Focus on communications, not policy, sets Trump transition apart

All presidential transitions look chaotic from the outside. There are simply too many decisions being made on a daily basis — possibly hundreds or more — over the next eight weeks for any semblance of calm and order.

{mosads}Yet, many have pointed to President-Elect Donald Trump’s continuing enjoyment of Twitter and widely reported phone conversations with world leaders as a sign that this is a particularly chaotic transition.

While the substance of these social media messages remains up for debate, the staffing of the Trump transition team suggests this is not the case.

What makes the Trump transition unusual is the extreme focus on communications, evidenced by the responsibilities of its staff leadership team.

In the past, there was little known about what happened during the presidential transition period. Outside of an occasional press conference announcing a Cabinet appointment, the slog of combing over obscure federal agency rules, filling hundreds of federal posts and preparing to govern attracted little attention.

Transition teams focused on internal planning and organization, minimizing the role of public communication.

As such, in 2008, the Obama-Biden transition team focused heavily on policy; both within the executive branch, but also across government. For example, within the 13-person senior staff team, there were staffers, Melody Barnes and Lisa Brown, chosen to co-direct federal agency review, and others were tasked with coordinating other governmental relationships: Phil Schiliro directed congressional relations and Michael Strautmanis directed intergovernmental affairs.

Meanwhile, just two staffers, Stephanie Cutter and Dan Pfeiffer, were focused on communications on the Obama-Biden transition senior staff team. This was just 15 percent of the leadership staff, indicative of the focus of the transition team.

This year, again the president-elect has chosen leadership staff to be in charge of the day-to-day work of the transition team. Unlike 2008, they are focused much less on policy; instead, the focus is on various forms of communication.

Of the 23 members of the leadership staff reported by Politico last week, nine seem to be involved directly in communications. For example, Jason Miller serves as the director of a three-person communications team. Stephanie Grisham leads press relations along with Hope Hicks, Steven Cheung oversees rapid response, George Gigicos directs advance and Dan Scavino runs social media.

And this does not even count Kellyanne Conway who holds the title of senior adviser, but has served as the de facto spokesperson for the transition team, meaning close to half of the leadership staff is working on communications.

This is not to suggest that policy planning isn’t occurring during this transition. As in previous years, there are dozens of other advisers focused on policy and organizational issues.

The real difference is at the top, where the Trump transition team seems to view a multifaceted communications strategy as much more essential than in previous transition teams.

There are numerous implications of this unusual approach. Perhaps the Trump team is simply following sage advice and historic trends toward the president “going public.” The Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan group which has been advising on this transition period for over a year, has recommended an enhanced role for communications following recent changes in federal laws on the transition period.

More significantly, this focus of the transition team may suggest what is to come from the Trump White House. While the Trump transition team has focused on external communications to the public to a much greater degree than in the past, the team has not seemed as open to communications from the public.

Eight years ago, the Obama-Biden transition team established a “Seat at the Table” policy that invited anyone with advice or recommendations for the transition team to share them on a public website. These letters-of-advice were then made publicly available for others to read. This orientation toward public participation continued once in office as the White House Office of Public Liaison was converted to become the Office of Public Engagement.

This year, the Trump transition team has opened a part of its website to “Tell Us Your Story,” but it isn’t clear what is done with these stories, and they are not available for the public to read.

How open will the Trump White House be to public participation? It remains to be seen whether the current orientation toward external communication and publicity will drive the Trump White House or whether a clearer interest in public engagement and participation will emerge over the next several week.

The current focus on the president-elect’s continued use of Twitter should then shift to attention to the way social media and communication is used by the White House.

Heath Brown is an assistant professor of public policy at the City University of New York (CUNY), John Jay College and the CUNY Grad Center.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.