The Transition of Joe Biden: what's everyone Yellen about?

This thread is for covering things Biden does during the transition, including his new Covid taskforce, picking a cabinet, etc. We’ll keep election updates and schadenfreude to the election thread, and the lessons learned from this election and how they apply to upcoming elections in the post-election thread.

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https://mobile.twitter.com/ImIncorrigible/status/1325885441527132161

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Are we allowed to panic ITT or is that supposed to stay confined to one of the other threads?

I recently read The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis (Moneyball, Big Short, etc etc). The gist is that there is actually a lot of work involved in a presidential transition, and the outgoing teams have traditionally prepared briefing papers for the incoming teams to make sure that essential government functions continue smoothly. The big story of the book is that approximately no one from the Trump campaign ever showed up to these briefings (which were meticulously prepared by the Obama administration over several months) and they seemed to have no interest whatsoever in actually understanding what the agencies they were about to inherit were responsible for.

I suspect we’re about to see the flip-side of that, that the outgoing Trump team will go scorched-earth and will intentionally avoid transitioning anything to the incoming Biden administration, going so far as to hide their fuck-ups and misdoings to make it harder for their replacements to get things up and running. I expect to see a lot of stories trickling out during the first few months of the Biden administration about just how fucked up things have gotten in some of these agencies, in a way that hasn’t really been covered yet. Biden and team have a huge task ahead of themselves.

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A REAL family man like Donnie Dumb Dumb gives his kids made up jobs in the White House!

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In theory. I mean most of them basically never even tried to do their jobs so there’s no fuck ups to cover up. Just a bunch of phoney baloney memos on eliminating government waste.

Bidens teams shouldn’t even bother talking to the Trump teams, they should just begin by restoring departmental work loads and hiring new staff. If they talk to any Republicans at all they should just ask Mitt for his binders full of women, that could be handy for identifying qualified talent.

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I think the existence of a transition assumes a transition will take place. No panicking allowed.

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The Biden team is experienced enough to set up a transition plan even without input from the current administration. They may walk in to some surprises, but if there’s no cooperation, then they just build in some flexibility and what-ifs into the planning.

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https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1325800445193949184?s=21

https://twitter.com/thrasherxy/status/1325865699533856768?s=21

He issued a correction but the essay was written in 2014

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Eh, the Advisory Board is pretty solid.

If he actually appoints Rahm Emanuel to anything, I’m gonna completely bail even sooner than I thought.

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They seem ok, but I think I’m gonna just drink whatever tea Dr. Oz says probably prevents Covid. Hey look, you can buy it right from his website! That’s convenient!

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Yeah it doesn’t seem too bad but I always cringe anytime I see the name of someone related to Rahm Emanuel. Also not the best look of having a guy who thinks people should be killed off at 75 on the advisory board for a virus that kills off a bunch of people above that age

Uh, might be time for Joe to drop the “can’t we all get along” routine in light of today’s events.

Tell Nancy to pass a House stimulus bill every day for the next two months and campaign relentlessly on the very popular “give you cash” message.

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https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1325890910635384839
https://twitter.com/salaam/status/1325891609318346752

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I feel like we should do a cabinet prediction/pick 'em game, but I’m not sure how to structure it

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what % of biden’s cabinet will be lifelong republicans?
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What if it’s not the smooth transition people are used to but a horribly bumpy one which induces panic?

The federal government at the agency level is basically set up to do good things for the american people as directed by statutes. Trump was never really interested in doing good things for the american people within the framework of statutory authority. He basically never really understood the government, what it’s for, or how it works.

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