A Trump official says members of the team had read some of the memos from the Obama administration and praised their quality. But there is an inherent tension in transitions, particularly between two administrations with starkly different political views. “It’s difficult, because you campaigned on how these guys drove the car into the ditch,” says political scientist Peter Feaver, who served on the Bush national security council. “Now, here are memos from the guys who were driving the car, and they drove the car into a ditch.”
Category: Trump Administration
Bridging Red and Blue America, Jan. 18-20
During presidential inaugural week, the Sanford School of Public Policy hosts a series of four events Jan. 18-20 to examine national politics and North Carolina’s role in some of the country’s most divisive issues. The events, starting today at 5 p.m., kick off “The Purple Project: Bridging Red and Blue America,” created by POLIS. The event series is free and open to the public, space permitting.
Read More From the Sanford School
Some Upset Over National Cathedral Participating in Inauguration
It’s one thing to pray for the president, says Kara Slade, an Episcopal priest and interim co-director of Duke Divinity School’s Anglican Studies, who supports the service. It’s another thing for the choir to participate in the secular act of the inauguration. Slade believes the Episcopal Church’s role in the inauguration causes confusion over religious symbolism.
Read More in The Washington Post
Trump’s Feud With John Lewis Prompts Outrage Among Blacks
The angry reaction is driven not only by President-elect Trump’s Twitter posts but by what many blacks say they reveal about the president-elect’s lack of understanding of the reverence with which the civil rights movement and its leaders are viewed by African-Americans. “I don’t think we have ever had a president so publicly condescending to what black politics means,” says Mark Anthony Neal, an African and African-American studies professor.
As Trump Presidency Nears, Some Suggested Reading
“These three books are enjoyable reading. They also provide some thoughtful and historical perspectives that can inform our understanding of today’s politics,” writes Douglas Brook, a visiting professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy who has served in four presidentially appointed positions.
Read More in The News & Observer
Forget a Wall. There’s a Better Way to Secure the Border.
“As Gen. Kelly, who will oversee our borders if confirmed, seems to believe, walling off the entire southern boundary at great cost sends a hostile message that could snuff out the very cooperation needed to make our borders truly secure. Innovative and road-tested alternatives clearly exist. The Trump administration should give them a hard look before laying its first brick,” writes Sanford School professor Stephen Kelly.
Read More in The New York Times
The Disturbing Legal Legacy Obama is Leaving for Trump
Many Americans just don’t seem to mind if the president kills people, even U.S. citizens, as long as they’re told the people being killed are terrorists. “Americans are very pragmatic as to how a president exercises his War Powers,” writes Charles Dunlap, executive director of Duke’s Center on Law, Ethics and National Security. “(T)hey are less concerned about the technical legal basis as they are about success against authentic threats.”
Read More in Vox
Flaws in The New Intelligence Report on Russia
The country’s leading expert on Russian media, Duke professor emeritus Ellen Mickiewicz, asks why theOffice of the Director of National Intelligence takes at face valuethe Russian state media channel RT’s own estimate of its viewership at “550 million people worldwide and 85 million in the US.” That estimate, says Mickiewicz, “is wholly imaginary. It refers to potential audience: Households that can receive a signal—if and only if—they bother to turn it on.”
Read More in The NationGlobal Health Advice for Trump Administration
Nationalism and isolationism that marked the president-elect’s campaign are a concern if they continue, says one faculty member, Gavin Yamey, professor of the practice of global health. “Those of us working in global health will need to pay very close attention to whether the U.S. starts retreating from its impressive record on global health research and development,” Yamey says.
Read More at DGHI
Trump’s ‘Historic’ Opportunity to Reshape the Federal Courts
Ernest Young, a Duke University law professor focused on the federal courts, expects Democrat-led states to respond to President Trump’s potential regulatory changes by issuing their own regulations on issues such as climate change and immigration. If that happens, Young predicts the lower federal courts will see cases involving conflicts between federal and state law.
Read More in the Daily Signal
Washington Waits, Worries, Wonders About Trump Era
The president-elect is “willing to say or do the thing that’s just not done, that breaks a tradition or a norm or unwritten rule,” says political science professor Peter Feaver. “It’s a mistake to call it erratic. There’s more of a purposefulness behind it. They’re not going to accept arbitrary restrictions that were accepted at face value.”
Read More in The Philadelphia Inquirer
Now, America, You Know How Chileans Felt
“The United States cannot in good faith decry what has been done to its decent citizens until it is ready to face what it did so often to the equally decent citizens of other nations. And it must firmly resolve never to engage in such imperious activities again,” writes Ariel Dorfman, professor emeritus of literature, on reports that Russia interfered in the U.S. election. “If ever there was a time for America to look at itself in the mirror, if ever there was a time of reckoning and accountability, it is now.”
