The University Democrats hosted William Antholis, director and CEO of the Miller Center of Public Affairs Wednesday night in the Physics Building for a bipartisan discussion on the history and structure of American presidents’ first years in office.
Antholis — who previously served as the Director of International Economic Affairs for the National Security Council in President Bill Clinton’s Administration — based his presentation on research developed through the Miller Center’s First Year Project.
The Miller Center — an affiliate of the University that studies presidential scholarship, political history and public policy — launched the First Year Project in 2016 to help future administrations transition into their first year. The project offers recommendations, historical case studies and policy options to incoming presidential administrations using research from scholars and former White House officials.
Antholis began the presentation by discussing the large responsibilities of the American presidency and why it is important to forge an early relationship with Congress.
“There is nothing like taking over the federal government,” Antholis said. “It’s the largest corporation in the world … And you get one year to move your legislative agenda.”
According to the Miller Center’s research of past administrations, it is difficult for American presidents to pass legislation after their first year in office. Antholis said this is because members of Congress seeking reelection turn their attention to campaigning for midterm elections.
“There will be no major piece of legislation passed in [the president’s] second year,” Antholis said. “So you have to staff up the government, get your team up to speed and tackle this huge responsibility and pass a legislative agenda in one year. How does that work? It’s pretty darn hard.”
Antholis examined President Donald Trump’s first year in office across five Ps of presidential power — personnel, process, priorities, politics and popularity.
In examining Trump’s personnel, Antholis compared the number of appointments Trump made in his first year to other administrations. He also said that there is unprecedented turnover in the Trump administration, as the White House saw the departures of chief of staff Reince Priebus, national security advisor H.R. McMaster, chief strategist Steve Bannon, press secretary Sean Spicer, communications director Hope Hicks and two cabinet secretaries.
“President Trump was actually pretty quick in getting a team in place and in some regards it was a good team,” Antholis said. “He also assembled a White House team, and this was where the problem started. Who’s still left in the picture?”
Mary Alice Kukoski, a second-year College student and University Democrats president who organized the meeting, said in an email to The Cavalier Daily that the organization was “disappointed” by Trump’s first year in office.
“The first major push of his administration was the disastrous healthcare bill, which would have threatened the coverage of millions of Americans,” Kokoski said. “While Democrats were able to defeat that, later in the year he was successful in enacting his tax policy, the most unpopular tax cut in at least the last 40 years … there is a sense that the United States is taking steps backwards rather than forwards.”
As a candidate, Trump promised a 100-day agenda focusing on immigration, health-care and tax reform. Antholis said that his administration has had successes and failures just like every other administration but is breaking traditional norms in doing so.
“It’s been utterly unconventional,” Antholis said. “It has been unprecedented, not in the sense that any single thing that he’s done hasn’t been done by somebody else. That goes everything from executive orders to passing legislation to trashing the media to breaking norms and conventions to having staff failures and process failures.”
Antholis said there have only been a couple of major policy achievements by the Trump administrations including the confirmation of conservative Neil Gorsuch to the United States Supreme Court.
“The velocity and the volume of Trump’s breaking of norms is beyond anything we’ve seen,” Antholis said. “I mean, we are sort of at a crossroads moment in that sense where he is really redefining the presidency.”
Antholis said that Trump has had to rely on executive orders to fulfill his campaign promises, such as tighter immigration enforcement, much like Obama had to do during the final three years of his administration.
“He actually did what he said he was going to do,” Antholis said. “And one question for politics is now, should he be challenged on those things or should he be challenged on the other things that are facing the presidency, his decorum and how he conducts himself as a person?”
In terms of presidential popularity, Antholis said that polls tend to show a decline in public opinion following a president’s first year in office. Most polls have Trump’s approval ratings hanging around 40 percent, but Antholis said Trump doesn't mind.
“I think he has a much clearer strategic focus than people realize,” Antholis said. “He wants to win the news cycle every day, he doesn’t think 51 percent is the relevant metric. He’s happy at around 40 percent.”
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