WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump ‘s imminent return to the White House means he will want to put in place an entirely new administration compared to the one that served under the president. Joe Biden. His team also promises that the second one won’t look much like the first one that Trump established after his 2016 victory.

The president-elect now has 75 days transition period to build his team before Inauguration Day, January 20. One of the main goals on the to-do list: filling about 4,000 government positions with political appointees, people specifically hired for their jobs by Trump’s team.

This includes everyone from the Secretary of State and other Cabinet department heads to those selected to serve part-time on boards and commissions. About 1,200 of these presidential nominations require Senate confirmation, which should be easier with the The Senate now comes under Republican control.

Here’s what to expect:

What will the transition look like?

Even though the change in the new administration will be complete, Trump will know what he must accomplish. He’s built an entirely new administration for his first term and has clear ideas about what he needs to do differently this time around.

He has already thrown out a few names.

Trump said at his victory party early Wednesday that the former presidential hopeful and anti-vaccination activist Robert Kennedy Jr. will be asked to “help make America healthy again,” adding that “we’re going to let him go.” Before the election, Trump did not reject Kennedy’s calls to put an end to fluoridated water. Trump also pledged to make South Africans born Elon Muska staunch supporter of the Trump campaign, a federal secretary charged with “cost cutting” and the CEO of Tesla suggested he could find billions of dollars in government spending to eliminate.

The transition is not just about filling jobs. Most presidents-elect also receive daily or near-daily intelligence briefings during the transition.

In 2008, outgoing President George W. Bush personally briefed President-elect Barack Obama on U.S. covert operations. As Trump prepared to take office in 2016, Obama’s national security adviser, Susan Rice, briefed Michael Flynn, his designated successor in the new administration. In 2020, legal challenges to the election results by Trump delayed the start of the transition process by several weeks, and presidential briefings with Biden did not begin until November 30.

Who is helping Trump through the process?

Trump’s transition is being led primarily by his friends and family, including Kennedy Jr. and former Democratic presidential candidate. Tulsi Gabbardas well as the president-elect’s adult sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, and his running mate, JD Vance. The transition co-chairs are Howard Lutnick, CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, and Linda McMahon, a former wrestling executive who previously led the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term.

Lutnick said this year’s operation was “about as different as possible” from the 2016 effort, which was first led by Chris Christie. After securing his victory eight years ago, Trump fired Christie, scrapped plans laid out by the former New Jersey governor and assigned the task of leading the transition to then-vice president-elect. Mike Pence.

Early in his first term, Trump assembled a quirky Cabinet of more traditional Republicans and business leaders who ultimately disappointed him, or publicly broke with him, or both. This time, Trump promised to value loyalty as much as possible — a philosophy that could allow him to make choices more closely aligned with his ideological beliefs and bombastic professional style.

Unlike the Democratic vice president’s campaign Kamala HarrisTrump’s team did not sign on any pre-election days transition agreements with the General Services Administration, which essentially acts as the owner of the federal government. So he has already missed deadlines to agree with the GSA on logistical issues like offices and technical support, and with the White House on access to agencies, including documents, employees and facilities.

New transition rules

In 2020, Trump argued that widespread voter fraud – which didn’t really happen – cost him the election, delaying the start of the transition from his outgoing administration to that of Biden by several weeks.

Four years ago, the head of the GSA appointed by Trump, Emily Murphydetermined that she had no legal standing to determine the winner of the presidential race because Trump was still challenging the results in court. This has delayed funding and cooperation for the transition.

It wasn’t until Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results. had collapsed in key states which Murphy formally accepted” determine an elected president » and begin the transition process. Trump ultimately announced on social media that his administration would cooperate.

To avoid this kind of delay in future transitions, the Presidential Transition Improvement Act of 2022 requires the transition process to begin five days after the election — even though the winner is still in dispute. This is intended to avoid lengthy delays and means that “a ‘positive check’ from GSA is no longer a prerequisite for receiving transition assistance services,” according to the agency’s guidance on the new rules .

The uncertainty grew further after the 2000 election, when five weeks passed before the Supreme Court. settled the disputed election between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore. That left Bush with about half the usual time to manage the government transition from the outgoing Clinton administration. This ultimately led to questions about national security shortcomings that may have contributed to the United States being underprepared for the September 11 attacks the following year.

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