TRUMP BRACES TO
'HIT THE GROUND RUNNING' AS PRESIDENT, 'He can literally step into his desk that 1st morning and
function as commander in chief', by Greg Corombos, 12/3/16
While the mainstream
media camp out in the lobby of Trump Tower, the work being done upstairs by the
Trump transition team is a seemingly endless stream of personnel decisions,
policy briefings and figuring out the personal and political chemistry of the
president-elect’s inner circle.
Trump won the 2016 election
on Nov. 8. He now has just over 50 days to prepare to assume the most powerful
office in the world. And that means his team needs to get him ready.
“The idea is that when a
president takes office Jan. 20, that he can literally step into his desk that
first morning and begin to function as commander in chief and handle all the
duties of the presidency,” said Reagan White House political director Frank
Donatelli.
He told WND and Radio
America the first order of business is growing the president’s staff. “When
someone runs for president, chances are they have a small coterie of advisers
around them. Of course, once you become president, you need a lot more people
than that. So they have to expand the circle pretty rapidly,” Donatelli
explained.
While much of the media
attention centers on the high-profile cabinet selections, there are a total of
about 4,000 political appointments for a president to make. “Any position that
is cabinet-level, deputy secretary or assistant secretary, generally those require
Senate confirmation. The president will have some involvement at that level,”
Donatelli said.
He adds that while 4,000
may seem like a lot, there are about one million career government employees. Donatelli
said some of the lower political appointments often go to people with
a connection to the president or the party.
“The president will give
some direction to the kinds of people he wants. Generally, the Office of
Presidential Personnel in the White House is responsible for filling out the
bureaucracy. They’ll take into consideration campaign workers and key members
of the Republican Party and fundraisers for the president, and oh by the way,
people who actually have some expertise in the job,” Donatelli said. In addition to personnel
matters, there is the issue of bringing the president-elect up to speed on a
wide range of policy matters.
“You want to be able to
hit the ground running and so the president needs to be broadly familiar with
the issues that are going to be hitting his desk immediately: budget issues,
economic issues, obviously foreign policy issues and briefings,” Donatelli
said.
It’s an intense process
of poring over critical information that is a challenge for every incoming
president. “It’s a big curve. It’s no comparison. Some people say it’s a lot
more fun to run to be president than it actually is being president. You’ve got
a lot of decisions to make. I think it’s true. Only a past president can
understand the burdens that a new president is going to take on,” he said.
While Trump studies his
briefing books and makes key nominations, Donatelli said it would be wise for
his inner circle to be studying Trump, beginning with the issues he’s most
passionate about.
“I think another
important thing is if you have people around you that understand the
president-elect, so that you know what the president-elect is most interested
in and what he’s not interested in – the stuff he’s not interested in that he
really doesn’t have to know that much about and can be delegated elsewhere,”
said Donatelli.
He said President Reagan
had a very smooth transition because some of his closest aides from his days as
California governor were by his side and knew how he operated. Donatelli said
the learning curve could be steeper for Reince Preiebus and Steve Bannon, who
have been close to Trump for a much shorter time.
“Reince Priebus has not
worked for Donald Trump before,” he said. “Steve Bannon was on his campaign,
but it was only for a short period of time. So I think there is going to be a
feeling out process here so that the White House staff knows how this president
operates, what he wants to know, what he doesn’t need to know, how he
functions, etc. etc.”
http://www.wnd.com/2016/12/trump-braces-to-hit-the-ground-running-as-president/
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