Welcome to the podcast. My name is Douglas Wilson.

This is episode 359 of the podcast. Good to have you with us. Thanks for coming. So I want to talk a little bit today about the transition from the Biden administration to Trump 47, comparing it to the transition of Trump assuming office in 2016.

So comparing Trump 45 with Trump 47.

And there are three issues that I'd like to point out, mostly as objects of interest.

They should have our attention,

and we can make preparations accordingly, depending on what the issue is. So the first thing is that

in 2016, I think Trump surprised the world and Hillary and all the Democrats, probably himself also by winning. And when you

when you have a startling thing like that happen, you're not necessarily ready for it. People

ought not to think that the White House is the sort of thing that you just, okay, there's a seat at the White House, and now I get it. People ought not to think that the White House is the sort of thing that you just,

okay, there's a seat at the White House, and now I get to go live there, and I just walk in and

they hand me the reins. The reins, in this case, would be a staff of thousands. And in order

to have a staff of thousands, you need to have hired thousands.

And in order to work in the White House, you need to have sort of advanced prep work done. You have to have a

list of names so that the people that you want to hire there can get a security clearance.

And my understanding is that in 2016, when that deadline happened, Hillary had turned in a couple of thousand names,

and she was also expecting to bring a bunch of the Obama staff over.

So she was ready to staff the whole thing with her people.

And Trump had submitted just a mere handful of names,

which means that he wasn't ready to hit the ground running.

He had lots of gusto and lots of personality and lots of brashness, but he didn't have staff.

And the staff that he did have, the people who were competent, who knew the office and the structures

and where all the levers under the desk were,

...