Reaction & Commentary
Adjustment what do you see as some of the challenges adapting your corporate strategy managerial style to the very interesting Washington experience so I think that it’s a great question actually and I think one of the traps to fall into is to say that well I’ve done
It this way so I’m just going to do it again and run the executive branch like I ran uh company that I built as an entrepreneur no it doesn’t work that way I think the difference here is there will be skill sets that I gain that are
Helpful but this is going to be the process of creative destruction actually I think we’re going to have to take the model of the Phoenix I think it is a false hubris to think that we can go in and reform these agencies we cannot
It is going to have to be the model of the Phoenix when necessary so one of the things I actually haven’t shared this before but why not we’ll share it with you now is we’re already working on our transition planning the people we’re going to staff not just
In cabinet level positions that’s what gets you press releases but in other positions relating to the plumbing of the federal government who runs the office of personnel management that’s like the HR bureaucracy of the federal government who runs the Office of Management and budget OMB that’s like the CFO of the federal government
These are positions where I don’t want people who are pro-government I want fundamentally people who share my anti-government anti-bureaucratic instincts to be bulldogs in those positions I don’t want people and this is one of the mistakes one of the learnings to be honest with you from the Trump experience was
Putting people in those positions who wanted to be ambassadors of the managerial class back to the U.S president no I don’t want managerial class members there I want Bulldogs who are there to implement the vision of cutting 75 percent of the federal bureaucracy it is now one of my lessons
Is in the private sector as in the executive branch of the government 25 percent of the people get 90 of the value delivered right so if we’re going to have a 75 head count reduction which are the 25 that you keep one of the things that we’re working on
And we have a multi-disciplinary group working on this now is large-scale screening testing from psychological to knowledge about the federal government to competence to work ethic the way at scale we’re going to pick out who those one out of four are that we’re going to keep selecting for excellence as our basis to
Do it I think one of the great learnings from the last time around is you’ve got a short time to work with that first year you got to get stuff done one of the mistakes made by prior presidents is that they focus on legislative agendas that’s a mistake
Legislative agendas take a long time they’re designed to work slowly through Congress what I’m starting with is how I can run the executive branch of the government already without asking Congress for permission or forgiveness because that’s the job of the U.S president so I’m learning from my predecessors we’re
Already getting started on the job one of the other learnings from 2016 was you can’t wait till you get elected we’re already starting now and the good news is you guys get to see those of you who came to Saint Anselm College probably saw the giant poster boards we
Unveiled with the anatomy of how we would reorganize different branches of the government the kinds of people we would put in charge that’s the phase of the campaign we’re in now the first few months was telling you who I am and what I stand for many people still don’t know who I am
Yet across the country and we’ll continue that but now we’re moving to the specifics not just the what but the how how we get it done that doesn’t start in January 2025 it’s already started now and that’s how we’re going to be successful in seeing it through
