Michael Lewis's latest book is The Fifth Risk.From his NPR interview with Ari Shapiro:
SHAPIRO: In each part of the government that you look at, you tell the story of what happened during the transition between Election Day and the inauguration. And in each case, the story is pretty much the same. What happened?--Marshal Zeringue
LEWIS: Well, what happened was before the election, the Obama administration had spent the better part of a year and a thousand people's time creating, essentially, the best course ever created on how the federal government works and what the problems are in each of these departments with the idea that the day after the election, hundreds of people from the new administration would roll in and get the briefings and learn what the problems were and how they dealt with them.
And the Trump administration just didn't show. I mean, across the government, parking spaces were empty, and nice little finger sandwiches that had been laid out went uneaten and briefing books went unopened to the point where, when I roll in a few months later, I'm the first person who's heard the briefing that the Trump administration was supposed to get.
SHAPIRO: And when the Trump administration ultimately did send some people, or one person, there was a pattern in the kinds of people who showed up.
LEWIS: Well, the real pattern was everybody who showed up was a Trump loyalist, and very few of them had any kind of qualifications for the jobs they were being sent into. And the spirit with which they approached was...[read on]