Warren Releases Plan for Life After Trump Presidency

(CN) — One year from today, according to Democratic hopeful Elizabeth Warren, there will be a new president in the Oval Office.

Warren hopes it will be her, and released a new plan Tuesday to systematically undo President Donald Trump’s policies and appointments and rebuild the country in a starkly different image.

“Donald Trump will leave behind a government that has been infected by corruption and incompetence, and his vindictive actions as president suggest that he is likely to do everything he can to undermine the next president,” Warren wrote. “We cannot assume that everything will be fine once Donald Trump leaves office.”

If elected, Warren would remove all political appointees from the government, “wiping the slate clean,” she wrote. She’d also block those political appointees from finding their way into career positions at government agencies and establish a Justice Department task force to investigate Trump-era corruption. She also promised to review independent agencies and remove their leaders if necessary, and put a stop to corrupt contract arrangements.

One problem Warren identified is the Trump administration’s pattern of not confirming nearly a third of key government positions while simultaneously failing to hang on to cabinet secretaries and career civil servants, who are quitting their jobs at a record pace, she said.

Trump has also stacked his cabinet and the government with donors and 281 lobbyists, according to Warren.

“The mix of industry insiders and donors has both created turmoil and opened up an opportunity for big businesses to tilt the rules in their favor,” she wrote. “This government run by and for lobbyists has dismantled workplace safety and environmental rules, health care protections, and dozens of other programs and regulations that benefit working people.”

In Tuesday’s plan, Warren promised not to hire certain categories of people, including current lobbyists and employees of for-profit federal contractors. Officials in a Warren administration would have to divest from investments that could pose a conflict of interest and avoid consulting for the private sector. She also pledged to hire a diverse workforce.

The transition will be challenging and complex no matter what, Warren conceded, assuring supporters she would accomplish it quickly and smoothly. She promised to announce cabinet and other high-level picks by December 2020 and have the White House fully staffed by her first day in office “so that we can hit the ground running.”

Warren was frank but optimistic in her assessment of the transition work a Democratic president would need to undertake.

“It would be foolish to assume that after Trump is gone, the government will start moving in the right direction all on its own,” she wrote. “This will be no ordinary transition between administrations."

Warren is not the only candidate to be thinking about life after Trump. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times’ editorial board, her Democratic opponent Pete Buttigieg said he asks voters to “picture that day when the sun comes up and Donald Trump’s not the president,” but he didn’t offer specifics in the interview.

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