Senior foreign policy officials from the last several presidential administrations gathered in Washington D.C. Tuesday for a series of panels and workshops aimed at creating a “roadmap for an incoming administration’s first 100 days in office,” according to the Center for American Progress.
Solutions that stem from the summit, hosted by the progressive think tank, are intended to help provide a new administration with approaches to handling pressing issues, such as mending fences with European allies and de-escalating tensions with nations like Iran and China.
Though the roadmap would likely be of more interest to a new administration come 2021, it will also be available to President Donald Trump if he wins re-election this November, although the organization does not believe the president’s advisors would take the advice of the progressive experts who were gathered.
Katrina Mulligan, a former Department of Justice national security expert who now works on national security and international policy at CAP, said the eventual goal is to put together “a menu of options” with a “focus on those activities or actions that would have the highest impact.”
Mulligan said experts who were working with the White House as far back as the Reagan administration planned to be in attendance. She said she hopes the next administration takes advice on, what she describes as, both offensive and defensive moves. “What do you need to do to repair things that are inherited on day one and what are the things you need to do to lay out an affirmative agenda?”
<i>Former Ambassador Susan Rice speaks at CAP’s opening event. / Center for American Progress</i>
Attendees include former Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, former National Security Advisor Ambassador Susan Rice, former White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, former Under Secretary of Defense Michèle Flournoy and former Deputy National Security Advisor Avril Haines.
The group hopes to outline possible executive actions, diplomatic priorities and policy implementation activities, though Mulligan said there wasn’t a “specific catalyst” for the agenda- planning meetings.
After President Trump took office, employees left the State Department in droves. The State Department lost 12 percent of its foreign affairs specialists in the first eight months of Trump’s presidency.
Those who remain have worked on Trump’s ‘America First’ platform, which focuses on domestic priorities over stronger international ties. The president has also butted heads with allied leaders during his time in office, while actively working to strengthen bonds with leaders of nations traditional hostile toward the U.S. such as North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
A new administration will need a robust employee base in order to accomplish lofty foreign policy goals, so Mulligan is leading a group to formulate ideas on that very issue. “I worry about the hollowing out of career civil service at the State Department, particularly,” Mulligan said. “I worry about the legacy of ‘America First’ and what it means for a lot of people who don’t understand the risk of isolating America by treating other countries the way we’ve been treating them.”
Together, she said CAP hopes to provide a roadmap in six to nine months for a new president.
Terrell Jermaine Starr, senior fellow with the Atlantic Council and host of the Black Diplomats podcast joins Cheddar News to discuss Russia's attempt to invade Ukraine.
With an increasing number of teachers and staff calling out sick by the day, the state of Oklahoma is turning to an unusual solution. Republican Governor Kevin Stitt has issued an executive order that permits state employees to work as substitute teachers. Shaily Baranwal, founder and CEO of Elevate K-12, joins Cheddar News to discuss.
On Thursday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken addressed the stance of the U.S. and its allies should Russia make any forays into Ukraine, a seeming response to President Biden's remarks that should Putin engage in something short of a full invasion, there might be some indecision among allied nations regarding what to do. Ariel Cohen, a senior fellow at the think tank Atlantic Council, joined Cheddar to discuss the difficulty faced by Blinken wrangling unity as tensions run high in the region. "There'll be a smaller incursion, and the president implied, there'll be a weaker response because our European allies have created this horrible situation where they are dependent on Moscow for their gas supply," Cohen explained.
During a nearly two-hour press conference on Wednesday, President Biden spoke on his accomplishments and challenges from the first year of his presidency, and what his administration hopes to accomplish in the coming year. However, his approval ratings are underwater as COVID remains a big concern for voters — as does inflation, noted Tom Bevan, co-founder and president of polling aggregator RealClearPolitics. "The public thinks [inflation] is priority number one, and the administration is concerned about it, they talk about it, but they're not spending enough time on it as far as the public is concerned," said Bevan.
The drama surrounding tennis star Novak Djokovic continues after he was deported from Australia over the weekend due to the nation's COVID-19 vaccine requirements. Djokovic was forced to leave the country on the eve of what was to be his first match in defense of his Australian Open title after three judges ruled in favor of his removal and revealed their reasoning for doing so. Adding to his woes, a law recently passed in France is putting his chances of defending his French Open title in jeopardy. The director of Marist's Center for Sports Communication, Jane McManus, joined Cheddar to discuss the ongoing fallout.
As the midterm elections get ever closer, candidates have been getting creative with their campaigns to stick out and to connect with voters. Gary Chambers, a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate from Louisiana, has definitely attracted attention with an advertisement featuring him smoking a blunt, making a point about the inequity of anti-cannabis laws. "We wanted to bring the seriousness of the moment," he said of the ad. "But we also wanted to make sure that people understand that there are 19 states that are legal right now but Black people and brown people are being over-incarcerated in mostly Southern and Midwestern states in America for cannabis possession."
If some members of Congress have their way, there might finally be a 'TLDR' on sites' terms of service, introduced by the terms-of-service labeling, design, and readability act – or TLDR for short. With this act, users will actually understand what they're agreeing to or the many ways in which their data is being used before pressing 'accept.' J.D. sat down with co-sponsor of the bill and Senator Bill Cassidy, to discuss.
President Joe Biden's first year in office is wrapping up. What has he achieved, and what else remains on the table while the Democrats have control of Washington? Amid an ongoing pandemic and rising inflation, Biden's approval rating is at an all-time low and his party is plagued by infighting. Will he be able to continue pushing key parts of his agenda? Paul Glastris, former Bill Clinton speechwriter & Editor-in-chief of 'Washington Monthly,' joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss the president's achievements in his first year, where he's fallen short, and what he must do in order to get more of his agenda signed into law.
Tech giants Meta, Amazon, Alphabet, and Apple are faced with a bipartisan antitrust legislation effort underway in the Senate Judiciary Committee. The companies stand accused of promoting their own goods and services over smaller competitors on their platforms, holding too much monopolistic power via their app stores and services. Adam Kovacevich, founder and CEO of Chamber of Progress, a technology industry trade group, joined Cheddar to argue that the bills that are being debated currently could end up hurting consumers, rather than helping.
