Who will really be the Next President of the United States?

As the Trump administration organizational chart comes into focus, the big question is whether the most powerful man in the world will be Mike Pence or Reince Priebus. Or Steve Bannon.

This has certainly been the most extraordinary transition of power in recent American history. Donald Trump has effectively sought to assert the prerogatives of the presidency and make U.S. foreign policy from the moment he was elected, rather than waiting for niceties like actually being sworn into office or for his predecessor to leave. But even with the astonishing spectacle of Trumpian tweet storms to captivate us, the most interesting dimensions of this transition may well be found where they always are, down in the weeds, in the details of the emerging organizational chart of the government that is being put in place.

There is a long tradition in Washington of the fortunes of administrations and of key players within those administrations being made amid the seemingly innocuous structural and personnel decisions that come daily, often with little fanfare, during the months between the election in November and the inauguration in January. Incoming National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger ensured that he would chair important committees in Richard Nixon’s administration and thus undercut his potential rival, incoming Secretary of State William Rogers, by getting a few key memos approved by Nixon during the transition. His successor in the Jimmy Carter years, Zbigniew Brzezinski, did the same, infuriating and neutralizing the influence of incoming Secretary of State Cyrus Vance. Ronald Reagan invited chaos into his White House by appointing a troika to lead it and downgrading the influence of the office of the national security advisor. Bill Clinton changed the dynamic of his “it’s the economy, stupid” administration when he created the National Economic Council (NEC) and installed the exceptionally effective and empowered Robert Rubin as its boss. Examples abound.


http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/12/27/who-will-really-be-the-next-president-of-the-united-states/