Highlights: How Presidents Deal with Crisis

SHELBY BENZ: Four White House chiefs of staff joined GU Politics to discuss how presidents deal with crises in a virtual forum on July 28.

The event, hosted by GU Politics Executive Director Mo Elleithee on Zoom, invited Mark McLarty, Andy Card, Denis McDonough (MSFS ‘96), and Mick Mulvaney (SFS ‘89) of the Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations respectively to speak about crisis management in the White House in light of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. As gatekeepers to the Oval Office, the chiefs of staff painted intimate portraits of the leadership styles exemplified by the last four presidents when dealing with crises. 

According to McLarty, chief of staff in the Clinton administration, President Clinton “wanted to get the facts quickly and mobilize a plan to deal with [the crisis].” He complimented Clinton’s ability to keep a broader perspective: “That’s the essence of any White House: you have to keep the broader agenda moving forward while dealing with these issues.”

Echoing the importance of maintaining perspective, Dennis McDonough, chief of staff in the Obama administration, enumerated the importance of first recognizing when there is a crisis, then maintaining transparency with constituents. “Make sure that you are not creating a different crisis by losing track of all the other work the American people expect you to be undertaking,” he said.

“You have to be an optimist and believe that you are making the right decision,” said Andy Card of the Bush administration. Card added that part of courage is seeking counsel from others, and having contrarians within the inner circle to challenge and bolster the president’s positions. Mick Mulvaney, Chief of Staff to President Trump, appended the corollary, “If you are making a decision by yourself, it increases the chance of making the wrong decision.”

Elleithee then presented each former chief of staff with a crisis that arose during their time in the White House and asked them to walk through the process of handling the situation.

“Particularly when you are coming in in a new administration, you are so focused right after the campaign on the president’s agenda… but you have to be aware that there will inevitably be these kinds of dramatic, shocking unexpected events that will happen,” said McLarty. In taking charge of the situation during the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, McLarty emphasized the importance of identifying the facts and reporting them to the president in a coherent manner. “Make sure you are communicating the facts you know. What’s happening? But make certain you don’t step over the line and get into conjecture,” he said.

The September 11 attacks transpired five weeks after Card had entered the Oval Office. President Bush was seated in Room 301 at Emma E. Booker Elementary School, reading to second-grade students when Card whispered in his ear, “A second plane has hit the second tower. America is under attack.” Against the recommendations of Card and the pilot, Bush asserted that they needed to get back to Washington. “I had to hold my ground and know that I was serving at the pleasure of the president, but it was not my job to please him.”

McDonough spoke about the “tyranny of distance” and need for rapid response during attacks such as those against U.S. government facilities in Benghazi, Libya in 2012. “[President Obama] made clear that he wanted to make sure we could get as much material, as much support we could to Benghazi in most rapid fashion, and that he expected that they would stay in touch with him over the course of the rest of the night as this unfolded.”

In handling the novel coronavirus, Mulvaney emphasized the inevitable weakness of operating with imperfect information. “We thought we had another coronavirus,” like SARS and MERS, “that was really deadly but fairly hard to transmit. And so what we were doing early on was spending our time trying to focus on containing the disease and keeping it out of this country, as opposed to mitigating it which is what we are doing now.” Mulvaney affirmed that this approach shifted as the U.S. gleaned insight into asymptomatic transmission.

When in positions of power, “You are dealing with crises all the time, but having the sense that you know that you need good information is kind of the chief of staff’s job,” said Card, “To reinforce the need for people not to present information that they are not certain about.”

In the face of these operating challenges and modifications to information, McDonough reinforced that, “You have to maintain your credibility with the American people to trust what you say, even when the best available information changes. Consistency is not what you are looking for, what you are looking for is fidelity to what you understand and fidelity to the best available science.” During the Obama Administration’s time in office, McDonough recalled a system from which information was delivered to the American public, “We’d set up a communications schedule and identify a principal communicator for each issue. Schedule briefings on a very regular basis, and forced discipline on the team and on the government.”

Members of the panel agreed that the media has and continues to play a large role in the handling of crises. “A picture is worth a thousand words,” said McLarty, “When people see that on social media, they see a situation developing, they identify with it, they are concerned about it.” Mulvaney expressed that as the country continues to be divisively polarized through media consumption, “It’s getting harder and harder to operate in a bipartisan fashion.” 

“It is key to those of you who are in this generation, have the courage to be careful with your words and try not to make decisions based around an emotional response or guidance that comes through a tweet,” said Card. 

Offering candid advice to the newest White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, McLarty stated, “You have to remember why you are there: you are there to serve the president and you are there to serve the American people. You have to keep that fundamental pennant ‘Why’ before you.”

Shelby Benz is a sophomore in the School of Foreign Service passionate about learning how to tackle systemic injustices through public policy and diplomacy.