arguments by a of weeks. on monday, the house will send the article the impeachment to the senate to be read aloud by house impeachment managers charging the president with inciting the january 6 right the u.s. capitol. that is scheduled for 7 p.m. eastern. on tuesday, senators -- a summons will be officially issued. then, both sides will have two weeks to draft legal briefs and prepare opening arguments. those arguments are due to start on february 9. you can watch coverage of the u.s. senate and the steps leading to the impeachment trial of former president trump starting monday at 3 p.m. eastern live on c-span two. we are back with max

stier, president and ceo of the center for presidential transition. he is with us this morning to talk about what the biden administration will be doing develop president biden's cabinet and the agency workforce. max, good morning. guest: good morning. host: first of all, let's get into with the biden administration faces. on screen are going to see the biden political appointee tracker, which is done by our public service, that biden has picked 51 nominees to fill key roles so far. only 2 have been confirmed by the senate. max, what does president biden face when it comes to filling his key cabinet rules? guest: it is a big task and as you say the biden team is ahead of the curve in the historical term. they have got over 50 nominations they have made in

the next highest administration in terms of having the outside the gate was the obama administration at 42. that is just nomination, not confirmation. there are over 1200 positions that the incoming administration has to fill that are senate confirmed. 4000 total appointees of those 1250 that require senate confirmation. president biden currently only has 2 people actually confirmed, the director for national intelligence and the secretary of defense. they have a long way to go while the biden team has nominated more. they are still in a position where they are not leading on the confirmations. frankly, the senate is a tricky place right now. in ordinary times --

[indiscernible] they are not sure how to operate with the 50-50 tie including the impeachment trial coming up and legislation that is fundamental to our health and safety and responding to the epidemic. this is an extraordinary time. the real challenge to the biden team would be to multitasking, getting a lot done at the same time. in order to do that well they the people in place. they have a long way to go on the senate confirmed side. where they have more control is around the non-senate additions. that is a good thing, but it is not everything. they have got more to do. host: you said earlier the biden administration was a little ahead of the curve.

i want to play a little bit from senate majority leader chuck schumer who came to the floor of the senate and talked about his concerns about the rate of confirmation for president biden's nominees. [video clip] >> the senate confirmed to several national security nominees for the incoming administration rang the first few days. even as power changes hands from one administration to the other the work of keeping our nation safe must not be paused or be disrupted. foreign adversaries will seek to explore this transition and we cannot allow america's military intelligence and national security policy to be disrupted by staffing delays. in 2017, president trump had his defense secretary and secretary of homeland security in place on inauguration day. president biden deserves his national security team in place

as soon as possible. as well as key officials in charge of responding to the health and economic crisis. with the cooperation of our republican colleagues we can and should confirm the secretaries of defense, homeland security, and treasury without much delay. host: where are we when it comes to appointments? are things running as normal? are they ahead, are they behind? how can we judge it and where are we? guest: sure. there are two answers to that question. are we running normally and what is it we need? normally it has been slow. just to give context i mentioned earlier there are 1250 thereabouts senate confirmed additions the president has to fill. the first hundred days, which is a pretty typical marker to talk about your first work in the

administration, the high watermark in any administration has been the obama administration. of those 1250 the obama administration had gone in 69. the metaphor is like the start of the super bowl and you have your center and quarterback of the field and nobody else. that is the high watermark. everyone else is in last. the trump administration had 28 in the first 100 days. right now the biden team has been working hard. they have prepared early. they were the best organized pre-inauguration transition effort. that is what we discussed earlier. they have over 50 nominations, but it takes two to tango. they have to nominate folks in the senate has to exercise divisive consent and give us a thumbs up or thumbs down to the nominees. that is not happening very fast.

it is happening slower than in the historical norm. the norm is too slow anyway. this is a big issue and i agree with the statement you played from senator schumer. we have got such big problems -- i would only stand on the list senator schumer gave in critical people. you need your national security folks, yes your treasury secretary, but honestly you need your health and human services secretary. that is the focus of the pandemic response activity. you need your hud secretary. all these people are performing important functions that are both responsive to the needs of the pandemic and beyond. there should be a huge priority and we need to see consistent change. part of the problem is even if

you do everything right, the senate is such a small part that you cannot move 1250 people through in real time. host: who is in charge of these agencies now while the biden administration waits for its political pix to run the agencies? who is in charge? who is running the government? guest: in each of those agencies the biden team has chosen somebody to serve as the acting head of that entity or agency. in most instances, not all, it is a career professional who has been picked by the biden team to lead until the senate confirmed individual can come into play. these are people who have deep knowledge about the organization, who are highly qualified, and who are terrific in what they can do. the problem though is they are the proverbial substitute teacher.

they may be an amazing educator, but the challenges everybody knows they are temporary. therefore they do not have the same authority as perceived by others or themselves as the president's pick confirmed by the senate. our government is operating. it is not as if nothing is going on. but again, someone in acting position is not full the equipped to deal with the long-term harder problems that we face across-the-board. host: if you are interested in who is serving in those acting capacities, there is a list available on whitehouse.gov of the agencies and the person put in charge in acting capacity by the biden administration. max, are these acting directors term limited in any way? can they only serve a certain amount of time before a

permanent person is put at the top, or are they there until someone is confirmed by the senate? guest: that is a good question. in most instances there is a law that congress passed that governs the issue around vacancies when you do not have a confirmed individual in place. the statute provides for a time limit that someone can serve in acting capacity. although, when it is the secretary of the agency there is no other recourse. the reality is, you know, the biden team has actually nominated people for all those positions and once they have nominated someone the clock stops anyway. it is now incumbent upon the senate for those top positions, secretaries or agency heads. for the other positions, the deputy secretaries, assistant secretaries, and the list goes

on, a few of those have been nominated by the biden team. there are many more that need to be nominated and the senate needs to act on all of them. it is really -- again, to change metaphors -- the two lane country highway and there is a traffic jam. ultimately, to your question, there will be someone in acting role as long as the biden team has nominated someone -- they have done their job. they can serve in acting capacity. if no one has been nominated, it is a different story and there is a time limit for an individual to serve in acting serve in an active capacity. at the front-end of the administration, that should provide even longer time someone can serve in any acting role. that needs to be updated. the trump administration played a lot of games with it and

avoided having the senate confirm leaders. there were over 130 top additions where they never even nominated every -- anybody over the course of their four years. we have a lot of cleanup to do. hopefully a lot of learning from challenges that came up in the last administration. the fundamental issue is that this is all about solving big problems we face, whether it is the pandemic, the cyber attack, global warming, you name it, there is a huge diverse set of massive problems our government is responsible for addressing, and leaders in those agencies matter in terms of the effectiveness of the response. so we should care, and we need to see who has bid -- who fits in the rules we have right now, and we need to see changing the rules. because it is so hard to get that many people put in place quickly. and time matters here. we don't have the luxury of a

year weight. the game is going to be over by then. host: let me remind our viewers they can take part in this conversation. let's open up regular lines meaning democrats can called (202) 748-8000. republicans, your line is (202) 748-8001. independence, you can call -- independents, you can call (202) 748-8002. keep in mind, you can always text us at (202) 748-8003. we are always reading on social media, on twitter @cspanwj and on facebook, facebook.com/cspan. we've already talked about the senate is split 50-50 with the tie-breaking vote coming from vice president kamala harris. i want to ask you a later about how that makes a difference -- ask you later about how that makes a difference, or does it

make a difference with the senate so closely split when it comes to biden's choices to run the government. first, i want to show you something that florida republican senator rick scott said when he announced he is going to oppose the nomination of treasury secretary nominee janet yellen. here is a portion of what senator rick scott said thursday. >> based on what i'm concerned, -- i have heard, i am concerned undisturbed. -- and disturbed. when i ran for the senate, i did so to fix washington's broken ways of doing things. we have to address washington's unconscionable need to waste tax dollars on things that do not actually help. or even hurt american families, especially working families and those on fixed income. i will never give up this fight. in 2018, -- said if i had a magic wand, i would raise taxes. we know that is not the real

answer to solving our debt issue, it is just a lazy liberal approach. it's time to get value out of every dollar we spend and make hard choices to ensure a strong and economic future for our nation. i cannot support the nomination of a candidate that promotes joe biden policies to mortgage our kids and grandkids futures with irresponsible and shortsighted taxes and spending. host: so those are the types of objections some of president biden's nominees are getting. how much of a difference doesn't make that the senate is so closely divided with only one vote, the vote of the vice president, able to swing it one way or the other? guest: it makes a huge difference. primarily, he has to look at the moment right now. the senate is at loggerhead because senators mcconnell and schumer have to come to an agreement about how to organize even, what the rules of the game will be for them, given this

50/50 split. a lot of this is simply not happening because of that. this is a tricky situation, and the truth again is that the senate is a bottleneck. it only operates with some level of efficiency if there is comedy , agreement amongst the senators to move things forward collectively. anything else takes a lot of time. time is what they do not have. they have so many different things that need to happen, that anything that absorbs additional time means there's a lot of things that do not get done. if you listen to senator scott, i think there are important words that he had to say, but it represents a different perspective on even the role of the senate, in terms of reviewing and -- or the biden

consent rule of reviewing the president's nominations. what i heard him say was he can't deport secker -- support separate designee yelling because she supports the policies -- designee janet yellen because she supports the policies of the president. the president is given the prerogative in choosing the people that they want to help him or her pursue the policies that they desired, and the review was around their capability, whether they were in fact capable and appropriate figures to be leading the large organizations, rather than going after them around supporting the president's policies. presumably a president will always pick people that support his or her policies. it is a different standard.

it's a standard of saying, i will keep resisting the president's policies by slowing down their ability to bring in their leadership team, rather than saying i will be reviewing those nominations on the basis of whether they are qualified for the position. that is a big difference, attacking him on the policy versus qualification. when you are talking about a president's cabinet nominations, that becomes a problem if it will be a fight over everyone of them. ultimately, this is what has led to many changes in the rules in the senate that limit the ability of the minority to prevent people from coming through. we can still eat up more time, and time is not everything, it is a lot for the u.s. senate, given all they have to do. host: let's let some of our viewers join in on this conversation. we start with wilbert from pennsylvania on the democratic line.

wilbert, good morning. caller: good morning. jesse, first i have a question and a statement. when they were attacking the u.s. capitol, i used to work on both sides of the houses of the u.s. senate, and u.s. house, so every space they were in, i knew exactly where they were at. i felt so sad for the police officer on capitol hill, and i think all of them need to be tried and given 20 years or more. my question is, i hope the democrats have some backbone and push that nuclear option through the u.s. senate, and stop playing with the republicans. they do not want to pass anything for the american people. what the democrats voted for the president, the first two years, use the nuclear option and give mitch mcconnell and the desk get the republicans to stand up

for their vote and go back to their district. either you are for the american people or are not. host: when it come -- one of the rules when it comes to filibusters and presidential nominees? guest: those rules have changed. when it comes to the confirmation process itself, you can no longer filibuster the president's nominations. you can slow it down, but even those rules were changed so there is a much more limited time you can do that. the filibuster is still available for run-of-the-mill legislation, most legislation unless it is part of a special process called the budget reconciliation process, but we've got a very different system now, the senate. there has been an erosion over recent times of the ability of the minority to stop the action of the majority, but it is still

the case that the minority can take up a bunch of time, and time is something that has a real cost to the ability to get other business done. this is a heart issue and any issue that -- an issue that is central to the lack of agreement between senators mcconnell and schumer organizing this next congress in the senate. as to whether or not the filibuster is going to be -- removing the filibuster for legislation would be taken off of the table. it is hard to know. this has been a road of each side taking away more and more of the traditional rules that protected the minorities ability -- minority's ability to speak up and stop things. these are tricky issues. in my view, as i said earlier, one of the ways to deal with it is to remove some of the

business that is of lesser importance to the senate docket. there are lots of positions that are part-time boards and other less significant leadership positions in government that still require senate confirmation. what ends up happening is it never happens. where if you just remove the senate confirmation requirement, you would make it easier for the senate to focus on what is truly important, and enable more of these leadership jobs to get built faster. in this arena, my suggested solution, you don't have to test a filibuster because it is not relevant to this conversation, but to reduce the overall positions by a significant amount. for the senators, they think this gives them more power, but it does not really, if these positions wind up being filled by people that can never get to

the confirmation question to begin with, or presidents try to do an end run to having more acting folks. in this area, i think that would be a more successful approach. host: so senators are not able to filibuster, but talk a little bit about a hold. there is a story in the hills newspaper about senator josh hawley putting on hold a cabinet nominee for president joe biden. let me read a couple prayer graphs -- paragraphs. josh hawley announced on tuesday he would place a hold on alejandra mail to us -- alejandro mayorkas. holly, who has come under fire recently amid allegations, played a role in the capitol riot this month, made the announcement hours after the senate committee on homeland security and government wrapped its meeting. move delays the nomination of a post democrats argued is critical to fill immediately to

protect national security. tell us about this hold. what is a hold, and what does that do to a nomination? guest: i should start by saying i am no expert on procedure. i have some familiarity, but i want to make sure i am careful about being clear that we are on uncertain turf here. as i understand it, it is not permanent in the sense i can prevent ultimately the confirmation of mr. may arcus -- mayorkas. there's an additional burden that requires the senate to address before they can get someone confirmed. in this instance, i think senator hawley is coming up the

works with the ability of moving mr. mayorkas as the defense secretary. it's important to remember any defense agency, the department of homeland security has the most, i think, challenging leadership issues. at the back end, for almost all of the trump administration, there were fewer confirmed leaders at the department of homeland security with percentages filled more than any other agency. even more concerning was there was more turnover at the top and had more secretaries at dhs then i think any other cabinet agency, and there were multiple courts and the gao that found the leadership, the acting leadership at the department of homeland security was not

legally there, that they had come into office without real authority, because they had followed the lines of succession , and therefore, their actions or decisions may not have had legal weight. so one, the department of homeland security is a critical element of our government, especially these days. whether it is the pandemic or having fema play leadership role by being part of the department of homeland security, or issues around the cyberattack. there was significant cyber intrusion. i think it is the pearl harbor of our day, really critical and i think not receiving enough attention, or issues around immigration. the department of homeland security plays a fundamental role in our government in many many different respects.

so having leadership there is absolutely vital and the gap in leadership that has existed there for so much of the trump administration creates even more problems. if you look at employee morale at the department of homeland security, the lowest of all of the large agencies in the government. there is a lot of work that needs to be done. i think it is a real problem not to have a firm leadership in place immediately at the department of homeland security, and i think it is incumbent, in terms of all priorities, there is lots that needs to get done. it's hard to believe any agency leadership is more important right now. it is at the top with maybe a couple other examples, but it is critical to get that done, and it is normally the case that, especially at the front end of the administration, that a president has a little bit of a

honeymoon and people at the senate are giving the president the benefit of the debt dashed out. getting your leadership team in place is so fundamental. to come back to the original point, it doesn't stop it from happening, it slows it down, and that slowing down can come at a real cost. i don't think we are going to want to pay. host: speaking of the confirmation process, you can watch a lot of this here on c-span. coming up later on today, pete buttigieg, nominated to be the transportation secretary, will discuss the transportation goals of the biden administration during the winter meeting. you will find the coverage beginning live today at noon eastern on c-span, c-span.org it, and c-span radio. actual confirmation, you will be able to watch part of the confirmation hearing later on of

the senate energy and natural resources committee. they will hold a confirmation hearing for former mr. -- michigan governor -- a former michigan governor coming up on wednesday. 9:30 a.m. time, you can watch that confirmation hearing for energy secretary come alive here on c-span, c-span.org, and always on the free c-span radio app. max, we have a question from one of our social media followers. this person says, isn't it just political bluster that confirmations hinder presidents? isn't it true presidents can appoint cabinet members for 30 days? is that true, max? guest: so it is not. there is a provision that would enable the president to bring in their cabinet secretary in

essence as an advisor into the agency, but that does not put them in the position of the cabinet secretary. it does not enable them to be the decision-maker across the agency. so this matters, absolutely. it is a tough thing. it's not like you will be able to say, these people got hurt in this way specifically because of the delay here. but there is no doubt, we all know how many troubles we face as a nation here, and there is no doubt the ability of the government can be able to respond as fast as possible to address the issues if not having the confirmed leadership in place. right now, we are talking about the top person. there is no, literally, hundreds of other confirmed people that can come in. if you start so slow at the

beginning, imagine it will -- imagine how long it will take when you get to the assistant secretaries and others that are a couple ayers down in the organization. this is not a good start. even the fact you have other things like the impeachment trial underway, it should be an issue of real concern. we saw this with the last administration. they were extremely slow, the slowest of any prior administration in nominating, had the most turnover, and we saw a lot of dysfunction from the government. a significant amount was caused by the inability to have good leaders in place on a permanent basis to run the government. sometimes, it may feel like inside baseball. it's a bunch of partisan fighting, whatever, and that is not it. what this is about is making sure our taxpayer dollars that go to trying to keep us safe,

healthy, and address all of the myriad of challenges we face in the world, if they are used well and the organizations are run to the best of their ability, to help the american people, we have an incredible service. but leadership matters, and permanent leaders matter. if we want to solve our problems, compete effectively against china and the rest of the world, we need a government operating at its best, and that requires great people in place, working well together, and working well with the workforce. again, right now, and in the long race, the biden team has started strong and the senate process requires the administration and senate to work together to get the government that we really want and deserve. host: let's take some more phone

calls. for we do, i want to put an emphasis on the point max made. let's look at the senate confirmations by the first 100 days. that 100 day period. you can see slow down max was talking about for president trump. in his first 100 days, president george w. bush was able to get 202 people confirmed by the senate. for his first one hundred days, president obama got 218 people confirmed by the senate. in his first 100 days, president trump was only able to get to 90 people nominated and confirmed by the senate. let's see if we can get a couple more calls in before the end of the segment. this color is from syracuse, new york on the republican the line. ray, good morning. caller: i had a question for you , and get you a little out of the norm, but sometimes things don't happen the way you think they are.

can you tell me who currently is in command of our own armed forces of the united states? guest: so we have civilian control. it is the secretary of defense, and we have a confirmed secretary of defense, so that is where the ultimate control is. again, i think the defense department is an important example of the turmoil that really has to be addressed. it was unique, never have been done before, that a secretary of defense was fired between the period of the election and outgoing president. there has been a lot of turmoil there. the defense department in particular was one of the few places where there was not good collaboration with the incoming biden administration.

so they were not getting -- the biden team was not getting all of the information they needed to get up and ready. it was the first time since 1980 nine an incoming president did not have their secretary of defense confirmed on day one, day three is not a huge delay, but at the moment, the defense department has a secretary of defense and a lot of other people that's now have to be confirmed, but you have the person at the top who knows the issues and the organization, so he's going to have his work cut out for him. but he is at least in seat. host: tell me the difference between a civilian leader inside of a government agency and a political appointee. what is the difference between those two positions that one has to be confirmed by the senate and the other one is a permanent employee, and as a part of the

question as well, how many of the current -- the past administrations, how many of the trump administration appointees will get to stay in their jobs in the federal government, and how many get replaced when a new administration comes in? guest: thank you for asking that. it is a really important question, and i will roll back the clock to the 1880's to give you the answer. in 1883, president garfield was assassinated by a disappointed jobs -- in >> you can continue watching this program on c-span.org, we are living internet for live coverage of the u.s. conference of mayors as they hear from president biden's top climate change advisors, john kerry kerry, and gina mccarthy. >>