Kathryn Dunn Tenpas

As the Trump campaign’s legal challenges sputter to a near halt, presidential observers are eager to turn to the season’s parlor game of choice: speculation over who will get the “big jobs” in the next administration. Typical prospects include high-dollar donors, senior campaign advisers, and those who have a long personal or professional history with the president-elect. But during his acceptance speech in Philadelphia, President-elect Biden acknowledged the groundswell of support from Black voters throughout the election process when he stated, “…especially for those moments when this campaign was at its lowest—the African-American community stood up again for me. They always have my back, and I’ll have yours.” Taken by itself, this statement can either suggest that the incoming administration will heavily focus on the policy issues affecting Black Americans (e.g., pandemic, joblessness, police brutality, etc.), appoint Black leaders to senior-level positions at agencies, or a combination of both.

This week, President-elect Joe Biden introduced his top economic advisers, including former Fed chair Janet Yellen, as his team prepares for a tough confirmation battle ahead in the Republican-majority Senate. We speak to Kathryn Dunn Tenpas about this, as well as what Biden's picks mean for the economy and foreign policy, and how he might navigate a divided Democratic party.

“He has shown disdain for staffing and personnel across the board,” says Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, a governance expert at the Brookings Institution. “This was not an administration that was fully staffed or experienced.”

President-elect Joe Biden is calling on the federal government's General Services Administration to authorize his presidential transition despite pushback from President Trump. Without this authorization, Mr. Biden doesn't have access to information or resources that he needs before he takes office in January. Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, a senior research director for the White House Transition Project and a senior fellow at the University of Virginia's Miller Center, joined CBSN's Lana Zak to discuss.

"Once the new government is elected, the GSA will free up the necessary funds," says Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, political scientist and fellow at the University of Virginia's Miller Center. “At least that has always been the case so far. There have never been any problems in the past. The norm was to make this transition as easy as possible for the successors for one simple reason: Because it's best for the country. "

By refusing to concede, President Trump is not only disrupting the peaceful transfer of power, a cornerstone of American democracy, but he’s delaying the Biden administration access to pertinent information. The formal transition process we know today came to exist after the 9/11 Commission Report found that the delay in installing President George W. Bush hurt his administration. Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, a senior fellow at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center and senior research director at the White House Transition Project, describes the impact of a truncated presidential transition.