recommend it as standard operating procedure for presidential transition. and of the people who are are going to be selected, for the white house staff, keep your eyes focused first of all on the chief of staff. who was the chief of staff. and secondly, personnel director, that is going to be a huge locust of action early on. if the personnel director is someone with experience and if the presidential transition gives the incoming personnel director the human power and the resources to do that job on multiple fronts, then you're setting the stage for reasonably well organized process. and he or she has to function as an old boss of mine walter mondale called a one-armed paper

hanger then disaster around the corner and finally the person who is in charge of organizing directing scheduling, for the incoming president, get those three things right, and the odds are that the transition is going to go reasonably smoothly. then of course, come the senate confirmable positions, you've heard the number 4,000, that true. but there are handful that are more important than all the rest. and focussing on the cabinet and key sub cabinet posts, your cabinet aught to be named before christmas. and an interesting, an interesting story to follow is the perineal question of who gets to choose the sub cabinet. and you can tell a lot about an incoming administration from the degreeses of freedom and discretion that nominated cabinet officials are being given to help select their

immediate subordinates, highly centralized white houses with lot of political debts to fulfill, frequently tried to take as many of those decision niece the white house as possible and not disperse them to incoming cabinet officers. various point in between. jimmy carter and notoriously gave his cabinet officials carte blanche to select their immediate subordinates. that did not work out so well. and so there are various ways to try to split the difference. here is a third interesting story. the cabinet has the presence and has the chief of staff and senior advisors to president given any thought to the way teams of people who are go to be working on overlap will work together. and in case the treasury

secretary doesn't get along and director of national economic council and or if secretary of defense and secretary of state can stand each other which happened during reagan administration and few other places i can name et cetera, et cetera. and i'm under bush. third job, the substantive beginning of the administration. and you have made hundreds of promises. and in the nature of things, the band width is narrow. what are the legislative agenda items you focus on in the first six months? you must make that decision early. and then you must organize the issue teams and political teams during transition to begin to exercise -- to execute those top priorities.

and that is a very interesting political story during transition because especially if you made promises on many, many fronts. you haven't focused your campaign on just a handful of key issues but have made -- have ineffect entered into transactions with a number of groups who made up your base and lot of people will be disappointed. who? how are you going to handle that? that both an agenda issue and political question. of course it's not all legislative. and during transition, a separate team will be on executive orders. that a president can sign on day one because that is something under the president's control. can you set a tone by determining which executive orders are signed and made public on the first day of administration.

makes a difference. and are you going to dump them all at once or release them like little time-released capsules day by day so people like you have something to write about everyday? there's an art to dribbling out decisions such that -- such that the ones that matter get their day in the sun. as part of the -- how am i doing for time? oh, good. as part of the -- as part of the substantive preparation, for the administration, and keep your eye on this one too, there needs to be coordination between the issues agenda and budget development. because many of an incoming president's key legislative proposals will have fiscal consequences and believe me, if those consequences are not factored into budget, then nobody on capital hill will take him seriously. let me tell you a war story from the first month of the clinton administration.

one of bill clinton's key domestic promises, matter of fact probably the most important one, is to end welfare as we now know it. and there were going to be substantial ongoing transition expenses connected to the fulfillment of that promise. and there was a humungous fight as to whether that money was dwing to be slotted into a budget which was -- which was by presidential decision early on, going to be an us a steer budget to bring down the deficit to bring down interest rate et cetera.a steer budget to bring down the deficit to bring down interest rate et cetera.steer budget to bring down the deficit to bring down interest rate et cetera. not a universally popular decision. and is there a division within the austere framework. and the answer to that question eventually is no.

and everybody who understood the process understood that whatever was going to happen in year one welfare reform is not part of the agenda. so you demonstrate your seriousness on the substantive front by coordinating your budget development with your issue development. and if you don't then the president can -- you know, the president-elect can deliver all sort of ringing speeches about the agenda once the inauguration occurs. and speaking of inauguration, there is an inaugural day to be planned. there is an inaugural address to be drafted. and two other key tests, first of all congressional engagement, and secondly press relations. and especially as an incoming president is facing divided government, which will almost

certainly be the case, the next president of of the united states will not enjoy the luxury that barack obama has on day one for the next 13 months control of the white house, an ample majority in the house of representatives and 60-vote majority, filibuster proof majority that held together in the senate, whatever the outcome of this election, of the next president, will not have that kind of freedom of maneuver and so the ability to establish good relations with the leaders in both political parties will be essential to the agenda whatever it turns out to be. and finally you, any smart transition will pay attention to the fact that you have stories to write. and if you have stories to write everyday. what are you going to be writing about? trust me.

if the transition doesn't think through that question you will try to come up with answers on your own. the answers that you come up with are apt not to be quite as helpful to the incoming president as the answers with the transition team might come up with. the transition team, if it's smart, can give you something on the personnel front, issuing front preferably everyday in some cocktail. those are some of the benchmarks that you can use could gauge the competence of an incoming administration. i can spend a lot of time given this template that i've just issued offered a key test talking about what the clinton transition got right and got wrong. but rather than telling war stories, let me stop now and if you're interested in any of them, that what q & a session is for.

>> thank you. i do love war stories. i will ask you all for your war stories. i will ask questions then turn it over to full q & a. david, way is hoping you could give a little sense of your center. when you actually got started. and also tell me, there was some legislation that passed in the last six years that has released money toward these transition efforts. can you maybe explain that for us? >> a couple of pieces there. one, you have to know that modern transitions are completely different than even eight years ago. a totally new legislative environment and mandate these teams now have from congress. three pieces you aught to be aware of. one of them passed in 2010. this is the law that moved government support earlier. so it was election day. you looked around. tried to acquire resources from the government.

now that kicks into the convention time. this is only the second time in history we've seen early support, who jest cal support provide theed by the gsa convention. this support mandate and frankly safe space for these teams to plan out and we think how these transitions are done. having served on these years ago, these are completely different an slating larger number of candidates than we have ever seen before. they will have in place on election day potential options for candidates and also very progressing very nicely on the development of 100 or 200-day plans. second piece of legislation is the reduction of number of senate confirmed positions. this is closer to 1400 eight years ago now a little bit above 1100. reduced by 169 or so. that helps from a processing point to get folks through.

not as relevant but know there are a lower number of folks taken off. the policy making jobs, also good management jobs in here as well as that we would argue you consider taking off the list. the third piece, recently signed this year by executive order by president obama and to comply with the law, this is the first time the outgoing administration started the coordinating functiones this early. they are required by law this year, six months before the election, to start the coordinating functions. again, think about it eight years ago. your incoming teams did nothing or if they did something it was on the cover of darkness prior to the election. very small quiet teams. focus primarily on just the top cabinet. so you've seen for president obama, seven people in by inauguration. 7 out of 1100. think of outgoing. you are coming in or going or

staying. historically hasn't participated very fully with the exception of, no formal process or plan that we've seen. this is the first time now there is both a white house coordinating council and political level and agency career directors council that's been now several times with active engagement of the incoming teams. first time in in history we have seen this. and in the third piece of transition, career civil service, right, historically every agency prepared for transition completely differently. and in one case, putting together 80,000 pages. that's not even a door stop. that's beyond a door stop. that's what that is. some agencies do very little. some have year plus in advance and some don't start until the election time. what been great about this cycle, administration committed to much more consistency with the agency, now a standard template every agency is using. this is the first time you see coordination of outgoing, incoming and folks stay pg.

that should drastically change how these transitions happen. and we should see much better results. and i want to follow, to bill's point, we actually think by inauguration day or right around inauguration day, instead of trickling in your cabinet officials that can you get your top 100 cabinet and sub cabinet officials in place. can i tell you four years ago, governor romney was on a similar t t trajectory. you may say it isn't possible because you have to go through senate. but data 70% of the time getting people through is not the senate. it is transition teams. finding these people, putting through paperwork process. this stuff is controllable, sequenceable and can start now. this is the new measuring stick for modern transitions and modern presidencyes. get your people in. easier to go fast than slow. halo effect from congress and from the american people to execute on your promises.

why waste those first several hundred days when they can be ready on the first day. this has been the message to incoming teams the last six months or so. historically, just like we've all been on the phone trying to find these folks 10, 20 years ago. going through george w. bush's boxes, this is the exercise we've gone through historically so we at center for president transition is trying to be a repository of information. and trying to do is it before as with expert and you will see the entiern process mapped out and see what the teams aught to be doing literally today. to focus on this process. at the end of the day i think we can see much better results for an incoming president, better ability to execute on promise answers frankly much more planning around that period of inauguration so we can stay safe and prosperous. >> i'm going to ask one more

question, then we will go out to you. first of all, note that everybody should have a booklet from center for presidential transition that lays out a lot of what he is talking about. that's yours to take home. so thank you for bringing that along. so i want to ask this to all three of you. and with kind of a sub question to you, david. with the notion of the election being rigged and poisonous political atmosphere that we have right now, what sort of impact does that have on transition on both sides if, you know, a huge section of the country is hostile to the jot come of the election? what kind of impact does it have here in d.c.? and also, david, i was hoping you could understand donald trump's campaign has been very hostile to the process in general or system.

is his team working with you? or is it who we see on tv or is it a different apparatus? how is trump behaving, basically? >> thank you. i'll just very briefly say, reiterate one thing i said to you initially, the tone that is set by both the person who wins this election and particularly the person who loses this election, has to set the tone and say they accept the decision of the american people and that there are far more important things to be focused on. and i would like to take some comfort in what governor mike pence said yesterday on the news. that if donald trump loses this election, they absolutely will accept the decision of the american people. i think that would be an important thing to keep reiterating by that campaign and

i think obviously on the other side two. i would hope that mrs. clinton's team would say the same thing. >> yes, i agree with that. just a few comments. we've seen some very interesting debate so far in this campaign. but the one i really like to see is the debate between mike pence and donald trump. starting with the syria policy and ending with the presidential elections. but let me stop there. and say that it is not just a question and what the defeated candidate does. it's also what the president-elect does. if the president -- if the president-elect is former secretary of state hillary clinton, i think she will have a

job from day one of reaching out to the responsible leaders of the republican party and emphasizing that despite the tone and temper of the election that there are people in washington starting with the president-elect who are really dedicated to the process of governing the country and national interest and who are prepared not to abandon partisanship but to try to see beyond it where common ground exist, coordinated action is possible. and this election has surprisingly turned up some areas of common ground between the political parties on key issues. ranging from infrastructure to assistance for families with young children who are trying to balance work and family.

so the president-elect can set a tone, if it's secretary of state, not only with a very explicit and continuing serious outreach to the leaders of both political parties but also in the selection of key topics, agenda items to lead off the new administration with. there are some that would be confrontational and others that tend towards cooperation. never underestimate where the initiative lies within the hand of the president-elect and incoming administration. >> yeah. so a couple things. and we have seen both teams committed to effective gov urnance and both teams working in the april timeframe. both teams are organized around the key functions of transitions. so you have a head of purpose in

both clinton and trump's race. you have their head of agency and policy implementation focused on key campaign promises and cataloging them and beginning to develop 100 and 200-day plans. we have seen remarkable consistency with both. i think both teams have their challenges to work on. but i've been extremely pleased that these teams have in their own words put their sword at the door it talk about governing the most complex and powerful entity on earth. job one right now is win the campaign. so we do not want, they don't want distractions. focused on goveni eerning the campaign. so i will respect that process. both teams are staffed up, organized, taking it seriously. at the end of the day we will see much better results from both. >> so plenty of time for questions from the audience. raise your hand and we will call on you.

we don't have a mike to hand around. so speak up. question over there. okay. >> so, the only -- the only administrations i've really seen that i remember personally are george w. bush and barack obama. and in both of these administrations you saw congress move way away from them and refuse to work with them at a certain point. does that happen to every administration? and at what point does that usually happen and why? >> can i give a comment to that? thank you. that's a great question. i think one of the -- and you're right. the relations of course were difficult. this 2000 there were people on the hill not happy with the result. and a call into the legitimacy. i think things changed after

9/11. the country did come together. congress worked well with the president on a number of key issues passing an enormous bipartisan legislation on the emergency plan for aids relief which we haven't seen anything to that level up until now, $15 billion commitment to a single disease. so there were areas that were really encouraging. and i also think what led to this is personality passed them. bush would work with the other side. ted kennedy was a frequent guest to the white house. nancy pelosi was a frequent guest to the white house. there were, you know, despite what might have been public rhetoric, there were conversations behind the scenes over very, very key and important issues. i think drawing from an example to how ronald reagan handled his congressional relations as well, it is very well known, and tip o'neill did not agree on policy

but they add lot of frequent interaction as friends. and after friend, those things go a long way in being able to on key legislative priorities trying to move the marker and trying to get something done. we know the example of course with george h.w. bush. he was a creature of congress. had been a number of congress. had relationships, strong personal relationships, on both sides of the aisle. in one key instant, it didn't play out well for him when he agreed with a conversation with t the ways and means committee and agreeing to raise taxes, he knew would cost o'neill and it did. there is a place where the president sets the tone and

takes political risks and develops relationships to get things done. one thing that i would say that he would be about president obama is that he was a member of the senate and pretty well known reaching across the aisle was not a strong suit of this white house. and there were a lot of contentions around health care reform, and other issues. but building personal relationships, i think that's an important thing to watch for too. what is the extension of the olive branch to the congress in particularly to the opposition. >> that said, and i agree with all of that, the job of reaching across the aisle is comfort than it used to be. because the political system is more polarized than it used to be. divisions between parties are

deeper, more pervasive, less overlap between political parties. when i was the age of most of the people in this room, there were lots of republicans who were more liberal than a lot of democrats and conversely a lot of democrats who were more conservative than a lot of republicans. that's not true any more. so building cooperation across party lines is not -- is going against the grain of some decades of american political the second point i'd like to make in response to your question, if building on what i need to say is never think that campaign rhetoric is irrelevant to governance. the american people are listening and if you make big high profile promises, breaking those promises for whatever

reason is enormously politically costly. and everybody remembers the famous lines that peggy newman writes for george h.w. bush. read my lips. no new taxes. not only read his lips and heard his voice loud and clear. and there are equivalent problems that an incoming president would have in 2017. and if donald trump decided that maybe the wall wasn't going to be built or that mexico couldn't be forced to pay for it or secretary chin on the, decided ttp is just a fine and dandy agreement there would be hell to pay politically. big promises matter. never imagine that they don't.

>> the cabinet member selection process, particularly the lower tier, agriculture, labor, how do they go about compiling a list of potential nominees and narrowing that down. >> well, i think we both can speak to that a little bit but yes again going back to the point personnel is policy and although they're considered lower tiered departments and agencies they're running huge budgets and lots of services that get delivered out of these agencies so part of the process going on and both transition teams now is compiling lists of potential candidates. people with experience or these issues or maybe those that will be newcombinging from outside of the traditional framework but

may have scales and managing and huge budgets and huge departments and go through a vetting process and it's a much higher threshold and higher bar to reach now both because come pains don't want to bring in people with a lot of outside private sector baggage. particularly if they had been lobbyiests. so it is a little difficult to have a list of names that will pass through all the high thresholds of vetting. and in the stage at the executive level. three or four positions and the agriculture position in particular. but they're going to look for people with experience perhaps that have had so pass through a

public life of their own and that have come out of it unscathed. >> the first question is what are his roles. it's interesting that there's not a lot of descriptions of what these roles are. typically when we see that they have more time to play this out and it's super early and they will create half dozen or so names per top position so not just cabinet but also quick sub cabinet positions or white house positions at this point. they will not even notify the candidates they're being looked at. our research has shown within one hour they go to their cocktail party and let all of their friends know they're being looked at. that can create distractions for the campaign.

so they put together a list of names. and financial betting and things like that so that right after the election and we define a calendar and the vast majority of time with the president elect making quick decisions on the cabinet. you're presenting them a list of options and allowing that candidate to make a decision. we'll see that this cycle as well. >> i wonder if i can add a note since both of you referred to a betting process. it is extraordinarily complex, labor intensive and it is for very high stakes. there is a tension between speed

on the one hand and avoiding damage in the states on the other. there is no way of relieving that tension. it just is but can get a new administration off on the wrong foot it's coming up with a senior appointment that needs to be withdrawn because of some embarrassing revelation that comes out. and so some peel inside and outside of the transition will be urging the team put your pedal to the medal. you need to get off to a fast start. and get splattered over a large

number of faces when a nomination blows up in everybody's face we'll say wait a minute. i was involved, you know, i was involved after the fact in a high visibility appointment early in the clinton administration where nobody bothered to read what the nominee had written on very important topics. i was astounded because nominees with long paper trails may very well be saying things that the incoming president does not agree with. the incoming president will be held responsible for those ut r utterances. the incoming president is expected to know about that and an impression of incompetence is conveyed.

so, you know, there is speed and there is imperative of accuracy. and there's no way of completely eliminating that tension. >> you're changing political parties but what's the wisdom of keeping people around in higher levels that are already there. just let them carry over from administration to administration. how common is that. and most people want to clean house. but the most part is do you think that's a good idea? that there shouldn't be a critical mass left over. >> it's definitely not common in the white house. that almost completely, goes with the earlier point. watch what happens in the white house staff. that's almost a complete turnover. there's about 450 white house office staff positions. just the white house office. 70% of those are political

appointments so that really will change because that is the center of the world for an administration bringing, people who think like you are going to take your direction. there is a functioning bureaucracy of career civil servants that keep the trains running on time. the demeanors and agencies really turn to david to speak to some of this because there are positions that will not change. they are career positions that will not change even at the highest levels at departments and agencies. you touched on a fundamental difference between a same party transition and opposite party transition. the regard to appointees in the same party transition the

incoming president will pay less of a political price for allowing a certain number of the political appointees from the previous administration to hold on to office until the replacement comes forward. and it's also the fact that even during opposite party transitions a president elect can make a decision to retain a senior cabinet official from the other party. bob gates is an excellent example of that and i think that probably president obama was pretty pleased and decided to hold over secretary of defense. and i do think that in this respect if former secretary clib on the is elected, she will face less pressure on the cabinet front because the people that were in cabinet positions now

will be reasonably well aligned with her program anyway. they certainly will not be actively obstructing it. so it is at least possible that that she's not going to ask for mass resignations. she has the option of being more selective than an incoming president trump would be. >> historically, there haven't been many same party transitions. it's a friendly or unfriendly take over concept. in history though the most difficult it's counter intuitive because there's an expectation of continuity that has never existed. you're starting to see it now. if this person wins maybe you'll stay on. history shows that generally the incoming team wants their own

people in this case. so i would expect nothing else. they ought to be focused on. they're for both teams and there's a couple of non-political political positions that rerequire all sorts of hoops to jump through and get this example under the secretary of health at the veteran's affairs office. for example if you were to let that person go and start the process again the way that position is set up, it would take you two years if you started tomorrow and that's a position. so there are positions like that you may want to hold over. data shows, it's based on interviews and memory, you will see a significant senior level top gap hold over. these positions may carry over to the administration but will do so temporarily. they will not be permanent hold overs so you may see a little bit of that but me speaking personally my advise would be

send that letter out to everyone and ensure there's an expectation that you will not have a job beyond january 20th to allow that incoming person to put their people in office. the expectation of continuity and one leg out and one leg in in my view is not a smooth way to do it. >> that request needs to come from the current president. that would come from president obama as a directive to the departments and agencies that they need to submit their letters of resignation to give that maximum flexibility and freedom to an incoming president. >> that's absolutely correct. my only point was that an incoming president clinton will have substantial latitude to refrain from accepting a large number of letters of resignation in the game of governmental continuity while the new team is being put in place.

>> the first clinton transition, i'm talking with my parents and watching old news interviews the press ended up controlling that transition. for example refocussing the overall issue agenda on clinton's personal character and also more contentious issues like gays in the military. so i'm curious if that perception match what is you were -- >> i was in the white house. >> how that effected clinton's ability to accomplish other items on agenda further down the road in the first term. >> well, the clinton '92 transition was not a model

transition. it was however very useful case study. so what went wrong during the clinton transition? well, first of all, as i mentioned earlier, this enormous and lengthy focus on the cabinet with the white house as an after thought. secondly not drawing a clear enough distinction between the campaign team and the government team. it is always a mistake to bring your senior campaign people lock stock and barrel into the white house. 3rd and this gets to your point the transition and the president elect did not do a good job of

controlling the issue's narrative. president elect clinton on november 16th of 1992 a day that will live in infamy was asked the question based on what he would say in the campaign how he intended to handle the issue of gays in the military and he made the mistake of answering the question forth rightly and didn't give himself a lot of wiggle room and the result was a focus on the issue that was nonstop and relentless because it was an issue that peel could understand. reform was difficult. gays in the military appear to be easy and then of course the fact that there had been no coordination with the relevant military leaders lead to an enormous push back and the white

house learned that it was going to take a period of very careful consultation with the military services to get them comfortable even with some version of that idea. a lot of action in the president elect's own town. that will be easier to mention if there's a president elect whose either washington or distance there of but little rock it turned out to be a world

apart. instead of a circle at the center it was an ellipse. i could go on but it seems to me that president elect can learn from those. >> having been in the white house in january of 1993 and that morning and waiting even that morning to get lists from the president elect clinton's team of who was going to be on the white house staff and i think part of that too started out focussing on the white house and staff first after 12 years of republicans in the white house. there was an inherent concern about who they could trust that was in the white house to be accepting this information and

even getting people on board. there was a real lack of trust and in the white house with this fbi security files and all of these things that were improperly taken by the clinton team and there was some of that in addition to starting late was an inherent not understanding, not knowing, not trusting what the institution of the presidency provided to them as well. it was very difficult. 2000 was difficult but 1992 and 1993 was pretty bad too. >> so we only have time for -- we only have four more minutes so if you have a question, try to keep it pretty targeted and then for the answers try to keep them pretty targeted. wait in the back of the room there. >> i want to hear more about the synergy and the roles. you made a point about trying to

keep those separate. i'm wondering what the transition is thinking. >> the transition, i mean, once they're -- >> transition team and then -- >> well, let me distinguish very quickly, the transition team is one thing. the campaign is a different thing. and in my judgment, there's a lot of continuity between the trabs situation team in the white house and not so much between the campaign team in the white house. >> there is some coordination that happens at this point and they need to be doing what they need to be doing. you'll see weekly calls or something like that with the campaign teams and you have an interesting exercise which is the campaign and transition merger between those entities so this is really -- this hasn't happened really ever historically where you had a large scale preelection transition effort with very large, in some cases, campaign

staff moving into that. this will be the first time and both teams are also focused on that. how they integrate and which positions they have and how you begin to staff up that white house in that period of time in transition. >> sure. >> one more question, quick as possible. >> the number of departments and agencies, epa, education, energy. do you foresee a situation where certain positions go unfilled because he doesn't agree with them if he were to be he elected? >> there are a lot of positions that are unfilled now even though the president may agree with the mission of those agencies. underscoring just how difficult it is to get people through a vetting process whether they're senate confirmed or not. and one of the key and who is your head and mobilize and get them filled. and this is not the first time

they heard a candidate say toipt take down a particular part that is hard to do. and how much attention it may get by the president. that's a whole other question. this is not a new problem that we have in these department and agencies to execute their mission. >> let me just add to that that most cabinet departments are established by congress so these, you know, they are not simply creatures of the president. they're established by law. there are laws that they are charged to administer and so an on going -- there's a lot of on going businesses regardless of the stance that the incoming president takes with that work

or department or agency. so i wouldn't pay too much attention. ronald reagan was, i think people listening to him in 1980 and he appointed a couple of really good ones. >> both teams recognize they have to engage the career work force. they'll execute their priorities whatever they are are. that's the mission of the career work force. both teams recognize it and they have done it before. and that's how they view it. they view it as an enabler and we should see much better than the career work force we have seen. >> we need to draw this to the close. the contact information for all three expert speakers are on the handout. the bio packet. they all would welcome contact from you and follow up questions. so thank you very much.

and we're going to make a very quick transition to the reporters panel. i'm the transition team. >> you're the transition team. >> journalists have covered the presidential transition process and discuss the relationship between the white house and the press core. this is just under an hour.

>> i'm turning this over to cat from role call that's going to be the moderator so i'm stepping back. the only thing i want to point out is she'll introduce the panelist and we have paul miller here. we have a university of maryland grad here. >> good morning and thank you. i'm a policy editor at cq roll call and i'm happy to be your moderator this morning on how to cover the transitions not only to the next presidential administration but also a change of power if it's likely to occur up on the hill. we have today on our panel, on my right action starting with chief washington correspondent for yahoo! news. next is kimberly, senior education writer and next to kimberly is the senior white

house correspondent for bloomberg news and jackie, national correspondent for the new york times. our panel is very well versed on the issues before us this morning. we go 21 days before election days and they're probably thinking what next. we hope this panel gives you some insight and practical tips on how to navigate to the next administration to what happens on the hill. the next not only 21 days but the first 100 days. >> the transition coverage is not that much different and it's the overlap of information but not overlap and interest in keeping that information private. when you cover the white house it's approximate pest not to cover the white house. talk to congress. talk to the agencies.

talk to the political operatives. above all talk to congress where you may as well have 535 press secretaries all talking. and people in congress, allies in congress always hear things so rather than just relying on the daily transition briefing it's a good idea to go talk to all of these other people that have the same information or close to it but are not as guarded as the principals. >> kimberly, you covered department agencies like the va and education department. what happens there when all your sources, especially the political appointees may be gone. how do gou about getting ready for the next administration? >> this is really the time to be going to key lawmakers and key interest groups that say, ask them, what are you formally and

informally asking the transition teams to do in the next administration? who are the people that you want to see filling these positions and then just keep going back to them. what are you hearing back from the transition team. and these are the questions to be asking right now and the first day it can be a little daunting and the communications people you have been dealing with for months and years are suddenly gone and you can't assume that the political appointeess will be there answering the phones and they might not feel like they have the expertise to answer your questions yet or might not feel like the experts are in place. they are political appointees to help them so the people that you're used to contacting 24 hours a day with obscure questions and that kind of

thing. and you have to prepare for that day. >> what about you? what are some good tips for the reporters out there that might be listening on how to cover the next administration. >> part of it is just being organized for yourself. there are some things that you know about the transition team before the president elect becomes the president elect. you know what the official structure or the beginnings of it looks like. and who their foreign policy advise source are so that can help you to become organized and there's also stories that every transition has in terms of the coverage. the people who will help shape who the cabinet is going to be so, and will help shape who the top staff are going to be. what are the stories that you want to know during the transition? who is the chief of staff or the new administration going to be?

who are going to be their top picks for the top tier of the cabinet positions or the second tier of the cabinet positions. so these are like you have to figure out what are your priorities. what are you going to be covering? are you going to cover everything or are you a politics reporter looking at the incoming administration and their relationship with congress or are you doing poern policy. how they overlap with the decisions of the transition team is going to be making. and there's the campaign and there's the transition and the new administration. some of the people on that transition team you'll never see again. they are there for that interim to do a job and they're out. some of the peel on the campaign will continue on to the administration. some are just political people and there will be some important

players that never had any role in the campaign. and probably fewer of those. it's key not to forget about who the players are and both from the staff perspective and advisor kitchen cabinet perspective. a lot of those is when it's time to create and command the power structure instied administration. >> jackie. >> i'll go quickly since i'm cleaning up and a agree with what others have said and i repeat it is set up three rules for a transition and one is you should be started by now, you know and it's become true overtime as they have seen the mistakes of past transitions. the other is to be completely intimately knowledgeable about the campaign promises that the candidates have made and the third is to know who the people

are behind the scenes who are responsible for coming up with policies and the people just reporting all the time and kept in conversation people. who are you hearing might be treasury secretary. and now they have been for months. one example how now going back to the transition of george h.w. bush and bill clinton is i have been covering congress for the wall street journal and if they're not going to come from congress into the administration at top cabinet levels. typically a secretary or just under. and people on the hill are going to know who is in the running or who is being talked about. starting in october of '92 i have started doing reporting profiles on benson who is the

senator from texas. chairman of the senate finance committee that i covered and one of those you thought might be treasury secretary in the clinton administration so i had my profile already and is going to be named in early december because my baby came ten days early and when i was in the birthing room undergoing contractions between contractions i was on the phone with one of my colleagues literally dictating from my notes that i had on lloyd benson to be treasury secretary. and on the next one. clinton to george w. bush, i was intimately familiar with george w.'s tax cut plan to the extent he had details so that was like his first priority. the first thing he went out with so i was -- sort of had already some view of the politics of

that. who the democrats, they're still worse and conservative democrats and from southern states in particular. those no longer exist but they were willing to play ball with george w. bush. so i was ready for that debate when it came. you don't report it in the transition. you report months a head of time. >> we're about to have a change in power here in washington where either major party candidate that will enter the white house has shall we stay a storied relationship with the press. sometimes out right not trusting the press and other times using the press to their advantage. what tips would you give to our audience here and watching on cspan on how to deal with that. >> first of all, let me confirm

that neither of these candidates likes the press. which is fine. they're not supposed to be your friends. one of the ways it complicates the relationship sit makes me want to collect as much information before i go to them because there's always a danger that they will assess what you have collected and they will go to a rival organization and give them that tidbit of news that you were trying to fair it out and so i try to collect as much information. if it's not bad it matters a lot less but i had story ideas or hey i'm working on this. i'm going to report this out. what do you think and they realize it's a good angle for them and turn around and that can have -- in addition to avoiding bad things can be

leveraged for you if you walk into a conversation and you and i both know this is true so that's very hopeful. i think that's probably the number one tip i would give you to start working on your story far away from people that dislike you and only come to them late in the progress. >> how do you navigate the issues of access for a lot of folks in the paul miller program probably aren't going to be in the press room every day at the white house or not necessarily upton hill during transition. how do you navigate the issue of access. >> all i know is what happens. this is true of life in general but certainly true it's transactional and not personal and do they consider you a friendly news organization. >> do they consider your news

organization a news organization that has readers they're trying to reach and may have more of an ideological, to go with them. how many people do you reach? is it a financial audience or more of a social issue. audience, whatever, fill in the blank. whether they dislike you f they really dislike you they'll go to someone else and reuters news organization. it's not personal. you can be sitting in the front row or you can be on the hill and the white house once every three weeks. it almost probably doesn't matter. it's almost never personal and number two just figure out what you want to do. and even if you're not on the inside, if you're not an inside player, if you're not briefing

every day or if you work from a regional paper or news organization that's not completely compulsively all the time covering it maybe don't compete in the same air space or water, you know what i mean? like compete with something you have strengths at and where you can do your sourcing outside of that building. and trust your own instincts. you don't need them to validate what you see. sure go to them the last minute and get their comment. if you're doing good stories they'll pay more attention to you. and it doesn't mean you're ever going to get the leak or the flow or that first phone call or information and trust your own instincts and look for stories that you can get and access is great when you have it. but you only needed to do certain stories. if you're not going to get it. i hope you have an editor that understands that and do what you

can do. before i open it up for questions i want to get a dialogue going with you and our panel list. let me ask you this. we saw, it's a question about unfinished priorities. we saw on friday the obama administration issue a new round of actions and travel in cuba and now travellers coming back can bring back the famous cigars and the rum. are we likely to see more of those kind of executive actions as we near the end of the palm balm administration. how do we go about knowing what issues can come up in these final days? and how do you parlay that in the stories in the first 100 of the new administration. >> this is something president balm has relied on for much of his second term but it was clear

that the republican controlled congress and completely control, completely controlled by republicans since the republicans took control of the senate in early 2015. he has done most, well, time is running out so he has done much of what he is going to do. margaret might know better because it's been over a year since i was covering the white house day-to-day and yet the danger of executive orders as the white house is the first to acknowledge is that they can be overturned. and a lot of these including climate change. there will be so much industry in the industry has done and is supportive of it would be hard to turn it back without alienating or angering the

republicans own business allies. in that sense it would be harder to turn back than people think. donald trump has promised to do a wholesale of the obama executive orders. to some extent it matter who is the next president is going to be and president obama will have some time to figure that out between the election and when he runs out of time to issue exec withdrew tif order. if you have the president from the same party that you're friendly with and it's a third term or continuity. >> on the other hand if it's a real political hot potato and you hand it to the next president that's kind of like your ally that could have some consequences for their ability to govern so i think you're weighing a different set of

circumstances where as if the next guy coming in after you or woman but in this case guy were to be everything you stand for you would have the flip side of the strategy. do i load it up and force the guy to overturn everything or do i say that's more trouble than it's worth for my party in the long run. i won't do it that way. so those are the considerations to watch for. the issues that the president has been unable to resolve with congress, we know that closing guantanamo is a big one of those and they also resisted trying to do anything super controversial, epic, off the charts with an executive order. i don't know, what do you think? >> along the same line who is is in and who is out. in the balm white house, was constantly clashing with teachers unions. clinton came out early -- the

teachers union came out early in the campaign and endorsed or had a key time so it will be interesting to see what the relationship is like with that group. there's so many opportunities to look at who is getting the attention. who is getting what they want. it's not just with executive orders but in other ways as well. >> i see hands getting ready to go up and ask questions. if you can tell us your name and news organization that would help our panelists as well. >> i saw a couple of hands getting ready here in the front. >> the idea that you were talking about with the executive order and releasing orders coming from the white house. is there anyway they're going to

do that. usually they see the press releases when there's a new executive order and didn't like what obama did, try to keep that more subtle when she returns? that kind of thing. >> well, anyone want to give some insight on how executive orders are overturned? there's also the courts. >> that's what i was going to add. i don't think hillary clinton will -- wouldn't be her first priority of overturning some of the obama executive orders, certainly. donald trump would. george w. bush did as soon as he came in. i meant to look this up last night in particular and there were things he didn't go to executive order but he with drew the united states from participation in international

organizations. >> he reversed the arsenic in the drinking water. >> right. >> clinton on his last day in august clib on the put out a few executive orders that were designed entirely to inflict political pain on george wflt bush including the regulating the levels was called the mexico city language which has to do with family planning. it's a good question. and we of all peel are not going to cast people that seem like experts. and they could actually issue executive orders that they don't tell us about. that could be a path of overturning things without us knowing. the challenge is keeping it under wraps is very difficult

because the agencies that are effected will have their own interest in talking about it to recorders. congress whenever they're briefed just talk, talk, talk. so it will be hard to do. they don't have to make a big announcement out of it. >> when obama sent an executive order -- >> but that's an exception. signed another executive order they didn't tell us about? >> so there are ways to do this that are significantly less public than others. that's one of the challenges of the transition is going to be how do you find out these things. >> and midnight on a saturday and make it harder and not make it harder to report but make it harder to get that report to get picked up by the public. >> one other thing it just occurred to me to be aware of going from one president to the next is that george w. bush

pioneered the use of signing statements and signed the bill and then had a signing statement in which he basically said i don't agree with this part of it. and i'm not going to force that part and it was challenged and it stands and democrats criticized it very strongly but and one of my colleagues charlie savage wrote a story about this that won a pulitzer price. obama was a critic. he has issued statements that indicate where he wouldn't feel like endorsing the law. now a president trump let's say his people and legislative counsels and others could look at the past laws and see what leeway the previous president left him by way of the signing statements. >> but again, this also is heavy in the realm of defense and national security. tends to be where these -- not

always -- >> what a great example though because charlie was not a white house correspondent. he picked up on something that we as the white house press core it becomes so routine. we didn't see the story there. and he wrote the piece and this isn't they should be aware of. and they're sitting right out there and the might not realize it's the story. and unless it's access and the administration has figured out that it's going on. >> people are involved in the transition and getting to know the people upton hill that support the presidential

candidate. how do you do that in a hurry in the age of multiplatform journalism where you need to send a tweet and do a snapchat and file for dot com and then there's the next day print edition. you have experience of this obviously and what are your tips to backgrounding somebody in a hurry. and find them at a public event here. and they each know your name and there's one strategy. and wanting to do that and importantly to do that. a critical way to find somebody. >> both on the hill and in congress i used to keep files on every texan when i was working

at the dallas morning news washington bureau and every texan that might be joining an administration to see what he or she knows but i can't do that anymore in a digital age. other questions from the audience. >> the ultimate activiticess st. president george w. bush did a final trip to iraq and afghanistan in late 2008 and i was part of that press pool that went with him and we had this joint press event with the iraqi prime minister in one of the presidential palaces and as they stood there at the podiums, american press sitting where you guys are and where you guys are,

a small sailed over our collective heads and the president avoided it and after determining it was not the kind of object that goes boom we realized it was a wing tip and egyptian reporter hurled the first of two shoes at president bush. you can probably find photos of me and my two chins on the internet. one the secret service flattened this guy and the other is that if he waited another 90 seconds he would have hit the president. because he's a spry guy but later he was sitting -- he would have been sitting in his high back chair with high arms and there was no way he was going to get away from the shoe.

>> jim carol from the eun sersty of maryland. >> the white house christmas party after that incident i asked the president in my two minutes if he had heard a lot of jokes about it and he said the guy that threw it was a shuni. >> that sounds like w. >> gentleman in the white shirt. >> did he say anything? >> he was annoyed that that was going to be the lead story. this was all about sort of tying up loose ends for both countries and so he was annoyed that every newscast, every news outlet, boiled down his fair well to those countries, it was entirely this crazy thing happened this

guy threw a shoe. they got it. they understood, you know -- they understood that the press core was going to focus on that as being the most remarkable element but they were not particularly pleased with it. >> there was a question over here. >> so when you're looking at how to approach coverage of a transition is there any differences you can think of between a same party transition and opposite party transition and how you approach that coverage. >> there's obviously more continuity. there would be more continuity. in this case there would be more continuity. probably in every single case. just between the obama white house and the clinton campaign just on the clinton side so many

commonalities and worked for bill clinton and center for american progress which was the clinton campaign in progress and there's a lot of continuity. now had that role in the white house. and before then there was a long time democratic and then before then she was at the clinton white house. you see people that went from bill clinton to obama to the clinton came pain that would have a role. and transition obama to trump. that would be completely different. i can't think of anybody. i was listening in the last panel and there could be more with a democrat to democrat or republican to republican transition. than different parties.

and i deferred to them and has been part of transitions and if al gore had been elected president and after their initial bromance early in the campaign by the end of the administration there was so much tension in the fact that gore did not want clinton i think to gore's ever lasting detriment didn't want him campaigning for him and there would have been one where there was tension. but the most tension i have experienced or covered was from the clinton -- well, allegedly to dispute of this clinton to george w. bush where the

staffers took the w. off the queue board. >> the reason the stuff can be bad is one of the most famous transitions. if you talk to people that are legit all they do is transition politics they'll tell you every time that was a terrible transition. there was a lot of people in the ray fwan administration that just assumed that they would still have the same job and be promoted. and there was some policy changes as well. so that's why -- that is what you're talking about the difficulty of any trump party. the only one i covered very closely was clinton into w. and the thing that struck me was how actually fairly transparent the bush administration was because they really wanted to talk about the changes. they really wanted to talk about -- this was true under

clinton and not true under this president. so it was policy. it was personal. it was all of these other things so they were aggressive about talking to us and about revealing things even though the executive orders i thought they would be cautious with, they're like no, we're rolling it back and we're going to take this down. so it -- i wouldn't say there was any one hard and fast rule for whether they're party or worse. but certainly everyone felt relatively open in the way they were changing things around. >> i think that -- i think the bush to obama was actually okay. on the stuff that mattered. on the national security stuff. on being able to hit rally find files and information and stuff. i think the bush team was a class act about it and the ball balm team decided to be a class act on the receiving side. i may be glossing it over. >> i always thought there was a great irony in that bill clinton

bequeathed george w. bush an atmosphere of peace and prosperity. 1.6 trillion projected as a surplus for the next five years and yet clinton did next to nothing to ease the transition to the w. bush administration. conversely, george w. bush 8 years later would bequeath barrack obama two wars and the greatest recession since the 30s and yet he did maybe the most spectacular job of transitioning between two different party presidents of any president to date. so and the obama people have been very complimentary of that. even if they would have maybe preferred the other way around. peace and prosperity and crappy

transition plan. >> in a clinton white house it would be interesting to see if the ball balm people are being picked over the bill clinton people or if the clinton people are picked over the obama people or if there's a view let's start fresh. that's one thing to look at. >> very good point. >> and a trump white house are the people and this is addressing the first panel but are the people coming in wanting to blow up some of the agencies that trump has expressed dislike for saying that we don't need them. so that's another thing to look for. >> let's talk a little bit about the other transition that might occur. that effects the white house as well and that's the possibility that the senate could go back into democratic hands. what are the tips you would have about paying attention to congress and that transition and how does it relate to the change of power at the white house and the fact that we may or may not depending on the outcome on election day have another 4 or 8

years of divided government. >> i think one issue i'm looking at -- and i don't want to get it down to one issue or the big issue and that's the transpacific partner agreement. if the republicans lost control of the congress and the senate mitch mcconnell and paul ryan might figure this shows trump couldn't win and one of his biggest doing away with tpp. by pushing, it would deliver a big get to their business allies. their current opposition is against -- the over the opposition of many of their biggest donors and their local business constituents. and the third thing -- reason i could see it is because they know it would put hillary clinton in such a political bind, even before she has taken her oath of office. she would have to be -- she

would expect it to be i think at this point very publicly out there saying i'm opposed to, this urging democratic senators to vote against it. so i think that's the biggest thing i'm look for if they take congress. and of course there is also the supreme court nomination. . >> that little thing. >> it depends on there is a few different outcomes, obviously there is the outcome where clinton wins the white house but the republicans maintain the control over the two chambers. in theory there is an outcome where trump wins the white house and democrats take over a chamber. that seems unlikely. it seems like one would drive the other, right? so if clinton wins and republicans remain in control of congress, she is on the defense, and it's hard to see what she can do without an executive order starting on day one. if her party were to somehow be able to retake both chambers of congress and she were in the

white house, you would have at least an initial window where based on obama's experience literally one thing could get done. so would it be be immigration reform? would it be something else, right? if clinton were to win and democrats were to retake the senate but not the house, then at least the democrats and the senate kind of blunt the republicans in congress. and so it gives her a little bit more wiggle room. and if trump were to win, even if republicans still remained in control of both chambers, you would have a really interesting dynamic because there is so much vitriol that has been created and so much concern in the party about how to handle him. depending on what he would try to do. so i think what we'll see on election night is not just who the next president is going to be, but it will be a complete road map for what degree of nonaction versus unbridled chaos, you know, there is to expect.

>> kimberly and then olivier. >> i agree with that. i feel like it really will, and all these policy areas where the candidates made promises, so much of their ability to deliver depends on their makeup of congress that could really shape what are the priority issues. so it is really important. >> olivier? >> just as a tip, if you're covering presidential politics, always make friends with the advance people. today's advanced -- the person who is setting up your filing center today becomes a communications director or a speech writer or a policy adviser tomorrow. always be nice to the advanced people. and if you're covering congress, always befriend the deputy press secretary. always, always, always. >> why the deputy? >> because they have more interest in talking because they want to establish their status with you. but in general because it's tomorrow's communications director there is a fair amount of staff churning and turnaround. if democrats retake the senate, you're going see junior people get promoted to more senior

positions because incoming senators will try to pluck staffers from other offices. those are two things. some of my best sources today were in very junior roles. i'm not saying these are just people to be used. they're some of the most knowledgeable and friendly people that you'll ever meet in politics. but they are -- they're tremendous. they know a lot of this stuff. the person who does clips for -- meaning the person who collects the news coverage overnight for the candidate or senator or congressman, that person tomorrow could have a completely different job. always befriend those people. always, always, always. >> questions from the audience? >> yes? hi. >> from ctu. this is more about the white house rather than congress. but what is the precedent for an incoming president picking cabinet officials from the oh posing party, and what do you see as the potential for

potential president clinton picking some republicans for cabinet posts? >> that's a good question. picking someone in the cabinet from the opposing party. anyone want to jump in? >> my experience it's been the two democratic presidents that have done so, not the republicans, although i stand to be corrected. bill clinton, for instance, tapped billion cohen, republican senator of maine to be his defense secretary. at one point. and then of course we've already mentioned bill gates was held over from the bush administration at the pentagon by president obama. >> i believe president george w. bush also tapped norm mineta. >> that's right. >> for transportation secretary or commerce secretary. >> can you think of any others where a republican has? because that stood out at the time when president bush named norm mineta who is transportation secretary. >> let me broaden ryan's question a little bit.

in an era of partisan politics and fierce partisanship on the hill, particularly in the senate, do we still have this belief that a president's picks will actually get through or can we expect in the next administration some of these cabinet confirmation hearings to be pretty testy and maybe not necessarily get through on the first time? >> ask chuck hagel, right? poor chuck hagel. gets nominated to be defense secretary. has a really crappy confirmation process where his former colleagues are just all over him. and then for a lot of complicated reasons, ends up spending not a lot of time inside the administration. confirmation hearing are always an opportunity to hash over the administration's policy on a given thing. so they're -- even if the next president wants to send a message by picking someone across the aisle, i would expect the experience to be a lot more like chuck hagel's experience

and a lot less like norm mineta's experience. >> margaret? >> i think, again, this is a situation where it may matter which of the two nominees is elected. in clinton's case, you have seen she has trumpeted the fact that a number of republicans have come over to support her campaign, mostly in protest to trump's existence as a nominee. so that gives her kind of a ready made batch of either potential nominees for cabinet posts or at least of potential kind of undersecretary for whatever, whatcha ma call it. and the upside, if you feel you trust them is it's information from the other side that you might not have otherwise. and it is potential line of friendly communication across the aisle, which can be hard to do if you kind of completely hole up with your own people.

i'm having a harder time, but help me if i'm wrong, imagining under a trump administration who would be the democrats that they would have developed the ties to bring on board. i'm just not thinking of anyone right now who comes to mind who has been someone who they've kind of pro moetd publicly. >> i can't off the top of my head. but your point is right, i think. >> i think there is also on the subject of confirmation hearing, there is also the unintended consequences, attorney general waited a long time for her confirmation vote in the senate, in part because the senate was mixed up in a political issue that had nothing to do with her, right? so -- >> that goes to a point i was going to make that will make this upcoming round of confirmations different from those in the past. confirmations have become

increasingly polarized over time. when i first started my career, a president was given deference in putting his team together. and trying to oppose or bust a nominee was a very, very rare thing. and it's far less rare. and now you have the situation, ryan, you may know more about this than i do in terms of how it's playing out now. but the republicans under mitch mcconnell are still smarting from the fact that harry reid when he was majority leader changed the filibuster rules so that you could get through federal judges other than supreme court judges on a filibuster-proof process. and so they have exacted their revenge by slow walking or even blocking other nominees that president obama has made, even to very, you know, uncontroversial places or people that passed unanimously out of

committee. and i think that, you know, the republicans whether they're in the minority or the majority in the senate will continue to do some of that. >> ambassadorships have become one of the favorite hostage-takes lately. >> so look for confirmation bites. >> when these presidential picks come up for confirmation hearing, sometimes we will hear that someone's nomination is in trouble because they haven't paid their tax, or they didn't follow the rules regarding a nanny and how to report that income. what are some of the documents or records that our audience should be looking for when names come up for cabinet positions? what can we -- are there ways to look up their finances or anything like that? >> it's very hard. they have to turn over tax documents to the senate finance committee. and the senate finance committee has unique power. and some of its staff has unique

power to review. because tax documents are pretty sacrosanct when it comes to federal documents. but what i've tried to do in the past, and the staff and members are bound not to talk about it, but you know, there is ways of just asking around like well, do you see any trouble ahead for so and so? but that's -- you know, there is a lot of the papers that we don't get to see. but that shouldn't stop you from trying. >> olivier, you're nodding your head. >> yeah, this financial disclosure stuff, there is some foreign gifts stuff. i wrote a piece about john brennan's foreign gifts when he was nominated the head of the cia. i had a weird obsession with foreign gifts to american officials. i think it's a pass night underexplored world. also really importantly, though, are the big fat committee questionnaires on questions of policy and ideology and the rest of it. and sometimes the trouble can bubble up in there. a committee will submit 250

questions, and one of them is answered off kilter, and the committee will helpfully steer reporters to the offkilter answer. so yeah, there are ways of asking. that was a great way of phrasing it. do you see any trouble ahead kind of question. that's absolutely your friend. >> olivier, tell your audience how you found the foreign gifts for the cia director. >> the committee actually attached them to a if i'm remembering correctly, it was a random press release. a couple of the pages of the financial disclosures were foreign gifts. and i'm trying to remember what they were now. i'm sure you could find them easily if you did an online search. i think one of them was this insanely lavish clock that he got. so it's, you know, it was -- i wasn't steered to it at all. just my own weird quirky obsession that got me to it. but they do release this stuff. i will say, though, that on the questionnaires you can typically

count on the opposition party to be like psttt! question number 145. there are two ways, the regular standard disclosure where you have to have the patience to go through it. and threaten is the more helped along kind of thing. >> there is the majority staff and the minority staff. depending on who is in charge and who is what, you either want to know the legislative director or at least the communications director for both sides of a committee staff. and then if it's someone who has a resume, a background that is at all public, there are other things that are beyond what is going to get submitted. ideally what you want is the stuff that doesn't get disclosed to the committee. it's previous tv appearances. it's previous job they've had where they maybe had to file some disclosure form for that. maybe there is something on there that didn't turn up on the latest disclosure form. once you know who it is, if it's someone you're really interested in you can vet them yourself beyond what they're going to submit and see what you can find. >> your next panel with someone

from the center for responsive politics will also go over with you about how you can find out about actual presidential transition costs, which will have to be made public after the election. we have time for just one or two more questions. anyone in the audience? yes, in the front. >> hi, my name is shawn duty with c-span. i'm wondering how the supreme court is factoring into the transitions. are peel lobbying both campaigns to be a nominee? and do you expect that secretary clinton will continue with judge --'s nomination. >> you're asking me? >> well, let's put hit the way. she definitely has not committed to doing that. read what you will into it. i know what i would read into it. i mean. but, yeah, that's obviously going to be -- and it's not just that there is one vacancy now. it's if you just look at the demographic tables, the next president is going to have a whole bunch of those.

it's always been baked in the cake for republicans. ask that lame duck period to be to be a period if clinton wins where you figure merrick is the most entrenched. or is he so entrenched that it's not going to happen? but she has not committed in any way. to renominating him if this year comes and goes. >> let me ask the panelists this. do you see anybody in the current obama cabinet who is likely to be held over or who could be held over in a democratic presidency? >> well -- >> kimberly? >> for example, i cover the education department. and john king has only been the secretary since the beginning of this year there are some stakeholders in education who would like to see him stay on. so that's one possibility. >> i've asked about this for a couple cases.

so i haven't gotten clear answers. so i don't want to go too far. i wondered about jack liu remaining because a, hillary clinton loves him. she objected when barack obama brought him. he had been at her -- she had taken him to the state department. and when obama grabbed him to be omb director, she objected. she objected knowing she was going to lose, but she objected. but on the other hand, jack lew desperately wants to get back to private wife and reunite with his wife in new york and spend more time with his grandkids. but i think going back to the confirmation fights, i think if you see some fights, there may be people, certainly mr. king who want the stay on and provide some continuity. i was just going say on the supreme court thing, i happen to think, or two things. one, the fact that trump has put out so many names is unusual. that's never been done before.

and second is that i think i'm in the minority. but i tend to think hillary clinton would try to -- push merrick garland for the supreme court. he has gotten the highest rating ever from the american bar association panel. he is not as liberal as some of the democratic constituent groups would like. but more important, he is 63, i think, which is old for a supreme court nominee. but she is the next president, as i think you said, margaret, is going to have a number of supreme court spots to fill. so she's got so much on her plate coming in as president, it makes sense to me. because the republicans have already indicated people like orrin hatch and others how much, you know, they respect and like merrick garland. i make the case that she goes with him. >> why do you think she has kept her options open? so aggressively. >> this constituent group, there are some constituent groups that

would like to see somebody more liberal because she doesn't maybe want to disadvantage him, that if she gives him her blessing, republicans, who might republicans who might be inclined to vote for him thinking we're going screw hillary clinton and now let her put some more liberal person on the court o. >> it makes a loft sense. so keep hopeful of the possibility that it's going to be someone worse so they take a roll on bringing him on. >> exact live. >> we have time for one more question. >> it actually relates to that. so let's say it's a democratic senate getting voted in. and secretary clinton ends up being the next president. do you see the lame duck session pushing through merrick garland? and if so, show that going to affect the appointment process? >> well, one thing in the lame duck session, don't forget, we have to fund the government for the rest of fiscal 2017. so that's one issue. anyone on the panel want to tackle that question about merrick garland and the lame

duck? >> not going to happen. not going to happen. not going to happen. they've got roughly three weeks, right? they've got to fund the government there are a couple of other bills that senators are much more attached to related to health, a couple health measures. i don't know that three weeks so going to be enough to keep the government open. so the idea that they could also hold senate judiciary committee hearings, and also set up a vote and somehow overcome the objections of senators who are virtually sure to try to block this nomination, i would be -- i would be stunned. it's not impossible, but i haven't heard anything notably from mitch mcconnell's team that merrick garland gets a vote in the lame duck. >> i agree with that. >> there is also the absolute fact that the senate republicans have always said the next president should have the pick. and on that note, i just want to

thank the panelists for their time and their insights. we've had a very good discussion this morning. and i hope that you find it valuable as the next panel. i'd like to thank the c respond audience, and also the sponsors of this program, the university of maryland, philip marrow college school of journalism as well as my colleagues and the national press foundation. thank you. watch c-span's live coverage of the third debate between hillary clinton and donald trump thursday night. the debate starts at 7:30 p.m. eastern. the debriefing is at 8:30 p.m. eastern. and the 90-minute debate is at 9:00 p.m. stay with us following the dea debate for viewer reaction, including your call, tweets and

facebook postings. and watch live or on demand using a desktop, phone or tablet at c-span.org. listen to live coverage on your phone with a free c-span app. download it from the app store or google play. on monday, president obama outside lines what he has done to help students pursue academic achievements. speak at a high school in washington, d.c., this is 25 minutes. [ cheering ] ♪ >> hello, bulldogs! good to see you guys. how is everybody doing?

ah, you all look good. you look good! hey. how is everybody? well, it is so nice to see you guys. everybody have a seat, though. have a seat. i know you've been waiting here a while. good thing you all had your phones with you. as the father of two teenaged daughters, i know the whole time you're just like, and then he said, girl, i couldn't believe it. anyway, it's so good to see you. thank you. a couple people i want to acknowledge. first of all, i want to thank

our secretary of education who has done outstanding work, john king is in the house! [ cheering ] and then my great friend and former education secretary and multiple winner of the three-on-three contest, as well as at the nba all-star game, he can ball, arne duncan. we've got your mayor, muriel bowser here. give her a big round of applause. your representative eleanor holmes norton. and we are so grateful not only for the service to the country, but the amazing work they're doing with their philanthropic work and america's promise, colin and alma powell. so by now you have settled into

the new year, adjusted to classes. you're preparing for spirit week. learning how to ballroom dance. i remember having to do that. getting the nerve to text that cute girl or boy in your english class. i don't remember that. we did not have texts. we had to send little notes. and then we used to actually have to go up to somebody if we liked them and talk to them. so that may happen to you some day. seniors are looking at colleges, taking test, filling out all the forms. and malia just went through this. so i know how tough this is for you and the parents. but as i'm winding down my presidency, i was so impressed with banneker the last time i

was here in 2011 that i wanted to come back -- [ cheering ] -- because you're an example of a school that is doing things the right way. and i of believe that if you're going to be able to do whatever you want to do in your lives, if you want to become a teacher or a doctor or start a business or develop the next great app or be president, then you have to have a great education. we live in a global economy. and when you graduate, you're no longer going to be competing just with somebody here in d.c. for a great job, you're competing with somebody on the other side of the world in china or in india, because jobs can go wherever they want because of the internet. and because of technology. and the best jobs are going to go to the people who are the

best educated, whether in india or china or anywhere in the world. so when i took office almost eight years ago, we knew that our education system was falling short when it came to preparing young people like you for that reality. our public schools had been the envy of the world, but the world caught up. and we started getting outpaced when it came to math and science education. and afternoon and latino students in part because of the legacy of discrimination too often lagged behind our white classmates. something called the achievement gap that by one estimate costs us hundreds of billions of dollars a year. and we were behind other developed countries when it came to the number of young people who were getting a higher education. so i said when i first came in

office, by 2020 i want us to be number one again. i want us to be number one across the board. so we got to work, making real improvements to improve chances for all young people until they got a career. and the good news is that we've made real progress. i just want to talk to you about the progress we have made. because you are the reason we have made progress, some outstanding young people all across the country. we recently learned that america's high school graduation rate went up to 80%, which is the highest on record. that's good news. more afternoon and latino students are graduating than ever before. [ applause ] right here in d.c. in just five years, the graduation rate in the district of columbia public schools went from just 53% to 69%. [ applause ]

so d.c.'s graduation rates grew faster than any other place in the country this year, this past year. it's something to be really proud of. now, of course here at banneker, you graduate 100% of your students. [ cheering ] 100%. it's been a while since i did math, but 100% is good. you can't do better than that. so what all these numbers mean is that more schools across d.c. and across the country are starting to catch up to what you guys are doing here at this school. now some of the changes we made are hard. and some of them were controversial. we expected more from our teachers and our students. but the hard work people have put in across the country has

started to pay off. and i just want to talk to you about some of the things we did. it starts with our youngest learners. high quality early education is one of the best investments we can make. which is why we've added over 60,000 children to head start. we called for high quality preschool for every 4-year-old in america. and when i took office, only 38 states offered access to state-funded preschool. today it's up to 46. we're trying to get those last holdouts to do the right thing. and by the way, the district of columbia leads the nation with the highest share of children, nearly nine out of ten in high quality preschool. and that's a big achievement. we launched then a competition called race to the top. which inspired states to set higher, better standards so that we could outteach and outcompete

other nations and make sure that we've got high expectations for our students. d.c. was one of the winners of this competition. it upgraded standards, upgraded curriculum, worked to help teachers build their skills. and that in part is why d.c. has done so well. we realized that in today's world, when you all have a computer in your pocket and those phones, then you need to learn not just how to use a phone, you need to learn computer science. so we're working with private and philanthropic partners to bring high schools into the 21st century and give you a more personalized and real world experience. we're bringing in high speed internet into schools and libraries, reaching 20 million more students and helping teachers with digital learning. and coding by the way isn't just for boys in silicon valley. we're investing more in getting girls and young women and people

of color into science and engineering and technology and math. and because we know that nothing is more important than a great teacher, and you have great teachers here as well as a great principal at banneker, we have focused on preparing and developing and supporting and rewarding excellent educators. y'all know how hard they work. they stay up late grading your assignments. that's why you've got all those marks all over your papers. they pull money sometimes out of their own pockets to make that lesson extra special. and i promise you, the teachers here and teachers around the country, they're not doing it for the pay. because, you know, teachers unfortunately still aren't paid as much as they should be. they're not doing it for the glory. they're doing it because they love you and they believe in you and they want to help you succeed. so teachers deserve more than

just our gratitude. they deserve our full support. and we've got to make their lives easier, which is why we enacted a law to fix no child left behind which gives teachers more flexibility to spend more time teaching creatively than spending all their time teaching to a test. give your teachers a big round of applause. they deserve it. [ cheering and applause ] so we've made real progress. but here is the thing, and i think all of you know this, because you go to this great school. a high school education these days is not enough. by 2020, two out of three job openings require some form of higher education. now that doesn't always mean a four-year college degree, but it does mean whether it's a four-year university or a community college or some sort of training ramp, you've got to

get a little bit more than just what you're getting in high school. it used to be that a high school job might be enough because you could go into a factory or even go into an office and just do some repetitive work. and if you were willing to work hard, you could make a decent living. but the problem is repetitive work now is done by machines. and that's just going to be more and more true. so in order for you to succeed in the marketplace, you've got to be able to think creatively. you've got to be able to work with a team. you've got to be able to work with a machine and figure out how to make it tailored for the specific requirements of your business and of your job. all those things require some more sophisticated thinking than just sitting there and doing the same thing over and over again. and that's why you've got to have more than just a high

school education. and if you doubt that, i just want to give you some statistics. compared to a high school diploma, just getting a degree from a two-year school, going the a community college and getting a associates degree could earn you more than $300,000 over the course of your lifetime. and a four-year degree earns you a million dollars more than if you just had a high school degree. think about that. i mean, a million dollars, that's real money. so one of the things that we're trying to do is trying to make it easier for you to access free money for college to figure out how you can pay for your college without having a mountain of debt. and the key thing, as you know here at banneker, but i want all the students around the country to do this, and michelle and i and others have been emphasizing this