>> ambassador gave everyone a lot of food for thought. i have noted your comments so i will try to be brief in terms of my comments and also a couple of questions. now, ambassador gallucci correctly stated that north korea has formed a major responsibility for what he described as the failure of engagement, with the united states. that is correct. i would add the caveat that the united states also bears some of the responsibilities for failure to realize u.s. objectives in negotiations. we have been not smart in many instances and how we have

negotiated with the dprk. a naïve assumption going back to the 1990s behind our negotiating strategy that north korea would soon collapse or that they would soon be regime change. listening too much to the chinese, when the chinese would advise us to tease off on ensuring that the north koreans -- ease -- comply with the agreements they have made with us, 2005, 2007. going into negotiations with the north and a green to to unwritten handshake agreements? october 2008 and february 2012. how naïve can you get?

when you make a handshake agreement, unwritten, with the north koreans which, of course, they disavowed any knowledge of within a few weeks after our diplomats told us they had made these handshake agreements. so that is some blame to go around, and there are some of the mistakes we have made as well. now, i want to comment on the preemptive strike issue, because this is being talked about both the u.s. and south korea. i'm not advocating preemptive strike, but i will say this. the time if you're going to do it for a printed strike is probably now, and within the next year or so. a strike against their nuclear

and missile test facilities, to put those out of action and to buy us much greater time before the north could achieve that icbm nuclear warhead capability. the situation that ambassador gallucci describes, i don't believe, if they came about, would prevent north korea, after a u.s. preemptive strike from hating us back with nuclear weapons. because, frankly, i think at a time when we would pick up perhaps legitimate perceptions that they're going to strike us with nuclear weapons, when the time comes, the north is going to have multiple delivery systems. both on land and at sea, that no

preemptive strike would be able to take out. and a preemptive strike under those circumstances also means an all-out war. you are going to accomplish nothing by hitting just a couple of command and control centers in a preemptive strike. the stakes are much, much higher than that. now, these are my questions, and this is about the sanctions issue. and generally it's along the lines that ambassador gallucci has laid out with regard to china. there are only really two avenues, viable avenues, to

toughen sanctions that might cause the north koreans to begin today and in negotiations about the nuclear missile issues. what is sanctioning chinese banks. many chinese banks allow the north koreans to move money back and forth to support these programs. and any topping of sanctions i think would require the united states to do that, to start sanctioning an array of chinese banks that we know are engaged in this kind of collaboration with north korea. the second option, and this is what i have written about, is to lay a resolution in the security council calling on all u.n. member states, i.e. china, to cut off oil shipments to north korea. which i believe would be the

toughest sanction, and where i think with a sophisticated public a strategy could put some real pressure on china, and at least spark a much more open debate in china, within china, about china's policies towards north korea. besides those two options, is there another option? ambassador gallucci, that you could think of to pressure the chinese, other than those two options with regard to sanctions? and finally i'll make a quick last point. when the north koreans have that capability to hit all of our bases in the pacific and the u.s. west coast, they are going to want to negotiate at that point. they are going to sit down and

look us across the table and they are going to say, are you americans going to be willing to jeopardize san francisco so you can defend sole? and i think the american response right now is in the realm of the uncertain. when we get into the early 2020s about what the answer would be. but in terms of what they would lay on the table to us, what did the north koreans specifically say in kuala lumpur about the peace treaty? that would be basically my second question. did they really lay out what they want in the peace treaty, whom they would want negotiating with them? did they give you any real details about this? at also the priorities of peace treaty in any new round of negotiations between the u.s. and pyongyang.

>> larry, thank you. i want to respond to some of these things, but one thing principally, and i would like your attention. i was thinking of jumping up and running to the back of the room and locking the door before anybody left because i wanted to get this out. i wanted to make sure nobody left not understanding what i wanted to convey because i wasn't good enough at conveying it, so let me try it again. there are two different words. one is preventive strike, preventive war. the other is preemptive strike. when the united states of american, in 2003, moved into iraq, that was a preventive war. the administration at the time

used the word preemptive. it did because the word preemptive have standing both in terms of international law and in terms of just war theory, the ethics. you are allowed under international law and under loss of ethics, you are allowed if your enemy is on your border and about to attack, you are allowed to attack him first. you don't have to wait and suffer that strike your that's preemption, if you were about to be attacked. if you get up one morning and look at trendlines in another country and say, in five or 10 years that country is going to be our enemies still, but a lot stronger, let's go to war now, that's not a preemptive strike at that's a defensive war --

preventive war. what it wanted to say but maybe not clear enough is i am opposed to preventive war, opposed to preventive war with north korea. i am not opposed, indeed, i would insist that my government, as a citizen, launch a preemptive strike against north korea if it came to that confident in a series of judgment that north korea was about to attack the united states of america or one of its treaty allies. there is no reason to wait until tokyo is destroyed or so is destroyed or san francisco is destroyed if it's about to happen. ethically, morally and legally we can strike them. that's what i said the north koreans are creating a

vulnerability that they do not now have. did i share this view with them? yes. i hope they got the right distinction between preemption and preventive war. i want to make sure you got this right. i don't mean you have to agree with me about preventive war and preemption, just the distinction is a real one and governments have reasons why they blur the two. so i'm not for preventive war with the north korea. i am for preemption if they are about to attack. unlock the door. now, what is it that i accountable say about what the north koreans, the dprk said to us in kuala lumpur?

i think i'm comfortable saying that i was asked rhetorically how could we trust you? you want us to give up our nuclear weapons. how could we trust you not to launch regime change? look what you did in iraq. look what you did in libya. look what you talked about doing in iran. how could we trust you? so two things are in my mind. one was how could they trust us. the other was, what were we thinking back all those years when we were negotiating the agreed framework, which was as far as we knew, or at least i knew, was going to stop their nuclear weapons program? because i didn't know they would engage with the pakistanis for

enrichment program, facing a program on highly enriched uranium. i knew about the plutonium program. we were going to stop that soccer. so what was my view even that at why they would trust as? we would develop after the framework was signed a political relationship. we would openly offices in -- they would open one in washington. we would develop cultural ties, political ties, situation would war between north and south, et cetera, et cetera. i have the same answer now and i said the only way i can conceive of you trusting us is in the context of a political settlement that includes a peace treaty to replace the armistice. that's how i got to the human rights case. how could we do that lex we could do that if you move to

accept international standards that transcend sovereign borders with the way governments treat their own people. that does not mean you have to give up your regime. so we had that kind of discussion, and i would say we had a discussion that went into some of the questions that i put here in a little bit of depth i don't feel comfortable trying to capture their words to me that was said in private. i want to see what other thing was i got the four. that is, that while we were very focused in kuala lumpur on the coming american election today and a new government which at that moment i did know who's going to win and i don't sit here in front of you now, but i observed that there was another election does going to take

place towards the end of 2017 in the republic of korea, and i was going to be important, too. and that i could not imagine any sustained and serious engagements of the united states with the dprk that was not done with the concurrence, there i say enthusiasm, of the government in seoul. we would also want to tokyo to be aboard to those discussions, too. so i haven't emphasized the role of the republic of korea this afternoon, but i don't believe what i've talked about is engagement is plausible if a government is elected in seoul that doesn't favor engagement. our alliance comes first and i think we will take care of that allies.

i don't know of another one of your points was about how you get the chinese to do what we want the chinese to do, and i don't have any keys to the. i think, what i worry about is the reverse of that in a way. anybody who has been in government knows that governments do not stay in lane. so we might want to talk to the chinese about the north koreans. and they might want to talk to us about taiwan. we don't want to talk about taiwan. not particularly, not the way they want to talk about taiwan. we want to talk about south china sea at the same time as we're asking for something in northeast asia. in a way i went about the outburst would've it is a question of how do influence the chinese? you can do lincoln politics but they can do it, too. he had to think that would through before you start doing that. otherwise you could end up with

the short end of the stick rather than the long end of the stick and that's not too good. >> okay. i would open to the floor. any questions from the floor? would you please come to the microphone, the roving microphone. >> thank you very much. i have a question. this year many senior diplomats and officers defected from north korea, and it would suggest that the inner politics is drastically changing, within north korea. may be less stable direction.

did you feel anything which changed, compared to before the conversation at kuala lumpur? and if the situation is changing within north korea, less stable or more volatile situation, what do you think the probability of they're going to run into dangerous adventure, is increasing or decreasing? >> it's not a bad question. i'm just not up to the answer, which is to say i don't have much today, and answer on in

terms of engagement or even reading tea leaves from the news. i don't sense a particular vulnerability of the regime right now. i mean, what i've heard about, the economic activity in, at least in pyongyang, it sounds as though, i don't know how to say if the dprk is thriving under international sanctions, but it is not apparently suffering as much as some might have anticipated, or those particularly hope that iran modeled might be applied to the dprk. it doesn't appear that it could be. so i see nothing in all of that that would suggest a particular vulnerability or instability right now. i just don't. >> thank you.

>> i'm with grace, north korean refugees in the united states. thank you so much for your very insightful comments, ambassador gallucci. i just had a question on a very out of the box idea. it's a way to greatly increase diplomatic, political and legal pressure on the regime, and china, without being threatening militarily. and that is to have the international community about a one korea policy. you mentioned taiwan, and history shows that it is possible to recognize a different china than what was

originally in the u.n., and it was done to actions in the general assembly. and i'm just wondering if the legitimacy of the dprk could be raised as an issue in the general assembly? and year after year, could political will be built up enough with all the countries of the world instead of only focusing on china or the usual states, to get the world to accept a one korea policy based on the fact that the general assembly, after the end of world war ii, stated that korea needed to be independent from japan and

united, and so this is a way to address this unanswered korea question, while putting a lot more diplomatic and political pressure on north korea and china. >> thank you. so the closest i've seen to that, an idea like that which would as understated delegitimize the government in pyongyang as representative of korean people on the korean peninsula is the idea that is flowed and the council of foreign relations report, and i've seen elsewhere, which is to consider in a sense if all else fails, then denying relationship under membership, tuccillo under delegitimize the government might have the international generic do it instead of one country, so i suppose that could

be thought about. .. >> and they are thriving. so if you don't do anything in terms of impacting their life, and their life goes on because essentially beijing ensures that it does, notwithstanding what therest of the international community does, i'm not sure how much one would have accomplished .

>> it still is a possibility. >> ... i would like to release a different issue. basically, correia is going through kind of a turmoil as a result of lady cheshire who has been fighting influence including tremendous financial problems and the opposition parties are telling her to resign and there has been massive demonstrations going on in coria. this is not directly related to our presence counsel but i'm concerned and i want to

hear from you or the panelists about the relationship between the us policy toward north korea and you mentioned briefly about next year's election but we have a much more urgent issue with us now and if the leftist government comes out, they might as well accomplish what kim jong-il tries to make correia together with north korean leaders, together, i can't think of the right word right now so are we going to pursue with president hockaday who has been singing the same song with president obama and us policymakers, it has been great so far and we still have a problem even so but now we are, we are getting

into a real difficulty depending on what calls are necessary in the next couple of months, and i'd like to hear your comments. >> thank you. i think prudence and wisdom on my part is to stay far away from domestic politics in the a rk right now. i would say that i'm absolutely do believe that the ultimate election in the are okay will compare in a substantial way the outcome of our election on one source of policies can be pursued to deal with the dt rk so i think that connection is real. what is happening now and the difficulties the president is having in the rok is not something i think i can use so i'm going to let go.

>> ambassador park guen-hye, i was stunned to hear you say you did not know anything about acu's program, why you are negotiating such a successful framework and i don't remember you ever mentioning that. but in that connection, you also mentioned distrust, the degree of distrust between the prk and the us is so high that we still do not trust or take whatever we say, washington says either taking it at face value. now, with respect to the motivation for north korea to pursue the path of developing nuclear weapons by way of

enrichment, the bush administration later claimed cover for all types of improvements although it did not specify the terms for your program. my point is whether north koreans still could not trust the united states, even after they signed and agreed framework which they liked it, they welcomed it and consequently your counterpart became a hero as a result of that and i heard a lot of commendations from north korean officials in their negotiators afterwards. was it because they still could not trust the united states and they could not rely on the terms that for example targeted the completion of the reactor projects and they said you

got to be done in 2003 and you have not done anything and they were complaining about that and with the expansion, you've got to remember this is not the only project that we tried to do i that time but we were not promising we were going to do it by that time. that's one question. another thing is you mentioned preemption. while its international law and all that, but the problem with that is that not only the incomplete capability of taking out all the nuclear arsenals in north korea but more than that, how you would adjust the clear evidence that they are about to attack you with weapons so how were you going to get that and how can you depend on it? another thing is the

consequences of preemption in terms of damage to south korea and even the united states. do you consider that also when you do it. lastly, to your point of meeting for the next administration to start seeking, talking the talks, again, washington atmosphere has been for the past 20 years, especially after what it perceives as north korean breaking away or unkept promises that they made in terms of the adjudication and there is no amnesty or no support in this town either in congress or in the media or politicians in general to keep operation, that would support a dialogue that you

and other people, it's really great to have someone like you keep engaging this issue, very important because people learn from your experience and how is it going to turn around and again, when you make recommendations to the next administration, you want to make that different recommendation depending on who gets elected, trump or clinton, one for trump. >> know. thank you. on the first question, you apparently were shocked and stunned that when i was negotiating with the north koreans in 1993 and 94 that i did not know that they were at the same time negotiating with islam a bond or at least

with a coupon for uranian interest meant gas centrifuge technology. right at the moment, i still don't know that. in other words, what i'm telling you is there came a time when i did discover that from our intelligence community that there was this ongoing exchange in transfer from islam upon to the dprk. but, by the way, i never gave up my security clearance so this is based even with full access, i did not know about this until i think a safe thing for me to say is after the 1996 so the agreed

framework was 1994 so i not only did i not know about it but i'm virtually certain neither did anybody else within the american administration in 1994 so if you were to tell me you had evidence that the contacts were happening then, i could easily believe you and say well, we missed it. it wouldn't be the first time that we've missed something. on the deterrence question and the preemption question and how can we be confident that we knew, that we know we are going to be attacked, how could there be the adequate basis forpreemption? well, it's a very high bar . right? it's very hard, especially when you are talking about nuclear weapons. this not a bunch of militia

on your border and the question is do you call in an airstrike. this is a proposition here, a scenario we are talking about is that it's a country, the dprk is going to launch a nuclear strike with missiles at united states of america or its allies. nor south korea and japan and we are going to launch an attack on them in advance to decrease the damage that they would do by such a strike. well, it's hard to get that information in advance. not impossible, talking about the american intelligence community being after 20 years in the us government but it's hard and we are capable of getting it wrong. and i have been part of getting it wrong more than once. so i don't say this easily though.

when you take a job in the administration and i've done this a number of times, raise my hand and took an oath, you swear, the united states of america from enemies foreign and domestic so you take an oath and i would say, i said a few minutes ago not only what i support, i would expect, i would insist on preemption if we had that high confidence. if you don't, then it's not a good idea. it occurs to me that, and i already questionedwhether we could actually succeed in the preemptive strike . what your capability is aimed at reducing the enemies capability. it doesn't mean that you completely are confident you are goingto hit every mobile missile , every thing they

may have been able to deploy. you may not. but if you think you're going to be struck, you can do serious damage and unlike other people here and i think there are people in this room who do not believe the american assurance once they are vulnerable to attack by the north koreans, the assurance that we have given our extended deterrence assurance in our alliance context to japan and republican korea, i spent over 21 years in us government and i believe us . i believe we will fulfill our alliance responsibilities. we know what's at risk here. remember and i know joe at least remembers when the chinese said you won't trade los angeles for taipei. yes we will. i'm not enthusiastic about the prospect. i have family there. the fact is what we sign up for.

so those who would question this, i warned them to be careful. and don't assume, don't ever assume the united states will fail to fulfill its obligations. it would be a mistake in my view. yes. >> ladies and gentlemen, let's hear it. [applause] >> thank you so much. >> thank you. [inaudible conversation] [applause] thank you, meeting adjourned.[inaudible

conversation]

>> hillary clinton cast your vote for president this morning at a polling place near her home in chappaqua new york. she and bill clinton walked into the polling center as people inside cheered. she greeted supporters, much earlier this morning her running mate tim kane voted

in his hometown of richmond virginia and three hours later, donald trump surprised voters waiting in line to cast their ballot when he showed up at a grade school in manhattan. his wife and several family members were with him. reuters put out these photos of donald trump and family. also, bloomberg reports that almost $45 million in advance of election day and politics reporter says that donald trump has sued the clark county nevada registrar of voters because of polling in the las vegas markets stay open until 10 pm november 4, the last day of early voting in that state. trump campaign says in a complaint filed monday the polling station should have closed at 8 pm that night and the balance and voting machines involved should be set aside pending any challenges to the results. the case is being heard right now. and some voters are going from the polls to a cemetery in upstate new york to pay respects in the suffragist leader susan b anthony area at steady stream of people in rochester's mount hope

secretary have been decorating her grave with i voted stickers and with american flags, the cemetery extended its visiting hours to 9 pm so more election day visitors can stop by. election night tonight on c-span. watch the results and be part of a national conversation about the outcome area the on location at the hillary clinton and donald trump headquarters and watch victory and concession speeches in the senate house and governor's race is starting why p.m. eastern . watch live tonight on c-span, on-demand c-span.org or listen to our live coverage on the c-span radio app. and also this evening it's a look at how canadian television is covering the us election. allied forecast of canadian broadcast corporation's election night coverage with peter man's bridge, he's the host of the cdc's financial

program and that's tonight starting at the eastern on c-span2. and now officials plan to agency transitions including josh holden and mack mclarty iii. it kicked off a series of events about executive branch transitions at the george w. bush library in dallas. it's about an hour and 20 minutes. >> one of the most striking features of presidential transitions today is the bipartisanship that prevails among government officials in congress to direct the transition laws. the president and the white house staff who set the direction planning and departments and agencies that carry out the policy. it was not always the case. in 1952, president truman wanted to bring into the white house mostly republican and democratic presidential nominees to meet his cabinet and white house staff

members. he met with a partisan divide. he had wanted them to come in because he found when he came into office that he was unprepared. he came in january 1945, roosevelt died in april and truman knew nothing of the atomic bomb so seared by that experience, he wanted to bring people in so that they were going to understand what was ahead of them. adlai stevenson accepted but general eisenhower turned down truman's invitation, in large part because he said he was running against the administrations programs and he thought the public would not understand why he would be coming into the white house when he was running against it. truman was very upset and he sent a handwritten note which he would sometimes do because he could slip by his staff

and they would see it and stop him. so he had a handwritten note to eisenhower commenting on his own way of looking at the turned down by the general. he wrote, i'm extremely sorry that you allowed a bunch of screwballsto come between us . you have made a bad mistake and i am hoping it will injure this great republic. the strong partisan nature of that transition no longer distinguishes the hand off of power from one president to his successor. our five panelists today are in a position to discuss the shape of transition as each of our officials has gone through one or more of them in a senior planning level. additionally, they are all involved in current efforts to fortify the transition process and find areas of agreement that will ensure presidential transitions in a bipartisan setting which is

the theme of our conference. our conference is one of three that we are going to hold at texas presidential library. the other two are going to be at the lbj library september 22 and 23rd dealing with national security and then on october 18, at the george hw bush library on crisis management with two scenarios , a financial and national security crisis. and all are around the steam of the importance and importance of bipartisanship in transition. we begin with two chiefs of staff who know the beginnings and ends of the administration, mack mclarty iii came in at the beginning of the clinton administration as chief of staff and josh bolten was at the end of the bush administration as chief

of staff. the september 11 attacks in the transition out of office of george w. bush changed the tone and action undertaken during the transition. . in 2008, president bush led the most determined transition out of audit office we have experienced. the bank began the transition cycle in 2007 in discussions with his chief of staff, josh bolten who lead that effort. bolten in turn closed the circle that truman proposed by having representatives of the incoming and outgoing executives speak well before the election. he brought together representatives of two candidates in the white house in july, almost 2 months prior to the 2008 party convention. clay johnson, who organized the transition as executive director for president bush

into office in 2001, clay johnson was the deputy for management at the office of management and budget and lead the department in agency planning work, gathering information for the two teams. he's going to be on our second panel. easily important in the 2008 transition was interested in making use of those administration preparations by those leading the transition efforts for senator and then president-elect obama. christopher lou, executive director of the early transition planning effort for senator obama was in those july meetings and worked with josh bolten and his deputy on the bush team. he is now the secretary, deputy secretary in the department of labor and involved in the transition out of office of president obama. lisa brown was codirector of agency review for obama, also began work in july assembling

teams to go into the park departments and agencies to collect information on programs, staff positions and upcoming schedules and budgets. resident bush and his team willingly led a transition effort and as a result, senator and president-elect obama was eager to use. all of us, our panelists are involved in efforts to solidify the transition planning and in finding ways to expand the areas of agreement such as the presidential appointments process. mack mclarty along with clay johnson has been a leader of the institute project for reforming the appointment process. lisa brown was the congressional and obama administrations appointment reform effort. they are knowledgeable and well set to talk about the transition. our program today comes about

the work of many institutions and individuals.our panelists have come from a distance to speak about presidential transitions and we thank josh bolten, mack mclarty, lisa brown and clay johnson for coming here to talk to us about the subject. iq alan for the support of the moody foundation and for you and jamie williams interest in our project. we appreciate it and also the work you are doing in the presidential leadership program that you support. next is george w. bush's presidential center has provided our state as well as significant logistical support. we thank you holly as well as your colleagues and his director of operation, justine sperling who is the director of that. crisis baker institute for public policy is our partner and we are coordinating with on the white house position

project. finally we thank the staff of the white house transition project who have worked for our conference and also on our analytical programs. now let's begin with josh bolten and mack mclarty who know transitions through their work as chief of staff and this will be followed by a program on the presidential appointments process and a discussion of the administrations transition out of office. thank you. [applause] sit where you like. i'm sitting here. [laughter] >> you can tell who's in charge. >> the 2008 transition was by

all sides viewed as it's best that we've had. you all put attention in a way that has not previously been indicated in the transition out of office. and i wonder if you could talk about the elements that were important in that transition. why was it so good? >> thank you. for the recognition of the work the bush administration did and the president did himself, that's my answer to your question is it comes from the president. [laughter] knows better than anybody that so much in a presidential term and in the executive agenda comes from

what the president says or eventually she is interested in and that was certainly true of the 2008 presidential transition which president bush directed me more than a year before the transition and you mentioned 2007 is when the president first spoke to me as his chief of staff and talk about how important he thought this presidential transition would be because it was the first presidential transition in our modern history during which our homeland was actually under threat. 9/11 changed everything about the bush presidency but also about our country. and so he was determined that

we not have an unnecessary period of vulnerability during the early months of the incoming president's administration, regardless of the party of whoever the next president was going to be. that was irrelevant to president bush's consideration when he said, when he gave me the direction to run the most effective, most complete transition in american history. now, that was a pretty low bar to meet. [laughter] traditionally, i've been on both ends of the transition already, both going out of bush 41 administration and then coming in to thebush 43 administration . and it's a low bar in a

bipartisan way. it's just not something that attracted a lot of attention. it's not a question of ill will, it's not a question of partisanship . mac, i think you will agree >> i do agree . >> but historically in america, it was a question of, we don't need to do that. so he will learn on the job and they got time to get their feet on the ground and run the place they way they want to run it . we don't need to spend a lot of time doing stuff, doing preparatory work for the next gang that probably isn't particularly welcome in the first place . so it was definitely a change of psychology. and in the 2008 transition, we had ultimately a terrific partnership with a very well organized obama team who will

be represented on your next panel. >> what directions did he give you? >> you know, the truth is i don't really remember. [laughter] but i do recall that it was not detailed instructions. and that wasn't george w. bush's style, to say that i want to make sure they've got all theirappointments in place , that the briefing books are here and that the diagram of the west wing, anybody who knows george w. bush knows that he's a leader and a man of principle. he empowers people to do their jobs and considered it my job and the job of my

staff, the job of clay johnson to figure out what the details were but when i do recall him saying very explicitly is that i want these people to be as prepared as possible to deal with a crisis should one happen on the first day of the next administration and that is both a tall order and a major undertaking in any administration. >> in fact, there was a threat on the inauguration. >> there was. we were particularly concerned about a terrorist attack during the actual inauguration. it is a moment of really extraordinary peril in this country if you think about it . because so much of the

government actually moves. in other systems, there's a few people at the top that move around but most of the government running in place. in our system, the top few thousand leaders in government are actually replaced in the transition. especially in a transition between partners where basically everybody who used to be there is out, all at the same moment. it's not like it's sort of this slow process of one month of you people come in and the next month more people and so on. it'snoon on january 20 , every four years that the people who have been in charge suddenly have no authority anymore. they are done, you are out, your back doesn't work, you can't get back into your office. nobody either expects to or

should follow your instructions of all the people that work for you. so it is a very abrupt change in our system and the new people, you know, i remember walking into the white house on january 20 2001 and you know, you kind of walk into a blank office. there's nothing on the walls there's a few supplies on the desk . there's computers but there's nothing in the memorybanks . you might know the numbers of a few of the people that you may need to reach but it is a very complete and abrupt transition and for the country, that's a real period of vulnerability. i don't think it lasts all that long in the start says that i'm talking about but for those first few days, in

a crisis, the people who need to make decisions might not even know how to reach the other people that they need to reach to take action so what we did in the transition. in 2008 to 2009 was we did our best to prepare the incoming folks to work with each other and also to pair up the outgoing people with incoming people so for example we held a tabletop exercise in early january in which we assembled the cabinet officers who were relevant to a national security crisis . we assembled in the old executive office building and hot had all the outgoing officials from the bush

administration who would be involved in thenational security crisis, secretary of homeland security, the national security advisor , the secretary of health is what we postulated with was a compile attack in the united states and so on so we had all the right officials who in the outgoing administration knew each other and knew their roles. they knew who did what in case of a crisis and we brought in their incoming counterparts and we went through the tabletop exercise with the old people sitting next to the incoming people. and i don't know if, i don't know how much you can learn in a three-hour tabletop exercise about how to act in a crisis but the main thing was that they laid eyes on, everybody laid eyes on the other people with whom they would need to communicate and

i will bet for most of the people in the incoming obama cabinet, that was the first time they had met fbi director mueller who was one key official who because of the nature of his position transitioned across administration and would be a key person in, to know and communicate with in the event of a crisis. one other thing i'll mention that we did and that is that we asked the homeland security secretary, mike chertoff who had planned a vacation with his wife beginning at 1 pm on january 20, we asked him to stick around for a day and during inauguration day he was at an off-site with the incoming secretary of homeland security in a control center

where they could monitor all the information and so on and we asked him even though his authority would be eliminated as of noon on january 20, we asked him to stick around, the mayor, therefore advice and so on for secretary napolitano as she takes the rain. it turned out to be important because there was a threat on inauguration day, turned out a credible threat. it turned out not to be an actual threat, and actual incidents but there was a credible intelligence of an attack at the inauguration itself on the mall. so you know, we were perfectly prepared. i imagine if that happened in 2017, folks will be a lot more prepared than we were in 2009.

but we at least had thought about it and had talked with folks and had our people as well positioned as we could under the circumstances to have a smooth handoff. >> and in a note of bipartisanship, napolitano and chertoff had both worked as prosecutors and knew each other very well so that it was an easy discussion between the two of them. matt, can you tell us about the discussions, the transition into office that you had with president clinton? >> it good to be with you, with terry sullivan with the white house transition from president bush, it's a great privilege to be here and also ways to be with chief bolten which i always look forward to. our position was quite

different, it was a different time and place and i think josh makes a very key point about 9/11 really changing the fundamental psyche in many ways our country and personal security became national security and vice versa. i think it affected transitions. ours was a much earlier time . and i think at that point and carrie and i have talked about this, governor clinton like most presidential candidates before him was very concerned, there was a large development underway on transition thatit would be easy for us to say , such a show of urgency of measuring the proverbial grades in the oval office and indeed, even with president obama over lee ramp, there was a little talk about that with his transition efforts, even after 9/11. so that was part of it or sure. i think in our case, she remembers in her time working

with vice president gore, unlike josh i came into the transition late in the private sector, serving as the chief executive officer of the new york stock exchange, natural tax company so we were coming in knowing some of the people but not all. however, governor clinton like most presidential candidates and laid out a clear agenda of what you wanted to accomplish in his first 100 days in first two years in office so that in and of itself laid out a roadmap, a pathway in terms of policy to work within the administration. i think secondly, during the transition a high priority was placed on the selection of the cabinet.we spent a lot of time there and i think our work reflected that and staff historians, you certainly know and talked about the loyalty and

competency of the cabinet and clinton administration. we also spent a lot of time integrating the office which was clearly a priority of president-elect clinton and al gore had run as a team and before that, the vice president including president bush 41 had been an important figure but it had not been fully integrated into the presidency as we see in more modern presidency. where we got behind the curve is on the selection of white house staff and i think that was the setback for us although on the policy side, we were able to move forward with economic plans, we were able to move forward with the cabinet and i like so much the spirit of bipartisanship or the team because we did receive good cooperation from the republican members of the senate in getting our cabinet members in place but as josh knows so well, and chris lou

does as well, you've got to get the deputy and the assistant secretaries in place so that was our experience. i think on the national security front, it was before 9/11, for the terrorists events we've seen and so it was a different landscape although there were vulnerabilities there. i do think the fact that you had a very experienced team of national security that had worked during the campaign, they were able to make that transition. the final point i would say and josh has alluded to it, the real to hallmarks of the transition other than being open, prepared, start early which i think now has become much better understood, much better. recently i've spoken with the business roundtable has been active and carries project

speaking of the national government association this weekend with governor lennox, i think it's much better understood howcritical the transitions are . it is that moment, that moment in the 77 day period where there is so much to be done, so many various stakeholders to respond to and it's a moment where it is essential to. from campaigning to governing. that's really what transitions are about, that's the hallmark of any successful transition one of the aspects of moving from campaigning to governing is that there are different needs and a campaign. the rhythms of a campaign are different because you have, you are trying to win each day and you have a policy agenda that limited that you are talking about but when you come in to govern, you need people that are less

partisan in a sense and ones with experience in the washington community. because you are going to move from one issue to another where you may have coalitions of supporters and one and then your enemy who are your friends and the ones afterwards so when you have campaign people, their mindset is your guy is good, everybody else, your opponent is bad. how do you make that transition of the firm personnel, bringing people who are appropriate for governing? who may not have been on your campaign and what do you do with the campaign people that you want to reward and how does a president deal with that? >> i'm beginning to get a headache just remembering. [laughter] but i think

professor mark, you make the exactly right point because you have had people in the campaign that have truly worked their hearts out for their candidate in that campaign and in many cases made tremendous sacrifices where they've taken leave of absence from their job and work and in our case little rock arkansas or austin texas or wherever, and they spent a year plus of their lives trying to get george w. bush or bill clinton elected so there's a feeling of loyalty and as the old saying goes, i know it's well understood in texas being a neighbor from arkansas but by the same token you do have to be steely eyed, not insensitive, not but pretty steely eyed that you are moving into a different passage. it's different requirements and you have to have basically a blend of people that are in the campaign who

are kind of naturally and hopefully well-suited to make that transition to governing and there's usually a good number of those people in the policy realm, press realm and others , they are pretty natural in that regard but you need to people. broader people in our case for governor clinton, you need a lot of other fellow governors. he had worked with a number of people in education so that was an axillary area. a number of people in the national security area, that was a natural so that's how you make the transition but you got to achieve that balance. there's one other major factor that's different and that the members of congress, for the house and senate. you are not going to hit your first hundred days moving in the right direction with your legislation. as josh knows so well and is so skilled in handling members of the house and senate without establishing in immediate rapport with

leadership there. and i think part of that is to reach out early, carefully and appropriately. you can't get ahead of yourself or that will create problems in and of itself. in our case, i don't think we did as good a job reaching out to the republican side as we could have in retrospect. i think had we caught up with that, welfare to work and other legislation had on, that is absolutely key. it's a very different campaign, that's a new constituency for sure and i think finally in our case, i know you've been talking about it at our session but you had 12 years of republicans in the white house. so that's quite a big change when you have a different administration, a different part come into the white house and in our case two, i think it's worth noting that governor clinton only got 43

percent of the vote. that also had a difference in our dynamic in that campaign and in that transition. josh, how do you all establish your legislative relationship? you had less so. >> first, everybody came in with a landslide back there. we both had our respective challenges. [laughter] don't underestimate 571 votes in florida. but go ahead. >> that made it challenging. that gave the start of the administration a rough start because a substantial portion of the country was pretty raw and a substantial portion felt that president bush had

not been legitimately elected . that was decided by the supreme court and so on area so we were keenly aware of that.the president was keenly aware and that he needed to reach out at the beginning of his administration and make sure that everybody understood that he intended to be the president of all the people, not just the folks that had voted for him. so there were a number of outreach efforts on the part of the administration. governor bush, bush 43 when he was governor in texas, he can describe well had govern as a real uniter and he had hoped to be able to do the same in washington. he had been intending to go to washington as the education president and do

that on a bipartisan basis and so the administration started out with an agenda that included tax cuts which he had campaigned on an education reform has the top priorities and the education reform is his partners were democrats, democratic chairman george miller in the house and democratic chairman ted kennedy in the senate and they were his close working partners on whateventually became the no child left behind act . but sadly for the country, that kind of momentum was very hard to maintain even in the aftermath of 9/11. >> why you think that it was? >> that's the $64 trillion question for our country is why have we not been able to

stitched together some substantial elements of bipartisan cooperation in the last 20 or 30 years. it seems to have degraded through each presidency. and you know, there are a lot of things appointed. there's gerrymandering in the house which makes the vast majority of house members save in their seats, except for a challenge from the fringe of their own party so it tends to make house members much more responsive to the right and the extreme right in therepublican party, the extreme left in the democratic party . and it makes them less

inclined to the receptive to compromise. there's the influence of the dramatic change in how people get their news, the explosion of media outlets from which we all benefit which has been a tremendous and in most respects positive change in our society. it also means that people kind of pick the bias in their news and are operating off a common set of facts that used to i think after unifying effect on the country. and i mean, there's so many factors involved area i don't think you can identify one but you can say that i think the biggest challenge for the coming generation of government leaders is to try

to bridge that deadline. >> certainly the transition has proved to be an area that democrats and republicans can work together, whether it's in congress or in the administration so at least we have one area and there are a few others but it's hard to put that together. for both of you all, what is the advantage of a fast start and if you have troubles at the beginning of the administration, and lose the way on that fast start, how do you get it back together? >> that's a great question and all of us have heard the phrase in presidential history and campaigns and

presidency, the first 100 days, that's the goodwill coming off. that unique window when it's 100 days or at least the first six months of the administration, it's the same time as you pointed out, you are trying to get your team in place who may have believed experience in some ways to implement that. i think inour case , the economic plan deficit reduction plan was crucial because the campaign had largely been about domestic issues and the economy so had we not been able from a policy standpoint to develop an economic plan and move that to the congress and get it passed in the beginning of the administration, i'm not going to go as far as to say that we might have had a failed presidency but i think certainly that would have been written about had you not been able to go forward with that economic plan and

much like josh alluded to the in the elections, we passed that one vote in the house and vice president gore broke the tie in the senate and every time the vice president voted for us, wewant, breaking a tie obviously so that was crucial . and that was just essential to the start because you are also going to have in most cases, not all but most cases, we certainly did, some bumps, some unexpected unforeseen occurrences that are going to come in and you have to deal with whether they are kind of micro but unsettling problems or whether they are major, unforeseen occurrences that come in so you can have all of your plans and agendas laid out as perfectly as you would like but you inevitably are going to have to deal with unexpected events so it's essential that you lift off and i think a real

crucial element comes in place and many of you are in the business world here, it's what clay and i have so adamant about and committed to, you've got to get your team in place to deal with all that and it starts at the cabinet level and the white house senior level but you've got to fly in the remainder of the administration. >> you all have some bumps at the beginning as well, the economic part, that part of your transition that was well formed when you came in, you created the national economic council which continues today. and i think the president counsel is created early too. and then your economic program. >>

but on the other hand, as i noted earlier, and begin i give the republican leadership in the senate a lot of credit for this, we got our cabinet in place, say the attorney general's office which, of course, is a critical position. i believe more probably than any other administration because we had cooperation from the sin in getting those approved. so we actually got those in place but we also had some other issues, gays in military for example, that came up that were distracting in our central not only messaging are central efforts to try to get things in place. i think what you have to look at is at the end of the day most presidencies will be judged by peace which i would now say is also security and homeland and

prosperity. that's the two goals that you to keep before you as you are developing your policy, whether the first 100 days or beyond. >> i'm getting -- in getting the white house staff in place early is something that not everybody seems to recommend. and clinton has talked about how that was one thing that -- >> that's a lesson learned. i think we spent a lot of time on the cabinet which paid big dividends because not only did we have a collegial cooperative cabinet, they gave us great advice and they were able to amplify and, of course, you know this overtime in the obama administration, amplify the president's message in a pretty impactful way both in the country, international but also on the hill and in congress. i do think the real point about transitions, and you and others

in the presidential transition efforts the center has done, david you've been such a part of, have really now gotten in an understanding way how critical it is to have early developed, open, engaged transition efforts that are on a separate track from the presidential campaign. that will help it is key for getting and white house staff in place in addition to the other positions of government. >> josh -- >> can underscore what mack just said? that is crucially important, that the environment that the white house transition project has created, the partnership for public service has created, the legislation that was adopted as a result of your efforts has altered the mindset about presidential transition your because it used to be that those candidates who were even focused

on the importance of the transition were reluctant to admit that any public sense because you wouldn't really be accused of measuring the drapes, getting ahead of yourself, being arrogant and so on. we found that even in 2008 when i reached out at the direction of the president in the summer of 2008 before the conventions, i reached out to the two presumptive nominees campaigns, the obama campaign and the mccain campaign. the obama campaign that it. they were well organized. they had a term the team in place, led by john podesta and chris lu. the mccain campaign was very nervous and very reticent to be seen as having a plan, having

leadership of the transition and so on, precisely because they didn't want to be accused of measuring the drapes and getting ahead of himself. and so there's been an important change in the environment just in the last few cycles about propriety and necessity of making those preparations. it's one of the ways in which martha, operations like yours and carries and others have made an important contribution to the way we run our public life. >> let me, if i may, told on what josh just said in such a thoughtful and articulate manner. i think the environment has changed. there's been a lot of people in this room and others who felt, helped to move that forward. i do think 9/11 has changed the site become too. i also think administrations

coming in a bit of a different attitude. how much can i learn from this other group that either i was part of the orbit of them, and after all i did defeat. i think you're right about that in your book. i think that there's a much better understanding that even if you have sharp differences on policy, that there is a lot to learn from prior administrations who have been in that chair or seat in the white house. i think there's been a change in that environment and mindset as well, building on the broader change that josh spoke about. >> one thing, outcome of the transition out of office you had has been legislation, that institutionalized many of the things that you did. so, for example, you had an executive order that created a transition coordinating council as did president clinton.

that is in law. so you have legislation in 2010 that creates a pre-election transition effort. so that after you have the national party nominating convention, that he transition headquarters that is opened up by the general services administration and divides support for the candidate, if they choose to use it. and so -- >> people should understand this is paid for by the federal government, which is crucial that, you know, it's not just that you get some money, but it's that you have standard operating procedure to set up an office can put people in it and let them start planning. and hopefully going forward it will be just a natural thing for

both candidates to engage in that important planning activity. >> and in 2016, i think was march 28, president obama signed legislation that the presidential transition improvements act, that is going to provide even more. because of the transition core dating council now has to meet, by law, and it has created six months before the election. and then there's an agency transition director council that was created by it that has career civil service people running it. so that information has to be provided, the kinds of information that you and clay have put together in 2008 your so that there was a legislative impact on the kind of work that you did.

well, mack referenced a conundrum. a conundrum i have discussed here is a transition is a time that has a maximum opportunity to change like it, for example, when you come into office is a good time to make organizational changes. because the public is watching, that are willing to support and members of congress also are more willing, the public is more willing to support you. but on the other than to bring in the team that's inexperienced, that really doesn't know where the levers are and how to make them work. so how do you deal with that? >> it is a conundrum. it hasn't been fully solved at this point. now, i think it really goes back

to what i try to note earlier. you have to try your very best to blend come if h if you will,e organization of the campaign staffs, many of whom have been deeply ingrained in the policy development as well as the campaign on both domestic and foreign policy issues, but with new blood and implicitly i think, martha, experienced hands, if you will from the washington scene. in our case, for example, howard pastor came in as head of legislative affairs, and howard had a long-standing relationship in washington and had a partnership there, a bipartisan basis so he was well sued on the legislative front to that a number of relationships already established. a little bit later on as you recall we reached out to david

gergen who served 81, not 81, five presidents. but david had served in the number of administrations and we specifically, and i was a strong advocate of it, wanted to get someone frankly from the republican side that could help us build those bridges. so those are the types of things you do. i think the only other point i would make that maybe we have not emphasized enough for this group and for this he spent years and so forth is just the magnitude of what is really entailed and 70 7a transition. you've really got so much work to get done in such a short period of time, and there so many stakeholders, the people who voted for you, the appointment process, getting the people in place, in our case by governor stepping on the world stage meeting other international leaders, establishing relationships with members of congress, all of whom thinks they're pretty important in this process, the press.

it's a different press that covers the white house that has generally cover the campaign. so there's just a multiplicity of stakeholders that have to be engaged in a very short period of time after lifting off the first 100 days. >> josh, how did you all deal with that conundrum? >> we had a blessing in the outset of the bush 43 administration. and in the campaign in which george w. bush was elected, and the blessing was that a large portion of the country thought that george w. bush was stupid. i mean, the reality is that he's an exceptionally bright policy person.

i spent my clear in government policy, and george w. bush is one of the sharpest policy lines i have ever encountered in decades in this business. but that wasn't the reputation he had. and so we had a political necessity to run a campaign that was chock full of some students. that would've been george w. bush's instinct anyway. but we ran a campaign that was disciplined in setting out, one month would be the health care policy. the next month tax policy. the next month energy, environmental policy. there were speeches that went with it. they were fact sheets that went with it. towards the end of the campaign we published a 300 page book of campaign speeches and policy papers that were the governing

agenda for the first 100 days that mack was talking about. and so that made the conundrum period that you're talking about much easier for our crowd, because these were, we had the agenda in a 300 page book, that people had internalized those who would work with the campaign and so on, political and policy people. and so we had a game plan set out for us. the reason i say that we were blessed in having had to run that kind of campaign is that it made the george w. bush administration i think unusually well prepared to govern. and the sad development in a lot

of, in our campaigning now, is that the policy doesn't seem to be that important. what we need to find is a way back to, i don't think it particularly helps if the country thinks a candidate is not right. but we need to find our way back to a note of campaigning and of politics where the candidates with the media's agenda is come and with the agendas that suggest to people that what people do in that first 100 days is what the country wants done. i think that's one to be critical for our politics going forward. >> so in a way you could see its most important thing that you

could do for a transition, it's about an articulated policy agenda that you come into office. and really developing it at this point so that you know what you're going to do, and then organizationally, that you can put together. >> both. i think there's two sides of the same coin. that's a much better way of saying what i intended to say. [laughter] >> longer and potentially disastrous fashion. spin josh, you set the table very nazi for the president. >> there are difference types of transitions. so you have same party transitions where you are going from democrat to democrat or republican to republican, and a change of party transitions. both of you all were involved in change of party.

but how did you see, you're in the george h. w. bush administration, and that was one where from reagan and george h. w. bush, you had same party. so what are the differences between the two? how should the two candidates, hillary clinton donald trump, think at this point about the differences in the type of transitions that they're going to have? what difference should it make to have that prepared? >> i'll take a first stab at it. i think first of all, the fundamental point i would make is the one that we suggested a couple of times in our discussion thus far. and that is both the clinton campaign and the trump campaign already have established a transition efforts in place.

and i think that reflects the environment that we have talked about this morning. obviously, as chris and others now, with john podesta being chairman of secretary clinton's campaign, he chaired the transition at work in the first clinton white house. he's very knowledgeable, but the trump people have established i think and incredible transition effort which we talked earlier. so that's number one. i do think, having just gone through worry you have changed the parties, that's a very different dynamic than when you have not a change of party. it's going to be very interesting, as can speak to a probably more knowledgeable than anyone, if secretary clinton is elected how that transition takes place with the obama administration. that's going to be want the same party is. in our case you clearly were going to have a significant change, not only in terms of

policy and direction and style, but in terms of personal. that was understood, agreed upon and so forth. but i really would harken back to a central point that you already made. this is one of the few areas that truly bipartisan cooperation, sincere, genuine engage bipartisan cooperation takes place. as governor mike leavitt likes to say, it's when the combatants truly put down their swords and cooperate for the good of the country in terms of the transition. i think that happens regardless whether it's party to party or a different party. but it's a very different dynamic. i think that change is more dramatic or significant as you would think when you have republican to democrat or democrat to republican. josh and others can speak to it. i think it's probably a little more complicated and tedious sometimes when you have one

party transferring to the same party. we will see if that takes place this time depending on how the election turns out. >> how would you like to take a swing at that? complicated. >> it's bound to be better than the last swing. [laughter] >> i mean, i was a junior appointee in the incoming bush 41 administration, and i think there were a lot of rough spots of their, in part because when there's a transition in the same party, the political appointees of the income but have a tendency to think that they are welcome to stay, expectations. and so there's an important element of expectations management that needs to be done largely by the outgoing

president. to let everybody know, you know, you don't automatically get to stay. mamaybe some of you will be invited to stay, but it will be at the sufferings of the new president. this isn't a third reagan term. it's not come if secretary clinton wins, it's not a third obama term. it would be the first hillary clinton term. and so it's important for the outgoing president to set expectations properly, and probably to direct that everybody send to the president their resignation now. and let the president decide whether, let the incoming president decide whether to accept them. now, there is a benefit to same party transitions, and that is

that, although and incoming president of the same party will almost certainly to change over all or almost all of the cabinet and the senior white house staff and so on, there are a number of some cab -- subcabinet positions that are pretty technical in nature, and for which it will take time to get your own good people in place. and you can keep the gears of government running much more smoothly and aggressively if you could keep a number of those people in place. but it requires both expectations management and a fair amount of planning on the part of the incoming president of the same party, which i assume given the very experienced people involved in the clinton campaign is well on their minds. >> you were very helpful when you sent the letter to the

political appointees telling them that the term was up. energy even provided a sample letter. [laughter] >> it wasn't really a suggesti suggestion. [laughter] >> bears a principle that -- there is a principle that we have that one president at a time, and in the 2008 transition seemed to be not quite so clear because there were certain things that happened, particularly with the financial meltdown, that you all and the obama people had to work together during the period of the president-elect. can you tell us something about that? >> sure.

you know, we did all this planning for a populate a national security crisis in the transition. we were actually having a financial crisis at the time. at the same kind of planning applied, the same sort of close interaction between outgoing and incoming applied, and for the most part it went smoothly. not entirely smoothly. there was an episode involving the bailout of the auto industry in which the bush administration had concluded against the political wisdom of most of the republicans in the congress that

the federal government did need to do something to step in to support the auto industry. lest there be major bankruptcies that would have a cascading effect on the economy. and we had hoped with the support of the incoming clinton-kaine to a point and auto czar -- >> the obama team spirit gap, sorry. freudian slip. [laughter] the incoming obama team that we had hoped that we would come in cooperation with them, that we would name an auto czar that was acceptable to the bush administration but was really the obama administration's auto czar, so that we could set in motion the process of rescuing the auto industry. but that the auto industry would

understand that they couldn't game the system. is that president bush? [laughter] >> i think so. >> i'm really concerned about what i said about -- [laughter] >> if secretary clinton calling thanking you for that endorsement earlier. [laughter] anyway, the auto industry, we wanted to have a consistent policy so that the our industry would know what to expect, know that they couldn't game the system and that we from our side were trying to ensure that they survived well into the beginning of the obama administration. but also wanted to be sure that we put in place some very tough strictures on federal support that would require the our industry to take some very

difficult steps to make itself competitive going into the future so that wasn't money down the drain. ultimately, that space of what happened, but the obama administration was reluctant to be seen to be cooperating with the bush administration. and so never took us up on this offer of a struggling auto czar, and we basically had to put it in place ourselves. it worked out okay in the end, but that's, that's an example of where it was, the notion of the incoming cooperate with the outgoing, whom the incoming have basically just run against and defeated was a bridge too far. it wasn't and eisenhower and truman moment of the kind that you referenced, martha, in your

opening remarks. that it was a clear indicator that there were limits to the number and depth of kumbaya bomblets which are politically possible at that time. but over all i think the transition between the bush administration and the obama administration in the midst of a financial crisis was actually critical to the financial well being of the entire planet. and steps that president bush took at the end of his administration to staunch the crisis were largely picked up by the obama administration, and then extended so that it was, there wasn't an abrupt shift in policy. it's interesting that the person whom the president obama picked to be his first treasury

secretary and, therefore, really the navigator of the course in response to the financial crisis was tim geithner who had been a democratic treasury appointee earlier in his career. but at the time of the financial crisis during the bush administration was the president of the new york fed. so tim geithner was part of the triumvirate of the treasury secretary hank paulson, the fed chairman ben bernanke, and the new york fed president, tim geithner. that triumvirate is the one that really charted out the course for responding to the crisis and on whom president bush relied in making his decision. so there was an unusual element of continuity between the bush and obama administrations in the stewardship, the response to the crisis.

and i think it has to be regarded as one of the most effective government responses in the history of economic policies. >> i think to really underscore that, josh in his typically modest way, has not stated historic as i think it was. i think, martha, you make such a key point about one president at a time. but in this case with an economic crisis, not a security crisis i think our country truly looked into the abyss of what likely would have been a depression had that transition not be handled and not been handled in a way that he just outlined it in terms of the bush administration and the obama administration coming in. and it was seamless, appropriate. admit that not full agreement on

every issue as josh noted but it was absolutely crucial at the time to avoid, in my judgment, what likely would have been a depression to restore stability and order. and i think our entire country and for that matter the world economic was a beneficiary of that come from both sides, both from the president-elect and the sitting president. i do think though there is every respect between anyone who has had the sake of responsible as president and the oval office occupancy of the one president at a time. reservwe certainly experienced . it was not as dramatic with bush 41 to the clinton administration but could do is respect and relationship that i think served our country and our democracy well. >> thank you very much. what we are going to do now is go to questions. so if anybody has a question, raise your hand and the

microphone will come to you. >> could you give us a quick discussion of what happened in 2004, 2012 in terms of transition planning? when you said bipartisan i think would be more difficult when the president was still running for reelection to start transition planning. and yet as you said that very te affordable. if the other person were to win. just quick what happened in 2004 and 12? >> boy, that's a great question. and answer is very little. you know, it's just against the nature of any incumbent administration running for reelection, even to contemplate the possibility that they might have to transition out. as great as president bush's leadership was in directing the 2008 transition, i have to say

there was very little done in 2004. you should pose the same question to chris lu who was the cabinet secretary in 2012. and my guess is you'll come up with a very similar and. it's a significant problem but that may just fall into the bridge too far category of actually doing, of the incoming doing a lot of preparation to permit the person that just beat him, to come in smoothly. adheres where i think organizations like the partnership for public service, the white house transition project and so on can play a crucial role, because they are institutionalizing the mechanics and the wisdom of presidential transitioning. and so when you can't rely on

the white house to be asked with come as you would like them to be, there are these outside entities who can do precisely that. >> and in addition there is legislation that in effect covers it. the 2010 legislation on transition provided that a president may create a transition coordinating council, and may create an agency transition directorates council. but nothing having happened in 2012, and having learned in that experience, the 2016 legislation says the president shall take action, shall create six months beforehand the transition coordinating council and the agency transition directors council. and that mark was at, was the eighth, and a sixth, friday.

the president issued an executive order that carried into effect that legislation. and the legislation calls for the transition directors council, that would have to meet at least once a year. so that is a continuing body of preparation for transition. so you make a good point. the optics of running for reelection and preparing for your successor, people are going to think, they know they're going to lose. and so that is a good point. >> worse than measuring the drapes is taking them down. [laughter] >> other questions? >> since president bush and al gore were late in getting elected, did it change what they

did in the 77 days, which turned out not to be that many days? >> yao. i mean, we didn't have 77 days. we had 30 -- clay was the transition director, and so he remembers every minute of those 38 days. so clay, i hope you have a chance to address this when you come up, but the first 39 days of the transition, it was uncertain who was going to be the president. clay had gone to work on preparing stuff, but the focus of everybody was down in florida. not everybody but almost everybody who was involved in the bush operations.

most people were down in florida trying to make sure that the true president was recognized. and the same was happening on the al gore side. .. exactly how many days you have.

>> another question? >> i worked in the core bush office and the transition is just so amazing how they wanted to care for the next administration coming in. i had to put together everything it was like to plan an event for them or when another lady first lady came in from another country and how to plan for meeting with them for it i was impressed because you hear stories coming in and it just wasn't like that for us, you just have to figure it out and call other administrations, how did you do other thing and we just really set the next administration up really well. president bush left that place better than he found it and really prepared that next administration for coming in and setting them up for success.

i thought it was (i just want to say thank you for that leadership. >> i think what you are underscoring is the total gets that from the top and if the president and mrs. bush they this is the way we want it, that's the way it's going to be. i have a lot of confidence that the president and mrs. obama have not only said the right things, but will communicate the right things to their folks and however the election turns out, there will be a good experience for the incoming administration. >> the only thing i would add, you talked about them not taking it down, obviously the 92 campaign was a difficult time for president bush 41 and while we may not have had as well organized effort in retrospect, i want to really underscore that the cooperation we received from jim baker and others,