President Barack Obama and his successor Donald Trump are making moves that tread on each other’s turf and complicate the other’s agenda, creating one of the messiest White House transitions in recent years.
Since Election Day, Mr. Obama has taken some of the most far-reaching actions of his eight-year presidency, leaving Mr. Trump to manage the fallout and narrowing his options once he takes office. He also plans a final major address the week before the inauguration that will reflect on his policy agenda, according to people familiar with the speech. The address could contrast his approach with Mr. Trump’s.
This week, Mr. Obama slapped Russia with a series of sanctions and diplomatic censures in response to a U.S. intelligence assessment that Moscow used cyberattacks to try to interfere with the presidential election. Earlier in December, Mr. Obama broke with decades of U.S. policy and let pass a United Nations resolution condemning Israel for building settlements.
As he prepares to take office Jan. 20, Mr. Trump has made countermoves. His team talked to Israeli officials about derailing the U.N. vote and he used social media to try to sway the outcome, calling on Mr. Obama to use U.S. veto power to reject the resolution.
Mr. Trump has made clear he doesn’t believe punitive sanctions against Russia are needed, and he has questioned the evidence of Moscow’s meddling. Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday he would hold off on taking retaliatory action and wait to see how relations take shape in a Trump administration. Mr. Trump commended the decision in a tweet Friday: “Great move on delay (by V. Putin)—I always knew he was very smart!”
Past transitions played out with far less conflict on core national issues.
The 2000 transition was abbreviated because of the recount in Florida. Incoming officials in George W. Bush’s White House said they enjoyed the luxury of building an administration behind the scenes, with much of the press and public focused on ballot counts in Florida precincts.
Once the Bush team moved into the White House, they accused President Bill Clinton’s aides of vandalizing in prank fashion some office equipment—including removing the ‘W’ from some typewriters—but the two teams didn’t contradict each other’s final and first acts.
The Bush-Obama transition in 2008 is viewed as among the most seamless. After he won the election, Mr. Obama sought to steer clear of commenting publicly on the financial crisis and steep job losses that consumed Mr. Bush’s final months in office. In the weeks before his inauguration, Mr. Obama repeatedly said the nation has only “one president at time,” and he praised his predecessor in his inaugural address.
Watching from the White House in recent days, Mr. Obama’s team has made plain it would like Mr. Trump to wait his turn.
Ben Rhodes, a deputy national-security adviser, said recently that the president and his aides “believe that it’s important that there’s a principle here that the world understands who is speaking on behalf of the United States until Jan. 20 and who is speaking on behalf of the United States after Jan. 20.”
Confusion is evident in some foreign capitals.
At a government news conference in Berlin this week, the German foreign ministry spokesman took a question about a tweet from Mr. Trump saying the U.S. should “expand its nuclear capability.”
“We cannot conclude how policy will look after Jan. 20 based on half a tweet and a comment,” the spokesman, Sebastian Fischer, said. “It is good state practice always to have only one president at a time.”
The transition started out on an auspicious note. Two days after the election Messrs. Obama and Trump met in the Oval Office for 90 minutes—longer than Mr. Trump planned. They have been talking by phone about weekly ever since.
But beneath the cordial conversations are serious policy disputes. Mr. Trump wants to repeal the centerpiece of Mr. Obama’s domestic legacy: the health-care overhaul aimed at insuring the millions of Americans who lacked coverage.
Next week Mr. Obama will head to Capitol Hill to meet with Democrats to discuss ways they can try to preserve the Affordable Care Act, with hopes of stiffening their resolve in the face of Mr. Trump’s efforts to roll back the health law.
Mr. Obama has been taking other steps that could potentially circumscribe Mr. Trump’s action once in office.
Last week, the Obama administration said it would indefinitely block drilling in broad swaths of the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, an attempt to cement his environmental legacy and potentially stymie a move by the incoming Trump administration to expand drilling.
Mr. Trump seemed to be making reference to these moves when he tweeted Wednesday that he was “doing my best to disregard the many inflammatory President O statements and roadblocks.”
“Thought it was going to be a smooth transition—NOT!” he added.
Kellyanne Conway, an incoming senior adviser to Mr. Trump, told Fox News on Thursday: “I hope this isn’t motivated by politics even a little bit.”
She added: “We do wonder about the rush to do all of these things in the next couple of weeks by the Obama administration and how that may upend longstanding U.S. policy, as it seems to be.”
White House officials stress while there are policy differences between the president and president-elect, that is separate from the logistical preparations for the transition of power that Mr. Obama has pushed his aides to ensure is seamless.
Part of what is motivating Mr. Obama, White House aides say, is a desire to lock in pieces of his legacy. He had been considering taking a stand on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the U.N. long before Mr. Trump’s election victory, White House officials said.
With respect to Russia, he became convinced the nation meddled in the election in ways that pose a genuine threat to the country and can’t go unpunished.
White House aides talk of “nailing down the furniture” so that policy goals that Mr. Obama methodically pursued can’t be undone once Mr. Trump takes power. The president, when he took office eight years ago, did just that to his predecessor, Mr. Bush.
Departing presidents in recent years have given farewell addresses in the final weeks of their terms. President Barack Obama’s final major address the week before the inauguration may be unusual, though, because he is considering a farewell that goes beyond the typical addresses in both scope and intensity, people familiar with the discussions said. An earlier version of this article characterized Mr. Obama’s address as unusual, but failed to explain why. (Dec. 30, 2016)
Write to Peter Nicholas at peter.nicholas@wsj.com and Carol E. Lee at carol.lee@wsj.com
Since Election Day, Mr. Obama has taken some of the most far-reaching actions of his eight-year presidency, leaving Mr. Trump to manage the fallout and narrowing his options once he takes office. He also plans a final major address the week before the inauguration that will reflect on his policy agenda, according to people familiar with the speech. The address could contrast his approach with Mr. Trump’s.
This week, Mr. Obama slapped Russia with a series of sanctions and diplomatic censures in response to a U.S. intelligence assessment that Moscow used cyberattacks to try to interfere with the presidential election. Earlier in December, Mr. Obama broke with decades of U.S. policy and let pass a United Nations resolution condemning Israel for building settlements.
As he prepares to take office Jan. 20, Mr. Trump has made countermoves. His team talked to Israeli officials about derailing the U.N. vote and he used social media to try to sway the outcome, calling on Mr. Obama to use U.S. veto power to reject the resolution.
- A central promise of Trump’s foreign policy is that he will forge a working partnership with Russia, turning an adversary into an ally in global threats that bedeviled President Obama.
- Trump has assembled a cabinet and senior staff with divergent views on issues such as the deficit, trade and climate change, posing a challenge for his incoming administration.
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- Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R., Okla.) , who has a record supporting both commercial space ventures and traditional manned exploration programs, appears to be the leading candidate to become the next NASA administrator.
- The Trump Organization has begun unwinding some of the deals that have fueled complaints the far-flung business empire is a minefield of conflicts for the incoming president.
- Donald Trump announced he will “dissolve” his charitable foundation to avoid “even the appearance of any conflict."
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- Donald Trump’s pick for HHS secretary, Rep. Tom Price, traded more than $300,000 in shares of health-related companies in the past four years.
THE TRUMP TRANSITION
Related Coverage
The 2000 transition was abbreviated because of the recount in Florida. Incoming officials in George W. Bush’s White House said they enjoyed the luxury of building an administration behind the scenes, with much of the press and public focused on ballot counts in Florida precincts.
Once the Bush team moved into the White House, they accused President Bill Clinton’s aides of vandalizing in prank fashion some office equipment—including removing the ‘W’ from some typewriters—but the two teams didn’t contradict each other’s final and first acts.
The Bush-Obama transition in 2008 is viewed as among the most seamless. After he won the election, Mr. Obama sought to steer clear of commenting publicly on the financial crisis and steep job losses that consumed Mr. Bush’s final months in office. In the weeks before his inauguration, Mr. Obama repeatedly said the nation has only “one president at time,” and he praised his predecessor in his inaugural address.
Watching from the White House in recent days, Mr. Obama’s team has made plain it would like Mr. Trump to wait his turn.
Ben Rhodes, a deputy national-security adviser, said recently that the president and his aides “believe that it’s important that there’s a principle here that the world understands who is speaking on behalf of the United States until Jan. 20 and who is speaking on behalf of the United States after Jan. 20.”
Confusion is evident in some foreign capitals.
At a government news conference in Berlin this week, the German foreign ministry spokesman took a question about a tweet from Mr. Trump saying the U.S. should “expand its nuclear capability.”
“We cannot conclude how policy will look after Jan. 20 based on half a tweet and a comment,” the spokesman, Sebastian Fischer, said. “It is good state practice always to have only one president at a time.”
The transition started out on an auspicious note. Two days after the election Messrs. Obama and Trump met in the Oval Office for 90 minutes—longer than Mr. Trump planned. They have been talking by phone about weekly ever since.
But beneath the cordial conversations are serious policy disputes. Mr. Trump wants to repeal the centerpiece of Mr. Obama’s domestic legacy: the health-care overhaul aimed at insuring the millions of Americans who lacked coverage.
Next week Mr. Obama will head to Capitol Hill to meet with Democrats to discuss ways they can try to preserve the Affordable Care Act, with hopes of stiffening their resolve in the face of Mr. Trump’s efforts to roll back the health law.
Mr. Obama has been taking other steps that could potentially circumscribe Mr. Trump’s action once in office.
Last week, the Obama administration said it would indefinitely block drilling in broad swaths of the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, an attempt to cement his environmental legacy and potentially stymie a move by the incoming Trump administration to expand drilling.
Mr. Trump seemed to be making reference to these moves when he tweeted Wednesday that he was “doing my best to disregard the many inflammatory President O statements and roadblocks.”
“Thought it was going to be a smooth transition—NOT!” he added.
Kellyanne Conway, an incoming senior adviser to Mr. Trump, told Fox News on Thursday: “I hope this isn’t motivated by politics even a little bit.”
She added: “We do wonder about the rush to do all of these things in the next couple of weeks by the Obama administration and how that may upend longstanding U.S. policy, as it seems to be.”
White House officials stress while there are policy differences between the president and president-elect, that is separate from the logistical preparations for the transition of power that Mr. Obama has pushed his aides to ensure is seamless.
Part of what is motivating Mr. Obama, White House aides say, is a desire to lock in pieces of his legacy. He had been considering taking a stand on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the U.N. long before Mr. Trump’s election victory, White House officials said.
With respect to Russia, he became convinced the nation meddled in the election in ways that pose a genuine threat to the country and can’t go unpunished.
White House aides talk of “nailing down the furniture” so that policy goals that Mr. Obama methodically pursued can’t be undone once Mr. Trump takes power. The president, when he took office eight years ago, did just that to his predecessor, Mr. Bush.
—Anton Troianovski contributed to this article.
Corrections & Amplifications: Departing presidents in recent years have given farewell addresses in the final weeks of their terms. President Barack Obama’s final major address the week before the inauguration may be unusual, though, because he is considering a farewell that goes beyond the typical addresses in both scope and intensity, people familiar with the discussions said. An earlier version of this article characterized Mr. Obama’s address as unusual, but failed to explain why. (Dec. 30, 2016)
Write to Peter Nicholas at peter.nicholas@wsj.com and Carol E. Lee at carol.lee@wsj.com
