Transition Lab

The peaceful transfer of power occurred successfully at noon on Jan. 20, 2025, when President Joe Biden handed control of the federal government to President-elect Donald Trump. After an election cycle characterized by intense partisanship and distrust, how did officials manage this monumental task? Today on the final episode this season of “Transition Lab,” transition expert Heath Brown reflects on this question and discusses what we can learn for future transitions.  Heath Brown is an associate professor of public policy at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the CUNY Graduate Center. His most recent book, “Roadblocked: Joe Biden’s Rocky Road to the Presidency,” covers Joe Biden’s 2020 transition. He is also the author of numerous books and articles on American politics and the American presidency, as well as a contributor and cited expert in numerous publications, including The Atlantic, The Hill, and American Prospect. 

Max Stier, President and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, brings his extensive experience in government to the conversation. He highlights the critical nature of presidential transitions, especially with Trump’s upcoming second term. Max discusses the lessons learned from past transitions and the importance of improving structures for future ones. He also delves into the essential role of civil servants during these times, emphasizing their contribution to effective governance and the significance of ethics and public engagement in democracy.

Assigning one job to two people can be a recipe for disaster. Yet, presidential candidates typically have two policy teams—one for the campaign operation and one for the transition operation. Campaigns already do policy work, so why does a transition need a policy team, too? Today on “Transition Lab,” we’re joined by Lanhee Chen, the policy director for Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, to talk about the differences between these teams, why they’re both essential to a successful transition and how they should work together.    Chen previously served as a member of the Social Security Advisory Board during the Obama and Trump administrations and in the Department of Health and Human Services during the George W. Bush presidency. He is a public policy fellow at the Hoover Institution, a director and lecturer at Stanford University's public policy program, and a partner and co-lead of the Brunswick Group’s US public affairs, policy and regulatory practice. He is also an on-air contributor for NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”   Find a complete transcript of this episode here.

Political pundits wax on about government waste, red tape and inefficiency, but the truth is that while the federal government can learn plenty from the private sector, no magic wand would make government operate exactly like a business—and for good reasons. This week on “Transition Lab," we speak with our resident expert on government management, the Partnership for Public Service’s Jenny Mattingley, about why government runs the way it does and how political leaders can make it work better. Jenny Mattingley serves as the vice president of government affairs at the Partnership for Public Service, where she leads initiatives to improve government performance and advocates for public servants. Previously, Mattingley served as a program manager at the Office of Management and Budget, as the director of the White House Leadership Development Program, and as the executive director of the Performance Improvement Council.   Find a complete transcript of the episode here.

Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, a renowned expert in presidential personnel from the Brookings Institution, shares fascinating insights into the world of political appointees. She discusses the complex process of Senate confirmations and the critical roles of White House staff in shaping policy. Kathryn highlights the high turnover rates in the administration and the challenges posed by political polarization. She also emphasizes the rewarding nature of government service and the importance of teamwork in effective governance.

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.