Donald Trump and his top officials have used some of their last weeks in office to lock in damage to the nation that it will be difficult for President-elect Joe Biden to undo. Other changes won’t be so difficult to undo—many, in fact, Biden can reverse on Day One. But that doesn’t mean there’s no damage.
Trump, who fired Mark Esper as defense secretary after the election, has presided over big, last-minute changes at the Pentagon, including firing members of the Defense Policy and Defense Business Boards and replacing them with the likes of Corey Lewandowski, and announcing plans to quickly draw down troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia. Team Trump also came out with a plan for new Navy ships that would take years to implement—when Trump has just weeks left in office.
“At best, these distract from an orderly transition and at worst are a deliberate attempt to box in or hobble the incoming administration,” a former Obama administration defense official told Politico.
The plan for new Navy ships that Trump won’t have to oversee—or pay for, in particular—“is a cynical ploy now designed for the Trump '24 team to point to, knowing full well that the ownership costs of a Navy of this size are dramatically higher than the current fleet size,” a retired naval officer and current defense consultant said. “There is goodness here and it is a good plan. But the fact that they aren't going to be held responsible for lifting a finger to implement it adds to the cynicism of the exercise.”
That’s the thing: Whatever you think of any specific change Trump is making here at the last minute, the point is that he shouldn’t be making big changes, because it’s not his role at this point. He’s just doing it to make things more difficult for Biden, to increase the amount of work that Biden and his team will have to plow through while also beginning to handle a pandemic that has been allowed to rage out of control.