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.
The school shooting in Texas that left 19 children and 2 teachers dead has reignited the debate over gun control.
The tragedy in Uvalde is the deadliest school shooting in nearly a decade and marks the latest in a string of mass shootings in the country. Jared Moskowitz, Broward County Commissioner and candidate for Congress in FL-23, joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss why gun control measures are stalled in the Senate, and where legislation can move forward from here.
Police and detectives are still investigating the tragic school shooting in Uvalde, Texas that killed 19 children and two adults. Cheddar News was joined by Kirk Burkhalter, professor at New York Law School and former NYPD detective to gain some insight on what investigators are looking for and what comes next.
Texas authorities say the gunman who massacred 21 people at an elementary school was in the building for over an hour before he was killed by law enforcement officers.
Join Cheddar News as we break down the top headlines for Thursday, May 26 including updates on the Texas school shooting, President Joe Biden's executive order on police reform, and a recount in the Pennsylvania GOP Senate primary.
Representative Morgan Griffith of Virginia rebuked words from the FDA commissioner that could have been construed as blaming parents for stockpiling baby formula exacerbating the shortage.
Cheddar News reporter Megan Pratz brings the latest from the scene of yesterday's horrific school shooting at a Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Now the second-deadliest school shooting in U.S. history with 19 children and two adults killed, Pratz goes into comments by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, details about the deceased shooter, and reactions from members of the community.
The Robb Elementary School mass shooting killing 19 children and two adults in Uvalde, Texas pm Tuesday was the deadliest school shooting since the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, and came just 10 days after the grocery store shooting in Buffalo, New York. Nelson Vergara, the founder and CEO of 360 Protective Solutions, joined Cheddar’s Opening Bell to discuss. "Right now what law enforcement is concentrating on is trying to trace his steps as to what motivated the gunman to act the way he did. What it boils down to just trying to figure out what led to his motivation to do such a horrific act.”
An recently conducted AP-NORC poll found that majorities of the Black and Hispanic populations in the U.S. still find themselves either somewhat worried or extremely worried over the pandemic, while more than half of white Americans responded with either being not too worried or not worried at all. Dr. Chris Pernell, the chief strategic integration and health equity officer at University Hospital, joined Cheddar News to talk about how perceptions of COVID-19 differ between groups of Americans. "We’re still seeing people get infected, and because of the toll of the disproportionate impact, we have concerns among the Black and brown community about whether or not they have an increased risk of exposure because of where they work, because of the use of public transportation, because they live in homes that they may not be able to safely quarantine and or isolate in, and because they have at baseline chronic health conditions that may make coronavirus more severe in those persons," she said.
Judith Enck, a former regional administrator for the EPA and the president of Beyond Plastics, joined Cheddar News to talk about the role of plastics in the climate crisis and California's investigation of ExxonMobil and other oil companies for misleading the public on the ability to recycle plastics. "The reason why petrochemical companies like Exxon have gotten away with selling more and more plastic is that they've lied to the public and told us don't worry about all those negative upstream impacts and downstream impacts of plastics. Just be sure to recycle it. Well, guess what? Plastics largely are not recycled," Enck said.
