'Crash course': Trump team facing new 'obstacles' after foot-dragging on paperwork
Any hope that Donald Trump's incoming team will hit the ground running on the first day and launch a flurry of changes in the government will likely need to be put on hold, reports Politico.
Even before the president-elect beat Vice President Kamala Harris in November, Trump's inner circle has delayed turning in paperwork that would allow his transition team to get clearance to see sensitive documents and begin learning the ins and outs of running the government.
As Politico is reporting, much of the documentation has been submitted but his people have yet to submit comprehensive "lists of people who will serve on the teams to the Biden administration," with just a few names trickling in On Friday.
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According to Politico's Alice Miranda Ollstein, "That puts Trump officials nearly a month behind their recent predecessors, who began what is known as the 'agency review' process — meeting with existing agency staff and getting briefed on major policy issues and challenges — right after the election, to ensure their incoming administrations would be up to speed."
Those delays will come back to bite the president elect's team when they take over in late January.
"This lag in beginning the usual crash course in agency operations only adds to the obstacles Trump will face as he looks to rapidly implement his sweeping policy agenda. That’s particularly true in areas like health policy, where few of the president-elect’s picks to lead the agencies have any experience in government or in managing such large and complex bureaucracies."
According to Kathleen Sebelius, who served as secretary of Health and Human Services under President Barack Obama, "They’re really operating, I would say, at a severe disadvantage. It has been decades and decades since somebody has been in these Cabinet offices without any sort of expertise or experience. And there are lots of barriers built into the structure of a huge agency like HHS, where you really can’t just come in and wave a magic wand and say, ‘You used to do things this way, and now we’re going to do it differently.’”
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