I did talk to Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, who has studied administrations back to President Reagan. She's with the University of Virginia's Miller Center. And she says, traditionally, the best source of employees is from previous administrations because, frankly, they know the ropes. And she also says that this bunch here is coming back to a completely different situation than their first go-around.

The Trump administration's delay in acknowledging the results of the 2020 election have left President-elect Joe Biden's transition team with even less than the usual 11 weeks to fill thousands of positions and be read in on the procedures and priorities of every government agency and department. Kathryn Dunn Tenpas looks at how the delayed start may affect the incoming Biden administration and their most urgent priorities, such as distribution of a COVID vaccine.

Chances are, by now you have heard about the controversy surrounding TikTok, the popular social media video app. The controversy stems from allegations that TikTok complies with Chinese Communist Party’s request to provide user data for purposes of surveillance and intelligence gathering. And yes, that data is purported to include US user data. But the TikTok controversy highlights a much larger issue – that of US user data exfiltration to external nation states such as China as a security and privacy risk. Are the steps being taken by the Trump administration appropriate or overkill? Is TikTok unique or part of a growing trend? And what are the consequences of data gathering and exfiltration across borders. We will discuss all this and more with our guest Aynne Kokas, an associate professor of media studies at the University of Virginia and a senior faculty fellow at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center for Public Affairs.

The Biden Administration will likely not want to pick fights early on that distract from its COVID agenda. Yet foreign policy will impose itself on the Biden Administration, as it inevitably does with all administrations, and no region will present a greater challenge than the Middle East. There is a basis for a bipartisan consensus that China and Russia represent long -term strategic challenges to the United States, and although there may be differences of emphasis and tactical approaches, those issues are likely to be manageable for the Biden Team.

The project is co-directed by Allida Black, distinguished visiting scholar and historian and adviser to Clinton, and Perry, who has previously conducted oral history projects on former Sen. Edward Kennedy, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.

Clinton will sit for 20 interviews and Miller Center scholars also plan to interview over 70 of Clinton’s colleagues and political opponents, activists, grassroots organizers and international leaders. According to Prof. Barbara Perry, Director of Presidential Studies and co-chair of the oral histories program at the Miller Center, interviews will begin in January and the project should be completed in two to three years.