Vance says Trump too 'superstitious' to talk about transition as he refuses to participate in formal process
Whatever the outcome of the United States' 2024 presidential election — whether the winner is Republican Donald Trump or Democrat Kamala Harris — federal agencies have been preparing their briefing documents for the winner's transition team.
The Harris campaign has been taking part in the process, but according to Defense One reporter Eric Katz, Trump has avoided participation.
"Unlike Vice President Kamala Harris' team," Katz explains in an article published on November 4, "Trump's team has signed no agreement to work with the current administration, which could bog down the process if he wins, former Trump and federal transition officials said. Even if the election remains too close for the General Services Administration to make an official declaration — or 'ascertainment,' as it is referred to in federal statute — of who won and is therefore eligible to proceed into the second, post-election phase of the transition, a reform President Biden signed into law would enable both Harris and Trump to receive the newly finalized materials and send their 'landing teams' into agencies."
When the Daily Mail asked Vance about the transition process, Trump's running mate said that both him and Trump are too "superstitious" to talk about it.
Vance told the Mail, "We need Donald Trump in two places at once. That obviously is impossible, but we can have Donald Trump in one place and JD Vance in another. But I haven't talked to the president any great detail about it, because we're both very superstitious, and we don't like to talk about the transition."
According to Rich Bagger — who led Trump's transition team in 2016 — federal government agencies "want to know who is coming in on the days after the election."
Bagger told Defense One, "They need to know who to let in…. They wanted that information from us by Election Day.”
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Read Defense One's full report at this link and the Daily Mail's reporting here.
