41 pages • 1 hour read
Michael LewisThe Fifth Risk
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
PrefaceChapter Summaries & Analyses
Preface Summary
The Fifth Risk opens in April 2016, when those still in the presidential race started planning for what would happen if they were to take office in January of the next year, and when Chris Christie was named the leader of Donald Trump’s transition team. In July, once Trump became the official Republican nominee for president, Christie and his team begin putting together lists of potential candidates to fill the 500 most crucial government positions. Each week, these lists are given to the “executive committee.” Only one name is ever rejected by this group.
Donald Trump himself stays out of the transition planning until he reads about how several million dollars have been fundraised to compensate the transition team. Once he discovers this, he demands to see Chris Christie and Steve Bannon, his chief strategist, and yells at both of them for spending these funds. They explain that, by law, the nominees of each party have to start planning for the transition if they are to win the election. The federal government provides the office space, and the campaigns provide the people. Upon hearing this, Trump demands that they stop the transition planning, saying, “Fuck the law. I don’t give a fuck about the law. I want my fucking money” (21).
At this point, Lewis pivots to focus on Max Stier, the founder of the Partnership for Public Service, which helped to improve management within the federal government and lobbied Congress to pass laws to ensure smooth transitions between presidential administrations. Lewis explains that bad transitions were less about political ideology than they were about practical management and highlights that both the Bush and the Obama administrations made some improvements to the process in their preparation to leave office. The Partnership also collaborated with both the Clinton and Trump campaigns.
The day after Trump wins the election, Christie is fired, and Steve Bannon admits that it was because of Kushner, whose father was jailed for tax fraud by Christie years before. The entire transition team is also let go, and the lists of candidates that they made is discarded. Trump has decided that he will handle the transition himself.
Preface Analysis
Lewis begins by talking about the instability of the Trump transition team, introducing the theme of unpreparedness that will permeate the entire book. He slips in details like the fact that the Trump campaign did not write an acceptance speech. The inclusion of Max Stier and the Partnership for Public Service illustrates the negative effects of a bad transition. Lewis includes critiques of both sides of the aisle when it comes to transitions, noting that “most of the big problems inside the U.S. government were of the practical management sort and had nothing to do with political ideology” (26). He also notes Stier’s disappointment with the Obama administration and its hiring of poor managers, leading to snafus like the inability of the government website to handle internet traffic after the Affordable Care Act was passed.
Stier also praises the Bush and Obama administrations’ preparedness when it came time for them to transition out, noting that improvements had been made over time to make these transitions easier. Some of this discussion will return in later chapters, as each department (Energy, Agriculture, and Commerce) had materials ready for whichever candidate won the election. Pairing this information with Trump’s distaste for paying for the transition team and the lack of seriousness with which he took their work, Lewis has set the stage for showing the reader how this approach played out in three areas of the federal government.
Related Titles
By Michael Lewis
