carter administration, how these changes inspired her current series, “America at a Crossroads,” and what she’s learned from it. Spoiler alert: the problems are as big as you imagine, but so are the ideas of Americans working to solve them.
Judy is a senior correspondent and the former anchor and managing editor of the PBS NewsHour. She has covered politics and other news for more than five decades at five major news networks. Since leaving the PBS anchor chair at the end of 2022, she’s been working on a new series, America at a Crossroads, where she speaks with Americans across the country to understand what’s driving our current political environment and what might be done to bridge the divide. Judy has won numerous awards during her career, including the Partnership for Public Service’s 2023 Spirit of Service Award and 25 honorary degrees. She’s also a dedicated philanthropist, championing causes including disability rights and women’s equity in the media.
A complete transcript of the episode can be found here.
Do you know all the ways that America’s first presidential elections look like today’s? We sure didn’t! In this episode of Transition Lab, historian Lindsay Chervinsky tells us the story of America’s first two presidential transitions and how George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson established a tradition for the peaceful transition of power while navigating extreme partisanship, foreign interference and questions of democratic legitimacy.
Lindsay Chervinsky is a scholar at the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University and focuses on early American history and the institution of the presidency. She’s the author of, “The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution,” and the upcoming book, “Making the Presidency: John Adams and the Precedents that Forged the Republic.” She is a former White House historian at the White House Historical Association, publishes a weekly newsletter, “Imperfect Union,” and is a frequent contributor to numerous publications. Starting in July, Lindsay will be the Executive Director of the George Washington Presidential Library.
A complete transcript of the episode can be found here.
Welcome to season two of Transition Lab, hosted by Valerie Boyd, Director of the Center for Presidential Transition. During the first season, we introduced the public to the inner workings of a presidential transition by featuring former White House chiefs of staff, members of Congress and other government leaders who worked behind the scenes to ensure the continuity of government from one U.S. president to the next.
In the second season, Transition Lab will explore the relationship between presidential transitions, effective government and a strong democracy. We’ll examine the peaceful transfer of power and why it matters, and we'll talk about the nuts and bolts of modern transitions with experts who have done this work before.
Join us every other Tuesday on your favorite podcast platform.
A complete transcript of the episode can be found here.
On the final episode of Transition Lab, David Marchick is joined by guest host Yamiche Alcindor, the White House correspondent for the PBS NewsHour and a political contributor for NBC News and MSNBC. As one of America’s leading journalists, Alcindor covered a transition like no other, one marked by a global pandemic and an economic recession, a racial reckoning, a president’s attempts to overturn a fair election, and an attack on the Capitol.
In this episode, Alcindor interviews Transition Lab’s regular host, David Marchick, about this historic period. Marchick, director of the Partnership for Public Service’s Center for Presidential Transition, describes how the Trump and Biden teams approached this transition cycle, how the delay in ascertainment and Capitol insurrection impacted the transition, and how this transition stacks up against previous ones.
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Chris Liddell is the Trump administration’s leading transition expert. A deputy chief of staff, he previously served as executive director of the Romney transition team and helped author The Romney Readiness Project, a comprehensive presidential transition guide. In this episode of Transition Lab, Liddell joins host David Marchick to discuss the good, the bad and the ugly of the 2020 transition. Liddell talks about managing a delayed post-election transition, his experiences working with the Biden team and how he reacted to the recent attack on the Capitol.
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This week’s episode of Transition Lab features Yohannes Abraham, executive director of the Biden-Harris transition. He previously worked on Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign and held several positions in the Obama White House, including senior advisor to the National Economic Council and deputy assistant to the president for the Office of Public Engagement and International Affairs. Later, he helped direct Obama’s 2012 campaign and served as chief operating officer for the newly established Obama Foundation.
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This week’s episode of Transition Lab focuses on the Senate confirmation process with Phil Schiliro and Candi Wolff.
Wolff, the head of global government affairs at Citi, served as the Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs under President George W. Bush. She was the first woman to hold that position. Schiliro worked on Capitol Hill for nearly three decades before serving as congressional liaison for the 2008 Obama transition and director of legislative affairs for the Obama White House. He helped pass numerous laws during his long career, including the 1990 Clean Air Act and the Affordable Care Act.
In this episode, host David Marchick speaks with Schiliro and Wolff about how legislative affairs teams help move presidential nominees through the Senate, the slow Senate confirmation process and how President-elect Biden might manage his relationship with the Senate in 2021.
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Ted Kaufman and President-elect Joe Biden go way back. Kaufman helped organize Biden's first Senate office in 1972 and served as his chief of staff for nearly two decades. Kaufman left the Senate in 1994, but later returned to fill his old boss’s seat after Biden became Barack Obama’s vice president in 2009. More recently, Kaufman helped pass two laws, one in 2010 and another in 2016, that improved the presidential transition process. He currently co-chairs the Biden-Harris transition team.
In this episode of Transition Lab—the first to focus on the Biden transition to power—host David Marchick asks Kaufman to discuss Biden’s transition planning process. Marchick also discusses with Kaufman how he became a leading transition expert, why the Biden-Harris transition will serve as a model for future transition teams and how he has approached the unique challenges of the 2020 transition cycle.
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Representative Derek Kilmer (D-Wash.) is the chair of the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress, a bipartisan panel that has produced nearly 100 recommendations focused on improving the way Congress works. During this episode of Transition Lab, Kilmer joined host David Marchick to discuss the panel’s recommendations for increasing civility, bipartisanship and trust among members of Congress, helping new members transition from campaigning to governing and better preparing the institution for emergencies such as the ongoing pandemic.
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Host David Marchick, along with award winning documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, former George W. Bush chief of staff Josh Bolten, and historian Eric Rauchway, reflects on the current state of the transition, the costs of delay, and how this moment will be remembered.
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Melody Barnes has had a distinguished political career. She has worked in various roles on Capitol Hill, held senior positions with the 2008 Barack Obama presidential campaign and transition teams, and led the White House Domestic Policy Council from 2009-2012. Currently, she is the co-director for policy and public affairs at the University of Virginia’s Democracy Initiative. In this episode of Transition Lab, Barnes joined host David Marchick to discuss post-election transition planning, how new administrations plan and implement policy and why we need a smooth transfer of power today.
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On this week’s episode of Transition Lab, host David Marchick unpacks the contested 2000 election with David J. Barram, who served as GSA administrator from 1996-2000. Barram discusses the process of ascertainment, his work during the 2000 election and how that contest differed from the 2020 race.
Find out more at the Center for Presidential Transition.
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John Podesta served as President Bill Clinton’s White House chief of staff from 1998 to 2001, founded the Center for American Progress, was the co-chair of Barack Obama’s presidential transition in 2008-2009 and chaired Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2016 while overseeing her pre-election transition activities. Podesta talked to Transition Lab Host David Marchick about his transition experiences during victorious and unsuccessful elections, offered advice on political and judicial appointments, suggested climate change will be high on Joe Biden’s agenda if he wins and discussed the challenges Biden may face with the Trump White House if he becomes the president-elect.
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This week’s episode of Transition Lab features three leaders from the Partnership for Public Service. One is special guest host Loren DeJonge Schulman, a national security expert who spent 10 years at the Defense Department and National Security Council, most recently as the senior advisor to National Security Advisor Susan Rice during the Obama administration. Currently, she serves as the vice president of Research and Evaluation at the Partnership. Joining Schulman is Max Stier, the Partnership’s president and CEO, and David Marchick, director of the Partnership’s Center for Presidential Transition, who previously held several positions in the Clinton administration and worked as an executive at the Carlyle Group. In this episode, Stier and Marchick discuss the center’s work, their concerns about the 2020 transition cycle and why transitions have improved in recent years.
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On October 2, the Center for Presidential Transition, the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, and several presidential foundations and libraries hosted a virtual conference called “Talking Transitions: Perspectives for First-term and Second-term Administrations.” The event included former government officials, journalists and scholars to discuss managing presidential transitions during national crises.
You can view the full event here.
This week’s episode of Transition Lab features one panel discussion from this conference. Participants included a who’s who of former federal leaders and transition experts: Stephen Hadley, a longtime foreign policy specialist who served as George W. Bush’s national security advisor; Lisa Monaco, President Obama’s second-term homeland security advisor; Barbara Perry, a renowned historian and the director of presidential studies at the Miller Center; and John Podesta, a chief of staff for President Clinton who later chaired the 2008 Obama transition. Melody Barnes, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council from 2009 to 2012, moderated the discussion. Conversation topics included how administrations address national security threats, share intelligence and enunciate long-term policy goals during presidential transitions. They also discussed the role of Congress in facilitating smooth transfers of power and how COVID-19 will affect the 2020 transition.
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Stephen Hadley held key national security positions in three Republican administrations before working on the George W. Bush transition in 2000-2001 and serving as Bush’s national security advisor. Kurt Campbell is an expert on East Asian affairs who served in the Clinton and Obama administrations, and co-authored, “Difficult Transitions: Foreign Policy Troubles at the Outset of Presidential Power.” In this episode of Transition Lab, Hadley and Campbell join host David Marchick to discuss their experiences during presidential transitions and their concerns about the potential fallout from 2020 election. They also offer advice to Joe Biden’s transition team and those planning for a second term for President Trump.
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Michael Froman has had an extraordinary career. After serving in the Department of the Treasury under President Clinton, he became the head of personnel for the 2008 Obama-Biden transition team and later served as a White House deputy national security advisor and as the U.S. Trade Representative. In this episode of Transition Lab, host David Marchick asks Froman for an inside look at the world of vetting, selecting and appointing key presidential personnel. They discuss how Froman got involved in transition planning, the lessons his experience holds for future administrations and President Obama’s personnel strategy.
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John Dickerson has covered Washington politics for more than two decades as a reporter for Time, Slate Magazine and CBS News. He previously hosted Face the Nation, currently works as a correspondent for 60 Minutes and is the recent author of “The Hardest Job in the World: The American Presidency,” which examines the complex challenges faced by our nation’s chief executives throughout history. In this episode of Transition Lab, host David Marchick spoke with Dickerson about his experience covering presidents, why presidents often struggle with their transition to the White House, how we should view the presidency and how Joe Biden and Donald Trump would govern if elected in November.
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Agency review – the process of informing new administrations about the work of the federal government’s various departments – is a critical aspect of presidential transition planning. In this episode of Transition Lab, host David Marchick speaks to Lisa Brown, co-chair of agency review for the 2008 Obama-Biden transition team. Marchick and Brown discuss how this process works, why it is so important and the critical role played by career staff.
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Since launching in January 2020, Transition Lab has offered a close look at the world of presidential transition planning, featuring in-depth interviews with those who have organized, led and written about some of the most notable transfers of power in U.S. history. In this episode, host David Marchick shares the most important takeaways, poignant stories and surprising moments from these interviews. Utilizing episode highlights, presidential recordings and historical news clips, Marchick takes us back in time – from the 1930s to the present – to illustrate how transitions work, why they are important and the lessons they hold for both today and tomorrow. Topics discussed include the importance of good staffing; why transition teams and campaign teams don’t always get along; how successful transitions breed successful presidencies; why bipartisanship during a transition matters; and how administrations try to learn from the missteps of previous transitions. Transition Lab is the official podcast of the Center for Presidential Transition at the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that strives to make our federal government more effective, innovative and responsive to the people it serves.
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Ed Meier and Richard Bagger ran the presidential transitions teams for Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, respectively, during the run up to the 2016 election. In this Transition Lab episode, host David Marchick, spoke with Meier and Bagger about preparing to lead presidential transitions teams, navigating strategic differences with campaign staff, shaping the public's perception of transition planning and the results of the 2016 election.
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Nancy Cook and Andrew Restuccia know all about presidential transitions. They currently write about transition planning and presidential politics for Politico and the Wall Street Journal, respectively, and previously collaborated on several transition stories during the 2016 election. In this Transition Lab episode, host David Marchick asked Cook and Restuccia about their experiences covering presidential transitions, the 2020 candidates’ current plans, the big transition storylines to expect in the coming months and the ways in which a sound transition strategy can make governing easier.
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Josh Bolten and Denis McDonough are well-versed in presidential transitions. As former White House chiefs of staff for Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, respectively, they helped usher new administrations into office and prepare presidents for their second terms. In this Transition Lab episode, host David Marchick spoke with Bolten and McDonough about how they helped orchestrate successful transfers of power, fostered bipartisanship during those difficult times and helped set the standard for successful transitions today.
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Michael Morell is a leading intelligence analyst with over 30 years of experience at the CIA, including running the agency. Before retiring from the CIA in 2013, Morell worked for six different presidents and served as former President George W. Bush’s daily intelligence briefer, including on 9/11. In this Transition Lab episode, host David Marchick joined Morell for a wide-ranging discussion about intelligence-sharing during presidential elections and transitions, foreign interference during presidential elections, and how the 2020 candidates can build strong relationships with the intelligence community.
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Mary Gibert has one of the most important jobs in Washington today, preparing the federal government for a possible presidential transition. As the federal transition coordinator at the General Services Administration, Gibert and her team are working closely with the White House, the campaign of Democrat Joseph Biden and the federal agencies. In this Transition Lab episode, host David Marchick speaks to Gibert about GSA’s responsibilities in the transition process, the support it will provide to the incumbent president and the challenger, and how the coronavirus pandemic has affected transition planning.
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Presidential nominating conventions are major moments for any campaign. Reverend Leah Daughtry and Maria Cino served as the CEO's of Democratic and Republican conventions, respectively. They join host David Marchick on Transition Lab to discuss the role of conventions in political campaigns, whether they give a boost to the candidates, and how the COVID-19 pandemic will change conventions this year and in the future.
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Women are vastly underrepresented in leadership roles within the federal government and in national security fields. In this Transition Lab episode, Jamie Jones Miller, a former principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for legislative affairs, and Nina Hachigian, a former U.S. ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, talk with host David Marchick about their own careers in government, how they handled uncomfortable situations and the importance of bringing more women into leadership positions. Both women are members of the Leadership Council for Women in National Security, an organization dedicated to improving gender diversity in the national security field.
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Donald Trump‘s 2016-17 presidential transition was famously bumpy in part because the president-elect made a change in transition leadership only days after the election. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was chairman of the Trump transition team from May 2016 until shortly after Election Day and he had done extensive preparation to help the new president be ready to govern. On this episode of Transition Lab, Gov. Christie tells host David Marchick how he planned the transition and where it went wrong. Gov. Christie also offers some advice for 2020 and ponders his own future.
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The Office of Presidential Personnel faces the herculean task of helping a president select about 4,000-political appointees at the beginning of a new administration and throughout a president’s four-year term. Jonathan McBride and Liza Wright, former directors of the PPO under Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, respectively, join host David Marchick on Transition Lab to share their advice on how to land a political appointment and some of the challenges they faced managing the personnel operation.
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George W. Bush had the shortest official transition in history at just 39 days, but secured more political appointees during his first year in office than any other modern president. Clay Johnson, who served as the executive director of Bush’s transition and later as director of the Office of Presidential Personnel, tells host Dave Marchick how Bush brought many of his personnel practices as Texas governor to Washington, how he started his transition early, solicited advice from seasoned Washington veterans and maintained a focus on planning for the new administration even the results of the 2000 election were in dispute.
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James Baker worked on five transitions and served in four presidential administrations, including as White House Chief of Staff and Secretary of the Treasury under President Ronald Reagan, and as Secretary of State for President George H.W. Bush. Baker joins host David Marchick on Transition Lab to discuss his long and distinguished career on the national stage.
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The vetting process for individuals seeking a political appointment can be long and difficult; the more senior the position, the more scrutiny appointees receive. Powerhouse attorneys Leslie Kiernan and Robert Rizzi have helped countless political appointees navigate the vetting process. They share their expertise with host David Marchick, describing the appointment process, what might disqualify an individual, and how the rules change with each administration.
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Abraham Lincoln faced the worst circumstances during a presidential transition in U.S. history, with seven Southern states having seceded from the Union before he took the oath of office on March 4, 1861. Historian Ted Widmer tells host David Marchick about Lincoln's two-week train ride from Illinois to Washington, D.C. in February 1861 that helped him find his voice, build public support, and set the tone for his presidency. He also describes how Lincoln navigated around a plot to assassinate him in Baltimore.
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President Herbert Hoover and President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt failed to cooperate in any matter during the four-month transition that occurred in the midst of the Great Depression. Eric Rauchway, an expert on the New Deal and the Progressive Era, shared his expertise on how Roosevelt utilized his time between the election and the inauguration to set in motion one of the most successful presidencies in American history despite Hoover’s unwillingness to ease the way.
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Mack McLarty, former White House chief of staff, shared insights on the Clinton transition as well as President Clinton’s first year in office, as well as the privilege of serving alongside the president, a friend from childhood.
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Filmmaker Ken Burns and historian Geoffrey Ward have captured American history by collaborating on documentaries like “The Civil War” and “The Roosevelts.” The two shared stories with Transition Lab about the biggest crises in our nation’s history – from the Civil War to the Great Depression to Vietnam – and how our past informs the present.
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Professor Michael Nelson, an expert on the American presidency, joins Transition Lab to discuss the political dynamics that define a president’s first and second term. Nelson explains how new presidents can maximize their impact during their first year in office and outlines the challenges two-term presidents face during their fifth year.
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Director of the White House Transition Project, Martha Kumar discusses the history of presidential transitions. Kumar outlines how the Presidential Transition Act changed transition planning, the importance of White House design for a successful first year in office and talks about the best—and worst—presidential transitions.
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Andrew Card, chief of staff to President George W. Bush and deputy chief of staff to President George H.W. Bush, shares his perspective on the surprisingly challenging “friendly” transition from President Reagan to President George H. W. Bush. Card shares insights from his distinguished career in the Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush Administrations.
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Four-star Admiral James Stavridis and former General Motors CEO Dan Akerson distinguished themselves as exceptional leaders during times of crisis. Join us on Transition Lab to learn how effective leaders operate during times of uncertainty. Stavridis and Akerson discuss how public and private sector leaders can navigate the challenges posed by the coronavirus.
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Stephanie Cutter, spokesperson for the Obama-Biden transition in 2008 and nationally recognized communications strategist, shares her perspective on managing the Obama-Biden transition during the global financial crisis. She explains how the communications team positioned then president-elect Barack Obama in the public eye, how the team approached the economic crisis and how they managed the period from the election to Inauguration Day.
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Author Michael Lewis shares insights on the coronavirus pandemic and stories from “The Fifth Risk.” Lewis discusses the critical role federal employees play in managing the crisis, and his advice for presidential transition teams. Lewis also outlines the importance of effective government management, both in times of crisis and times of normalcy, and why we need to rethink what we’re told about the career officials running our federal government.
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Admiral Thad Allen, talks about his experience leading the U.S. response to some of the most challenging modern crises. Named the “Master of Disaster” by TIME Magazine, Allen discusses the coronavirus pandemic and how to find calm in times of panic.
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Former U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen led the U.S. response to some of the most challenging modern crises including Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Allen discusses how he kept morale high when communicating with disaster recovery teams, media and the country during times of panic.
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Former governor of Utah and Romney Transition chairman, Mike Leavitt, shares how he planned the 2012 presidential transition had Mitt Romney won the election. Leavitt describes his experience leading the first transition to operate under the Presidential Transition Act of 2010, how the new guidelines changed the narrative around transition planning and how his team planned to follow the “gold standard” president Bush and Obama set in the 2008 transition.
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Anita McBride, Laura Bush’s chief of staff, shares insights on the evolution of the first lady’s role throughout history, challenges they face transitioning to the White House and how the role could change after this year’s election. McBride also explores the unique challenges first ladies have faced, the timeless pressures associated with the role and her personal experience working with first lady Laura Bush.
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Stuart Eizenstat and David Rubenstein discuss their experience working on the Carter campaign, the transition and their own work in the Carter administration. The two explain that while Carter had an enormously consequential one-term presidency, the flawed transition had a lasting, negative impact on Carter’s presidency.
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Head of Barack Obama’s 2008 transition, Chris Lu explains how the Obama team planned for effective governance on day one. In this conversation, Lu shares his role in the 2008 transition and the challenges he faced coordinating the biggest hand off of power in the world. He gives insights from his own experience and lays out the key elements for success in presidential transitions.
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Former Undersecretary of Defense Michèle Flournoy shares insights from her experience running the Agency Review team for the Obama transition and serving as Undersecretary of Defense. Flournoy also discusses the challenges associated with transitioning during an ongoing conflict, and the underrepresentation of women in national security.
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Few have served with more distinction than Josh Bolten and Denis McDonough, Chiefs of Staff for Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. In this conversation, they talk about three types of transitions - into government, to a second term, and the handoff to the next Administration.
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The Clinton and Trump transition leaders share what happened during the 2016 election. In this conversation, Rich Bagger (Trump) and Ed Meier (Clinton) discuss how they became involved with presidential transition, the challenges they faced while preparing for a presidential transition and what ended up happening after election day 2016.
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Transition Lab is the new podcast from the Partnership for Public Service’s Center for Presidential Transition. Hosted by the Center's Director, David Marchick, this podcast series provides the most definitive discussion of all issues related to Presidential transitions. This premier episode introduces you former presidential chiefs of staff, transition leaders and other presidential transition experts who have who helped manage transitions into government, into a second term, and out of government.
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