Donald Trump has been elected the forty seventh president of the US, and can take workplace on Jan. 20, 2025, following an unexpectedly dominant victory over Vice President Kamala Harris. Earlier than that, although, he should full a course of that has been undertaken by all of his predecessors: the transition to the presidency.
Trump’s second go-around as commander-in-chief will see him work to implement his official platform, generally known as Agenda 47. This comes amid persevering with controversy over the conservative brainchild Undertaking 2025; Trump claims to don’t have any affiliation with the undertaking, although it overlaps closely along with his official agenda. The transition may even contain assembling a Cupboard and dealing to implement different agenda objects.
What are the principle components of the presidential transition?
To implement a transition to the White Home, the successful candidate will look to their transition groups, that are “chargeable for organizing the personnel vetting, coverage planning and administration agendas to show marketing campaign guarantees into governing,” in keeping with the nonpartisan Middle for Presidential Transition (CPT).
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the information behind the information, plus evaluation from a number of views.
SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
Join The Week’s Free Newsletters
From our morning information briefing to a weekly Good Information Publication, get the most effective of The Week delivered on to your inbox.
From our morning information briefing to a weekly Good Information Publication, get the most effective of The Week delivered on to your inbox.
Each main candidates sometimes start planning for a presidential transition within the months main as much as the election. Nevertheless, the transition cannot transfer forward with out the Basic Providers Administration (GSA). This little-known authorities company “supplies assist to eligible candidates, inter-agency transition groups, the presidential inauguration effort, and the outgoing president and vice chairman,” in keeping with the GSA web site.
In the meantime, the presidential transition groups work to assist the president-elect with a wide range of duties. This consists of choosing “greater than 4,000 presidential appointees, together with greater than 1,200 who require Senate affirmation” and making a “set of legislative, government and company proposals based mostly on the marketing campaign platform,” mentioned the CPT.
What occurs when transitions get difficult?
The 2020 election confirmed that there have been cracks within the transition course of, significantly when it got here to the GSA. At the moment, Trump’s “refusal to concede froze the flexibility of President Joe Biden’s transition crew to achieve entry to federal funding and data for a number of weeks,” mentioned Politico. The GSA finally ascertained Biden’s victory amid unsuccessful lawsuits from Trump difficult the election.
After that, Congress “handed a legislation in 2022 permitting a number of main presidential candidates to get transition assets earlier than a winner is set in a contested election,” mentioned Politico. The legislation, the Presidential Transition Enchancment Act, states that the GSA should start the transition inside 5 days of the election — and should achieve this for each candidates if neither has conceded. This implies in future elections, a candidate’s “marketing campaign workers might nonetheless have entry to key operations of presidency, together with delicate info, whereas courts and lawmakers battle over the ultimate outcomes,” mentioned The Washington Publish.
The legislation “successfully mandates federal assist and cooperation for each candidates to start a transition,” and “states that such assist ought to proceed till ‘important authorized challenges’ that might alter electoral outcomes have been ‘considerably resolved,'” mentioned The Related Press. However in an election the place one candidate launches a barrage of authorized challenges, this implies the “authorities doubtlessly bestowing sufficient backing that each side can put together an administration till mid-December — solely a few month earlier than Inauguration Day on Jan. 20.” That is unlikely to happen in 2025 given Trump’s large-margin victory, but it surely raises questions on future elections.
Previously, it was “neither candidate will get the funding” till a winner was declared, however “now it is each,” Derek Muller, a College of Notre Dame legislation professor, mentioned to the AP. The dueling transitions “can final into mid-December. There is not any query that is a danger. However I feel it is a danger that they need to take.”
