Storming the Beach

Trump's Beachhead Team and the Case for More Appointees

Word count: 2,433; twelve minutes to read.

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After winning in November, transitions create what are known as landing teams, which are groups of people deployed to the line departments and agencies between the election and Inauguration Day.

They’re known as landing teams because their job is to “land the plane.”

That means helping the transition finish well and without problems by positioning the new administration to gain immediate control of the levers of power in the executive branch and start successfully implementing President Trump’s agenda the minute he is sworn-in.

Landing teams perform the following key tasks:

• Agency Reviews - Assessing the structure, budget, personnel, and key issues of a specific federal department or agency. The teams also create briefings, info papers, memos, and other materials meant to inform senior transition leaders and incoming appointees.

• Policy Implementation Planning - Determining the optimal ways to quickly align the incoming administration’s priorities with agency operations.

• Personnel & Leadership Placement/Transition - Identifying key positions that need to be filled immediately and the sequencing of the rest of the slots, along with providing onboarding support.

• Stakeholder Engagement – Meeting with the existing appointed leadership (Biden’s people), members of the career work force, and external stakeholders to understand ongoing initiatives and who’s who in the bureaucracy, along with the external groups who will have to be worked with once the new administration’s appointees arrive to take charge.

The landing teams wrap up in the days prior to inauguration, after which the Day One permanent appointees (those given positions that can last the entire term) and temporary “beachhead” appointees (as in “storming the beach”) get sworn-in.

Both groups immediately occupy the White House and federal department/agency buildings after the president takes the oath of office, and they represent the first wave of appointees in the new administration.

Beachhead team members are there to gain a foothold and aren’t supposed to last more than 120 days.

Their main job is to temporarily manage the line departments/agencies until the permanent leadership is in place (which depends on when the Senate confirms them).

Aside from managing the organizations until the permanent appointee leadership arrives, beachhead members are also responsible for:

• Ensuring Presidential Control – Taking control over the levers of power (personnel, policy, budgets, and contracting) in the department/agency and serving as the president’s eyes, ears, and long arm.

• Implementing Early Policies – Freezing last minute Biden admin policies and any new ones in development while implementing the president's agenda within the agency, often making key decisions before permanent leaders are in place.

• Monitoring Career Staff – Overseeing the bureaucrats, ensuring agency operations and policies align with the new administration’s priorities, and making sure career employees don’t undermine the administration through “malicious compliance” or other forms of sabotage.

• Providing Direct Reports to the White House – Serving as liaisons between their organizations and the Executive Office of the President and keeping senior White House and other interagency officials informed.

• Advising on Personnel – Helping to identify and recommend individuals for permanent roles within the agency, from leadership levels on down to the special assistants, and determining who among the career staff leadership should be moved out to other positions or let go.

• Maintaining Continuity - Specifically, preventing disruptions in essential government functions, such as national security, economic management, etc.

Within 120 days the beachhead team members will have moved back outside the admin or converted to other, more permanent roles inside of it, and a new phase of the administration begins.

These first four months of a new admin are of the utmost importance.

This is because it’s a honeymoon period where public support is generally high, tremendous amounts of energy exist among the president’s team to start implementing campaign promises, and legislative goodwill is present, especially if the president carried Republican majorities to victory in Congress due to his coattails, as President Trump did last November.

Media scrutiny and Democrat opposition is generally less during this period due to the shock of defeat and the need to understand why they were handed a beating in the election.

The Dems, left-wing activist orgs, and their media enablers, are also busy strategizing and resetting for the chance of winning Congress and the White House in the future.

So this is the best time to implement the president’s most ambitious policies before Democrats and career bureaucrats get their act together and political resistance to implementing the president’s agenda hardens.

This means moving quickly by bringing in the “butchers” and ZFG types, in addition to as many appointees as possible, to lay waste to the administrative state

It’s good news the admin has started out fast like we’re seeing now with the dismemberment of USAID, the excising of DEI from the federal departments and agencies, and the rapid number of executive orders being implemented, from shutting down the border to ending federal employee telework.

I would give the transition and new admin high marks so far.

But there is one area where things can improve