Hi. I’m Alexei Walters. During the Trump administration, I served as the assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, and I was also a spokesman at the Department of Justice. Previous to that, I worked on Capitol Hill at the Republican Study Committee. Currently, I am the cofounder of Athos, a communications and literary agency, and I am also an Eastern Catholic priest where I serve my parish in Lansing, Michigan.
Today, I’ll be teaching you how to work with the media. In the eyes of many in the world, this every 4 year ceremony we accept as normal is nothing less than a miracle. In America, we understand that a nation is only living as long as it is striving. Only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. This great nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper.
Whether we go forward together with courage or turn back to policies that weakened our economy, diminished our leadership in the world, America’s future will be in your hands. I hope some of my experience can be helpful to you as I could teach you some of the tricks of the trade and some of the pitfalls that many people fall into in these positions. But also, hopefully, I can give you a framework so that as you prepare to enter into an administration, there’s some work you can do now so that when the time comes, you’ll be able to serve the American people faithfully. The first place to start is having some sort of self ownership. We’ve seen this time and time again during Republican and conservative administrations where you have staff who come in, particularly in the communication space, and they don’t quite have the self ownership or they have some sort of inferiority complex where they crave approval from the media for doing their job, particularly from media that is hostile to them or doesn’t support the president’s agenda.
And you’ll notice time and time again for those staffers who go in, they frankly embarrass themselves because they’re craving that approval. So going into a conservative administration, it’s always a good time to take stock into what you are getting into. The first thing is, are you getting into it because you’re looking to build your public profile or to set yourself up for a great career after the fact? If you are going into a conservative administration, odds are that that will not happen. It is simply the nature of the politics.
If you’re going into a liberal administration, after you finish, there’s the big payouts, the Fortune 500 company jobs, the big lobbying jobs, the big spokesperson jobs. That frankly doesn’t exist for a lot of those who work in a conservative administration. And the reason I bring this up is because oftentimes, when communications and working with the media goes wrong, it’s because folks are trying to audition for those jobs throughout their entire tenure, which brings me to one of my important points, which is you’re entering into public service. So the nature of public service is you’re there to serve the American public. You’re there to serve the president, which they elected, and done right, you give more than you get back.
So the whole mentality of you’re going in to advance your career, to make a name for yourself, or to find some promising lucrative, job after the fact, it’s very misguided, but also it’s very transparent, and you can tell that’s what people are in it for. If you give that up and you’re willing to go in to genuinely serve the public, not advance your own interest, and realize that done right, odds are you’re going to not have the best job prospects if working in a Republican administration. You’re already going to be better off. Because every time you talk with the media, you’re going to be dedicated to the important things. What is my job in disseminating information to the public?
You’re not going to be seeking their approval, and you’re going to be focused on implementing the president’s agenda, and you’re going to also keep touch with the American people. Oftentimes, when you’re communicating with the public, you can feel this pressure from legacy mainstream liberal media outlets to tell them what they wanna hear rather than what the people elected for the president to enact. Also, in working with the media, it’s important to realize your place in the whole process. Oftentimes, individuals will look into working in communications or, public affairs, and they look at the people who are in front of the camera as their idols, and they think that this is something that they are going to be working towards, whether it’s White House press secretary or other, jobs where you’re regularly on TV driving the message. Most people who are working with the media, the large number of schedule c appointees or even presidential appointees that are working in communications, you’re not going to be in front of the camera.
And this is important to realize because you’re going to be working on things very differently. You’re going to be working to get buy in on processes and you’re not going to be working, with the media directly to get your name in something. The best people who are working communications in the government administration, oftentimes, they are unnamed. They’re the people that are doing the briefing books for the White House press secretary. They’re doing briefing books for, cabinet secretaries or even lower level under secretaries, assistant secretaries, or just lawyers working on a case.
It’s important to keep in mind that these jobs are all equally important in running an effective communications operation. The person in front of the camera relies on numerous people who are working behind the camera. And getting the facts right and prepared, negotiating bookings, negotiating print interviews, that is all necessary to get out the job of the administration and to communicate effectively. Whenever people are in these jobs, they can often get this type of complex where if only I do enough behind camera work, then I’ll get in front of the camera. But oftentimes, this is misguided because both of these jobs are incredibly important.
And also, just the way the numbers work and the jobs work, the number of in front of camera jobs is very, very few and far in between. Odds are, you won’t have one of these positions. Does it mean that you failed? No. Certainly not.
Most of the communications actually happens behind the scenes. And as long as you understand that, that’s going to set you up for good professional development, but also, it will help you do your job better so that you’re not trying to do another job, but you’re trying to do the job that is in front of you. On the matter of your mentality and personal development, it is also very important to keep in mind your credibility. When you’re in an administration, oftentimes, you can be tempted with fudging some numbers or getting into a political tit for tat or getting into some sort of fight with the media, but it’s important to keep in mind that your credibility is very, very important. That is one thing that you go into an administration with that you really need to leave with in order to effectively do your job.
Once you no longer become credible, then you frankly can’t do your job. One way to do that is simply doing your homework. Oftentimes, people in the communications and media industry, the public affairs folks, they’re viewed as simply gophers, the people who go for things, to the rest of the administration. So in terms of prestige in an administration, sometimes people will think, well, you have the lawyers doing the real work, the regulators, the people who are writing policy, the law enforcement, they’re doing the real work. And then here you have the communications people who are just sending out the press releases and they’re calling it a day, where they kind of are kind of an icing on a cake, but they’re not really driving the operations.
Where oftentimes, working with these people, you can accept that mentality, and that’s kind of where things go wrong in the first place, where they view their job as a communicator is a little transitory. They’re just gonna be distributors of press releases or they’ll just be a booker or just a speechwriter, and they’ll leave the hard homework, the hard reading to the subject matter experts. If you rely on those who are writing policy all day to set the messaging, set the strategy, and to dictate what the press releases are and how you’re going to engage with the media, ultimately, they are right. You are just the distributor. But successful communicators, they don’t accept that mantle.
Instead, they endeavor to become subject matter experts themselves. Are you going to be as proficient and in the weeds as someone who is a direct operator? So for example, if you are doing a press release for ICE or border patrol or a US attorney’s office and you’re working on charging documents, are you going to be as in the weeds on particular forms and how things work? The answer is no, but you do need to understand how things are so that when a reporter calls, you can actually know more than they do. You know how the process works and you know how you can add value to reporting.
So whenever you talk with media, doing your homework to become a subject matter expert is invaluable and also it gets you out of this system where you’re just a booker, where you’re just setting someone up with the real experts. If you do your homework, you read the policy papers, you read the charging documents, you read the underlying source materials for a press release. When the media calls, you can actually set them on the things that are important, and then you can set the narratives. Another important matter to understand is your duties as a political appointee. Whenever you’re in a position like this, you are in a position of the public trust where you work on behalf of the American people, and you also have another job to implement the agenda of the president who is elected.
Oftentimes, when people are in these positions, they’ll talk about political appointees almost as they’re ruining a system that’s working effectively without them. But actually, the opposite is true. Without political appointees, the government has no real way to implement the will of the president. That is the bureaucracy who is running things rather than the president himself. So when you’re in these positions, you do have certain duties that you should be fulfilling.
The first is communicating effectively regular government functions. There is the functions of the government that happen with or without political appointees, whether it’s law enforcement, whether it’s regulatory enforcement, and simply informing the public of what we think of as these routine things is one of our duties as a communicator when you work with the media. The second is, how are you implementing the agenda of the president? And this simply put is what makes us a republic where the people have a government that works for them. And at this point, largely, it is consisting of career bureaucrats.
And the way that we’re actually a republic is the American people empower certain individuals to control this government. The career officials are there to arguably keep the regular functioning, parts of the government running, but the political appointees are there to be the direct will of the people in implementing the president’s agenda. And when you are in these positions, particularly when you’re communicating with the media, it is important to let them know this thing that you elected the president to do, they are doing it. When you are in these positions, you’re going to get pressure from officials whether they’re in the media or whether they’re career officials that, oh, you can’t do that. That’s too political.
I’m not talking about vote getting where, oh, you’re doing this action and you’re directly saying vote for this candidate. But oftentimes, they have trouble discerning the line where, oh, the president campaigned on doing this thing, and therefore, if he talks about it or you as a political appointee are talking about how the president promised this and he’s fulfilling it, all of a sudden it’s political and you cannot do it. But rather, you have to have the framework where this is what real government looks like. This is what a republic looks like, where if the president campaigned on something and the American people voted for that to be implemented and you can’t talk about it, we cease to be a republic. So, nevertheless, during your service, if you are in one of these positions, you’re probably going to be faced with some pressure where we can’t get into this issue because it’s too political.
As long as you’re not talking about vote getting, odds are it’s fine. One anecdote on this, in the Department of the Interior during the Trump administration, the digital team where they created digital content for the secretary and the cabinet agency, they were told that their content was too political and that they had to have a career lawyer sign off on all their content before it was ever posted. This eventually led to a system which was accepted where political individuals would take content that they’re talking about how they’re implementing the president’s agenda, and then they had career bureaucrats who were unelected and unaccountable to the American public then say this content is or is not acceptable to communicate to the American public. So if you’re ever in one of these positions, I recommend, number 1, you have the best framework and mentality for what your value add is to constitutional government, but also understand that is not normal. You should be talking with lawyers, particularly politically appointed lawyers, and ask them, is this legal?
There’s also situations which are illegal where political individuals will be reporting to career officials, and that is not supposed to be happening. If you ever find yourself in one of these positions, you should be speaking with the general counsel at your agency or other lawyers because this cuts directly against constitutional republican government. Next, I want to talk to you about how the media works. You may think I work with the media all the time already or I watch the news all the time. I know how they work, But perhaps there’s some insights I have in working with them in the way I have that can help you do your job a little better.
The first place to start is understanding the media and what their interests are. So largely, you can put the media into 2 categories. There’s the legacy, what many people will consider the traditional media that consists of cable news channels, the legacy places like the New York Times, Washington Post, as well as the networks, ABC, CBS, NBC. The second category is what many would consider the more political or partisan media, which would include outlets that most of you probably read, like The Federalist, The Daily Caller, The Washington Free Beacon, The Daily Signal. Oftentimes, people will get into political positions, and then they have this mentality that I mentioned before, this inferiority complex, where they crave the mainstream media’s attention.
They crave their approval, and they act like the conservative media is some sort of second tier media where this whole mentality frankly betrays the trust of the American people. The American people read all kinds of outlets and also different kind of Americans read different kinds of outlets. If I’m a conservative, odds are I’m not reading the Washington Post or New York Times. The first place to start is understanding what each media venue can bring to the table. With the legacy media, it is a multibillion dollar industry.
Like most of them, their premise for making money is simply getting eyeballs on their content so they can sell ads. And the way they often do this is by creating salacious content, but also in the modern era, they appeal to a certain type of political leaning. So if you ask most people, it’s pretty clear that most mainstream media outlets are to the left. Remember how I talked about having some sort of self ownership before you go into serve in an administration, this is where it becomes important because if you are working with a New York Times reporter who covers your beat or whatever you’re responsible for communicating to the American public, if you are in a position where you crave their approval, you’re going to mess up. You’re going to do something wrong.
If The New York Times is writing a glowing profile on you, the person who’s supposed to be behind the scenes, you’re doing something wrong. Not only because you’re frankly getting a little outside of your lane, but also because they are certainly to the left. And if you’re serving a conservative administration, you should not be getting glowing reviews from the left. Oftentimes, people will satisfy trying to build relationships with these legacy outlets, and they will try to get their approval by leaking. Most of the time, if you’re a reporter at The New York Times or Washington Post, they want leaks.
That’s how they drive that salacious news that gets clicks. I can guarantee you they are not working with you if you’re in a conservative administration to implement the president’s agenda. Actually, to the contrary, they want leaks to stymie any type of conservative administration agenda. So this is important to keep in mind because whenever you’re in a position of trust for the public, there are these many opportunities to leak information to the press where almost every time is not in your interest. But the thing that they always try to dangle in front of you is, oh, you’re gonna get that lunch meeting or that coffin meeting with this legacy outlet, and they’re gonna say how helpful you were.
It’s not that helpful to you. It’s not that helpful to the president’s administration, and they’re trying to get you to trade in your access and your promise to implement the president’s agenda so that they can get their next headline. And the second category is the conservative media outlets. In working with conservative media outlets, it’s important to understand their role in this whole system. The American people who vote for a conservative presidential administration, they’re not reading The New York Times.
They’re not reading The Washington Post. Actually, to the contrary, if those outlets publish something, they’re going to assume it’s false. So the only way to reach them with any voice of credibility is through working with conservative media outlets. For many of these people, if it’s not in these conservative outlets, it didn’t happen or it’s not true. And that’s simply the result of the past decades where legacy media have attacked conservatives and then shown that they’re lying or reporting something as false.
So the conservative media can bring a certain credibility to the table, but also they can bring a reach that you can’t have otherwise. So in any type of communication strategy, they should be a large part so that you can effectively communicate with the American people who put you in the position that you could be holding. And when you’re working with the media, it’s important to keep in mind standards of what you’re trying to accomplish. If I’m a legacy media outlet, I’m not going to be writing about how some conservative policy, whether it’s taxes, energy reform, religious liberty, I’m not going to be writing if I’m working on one of these legacy outlets about how whatever the president did is so great for the American people. They’re not going to be doing it.
It’s just on their interest. The reports don’t politically align that way. Even more so, their editors do not align that way, and they don’t want to make a conservative administration look like they’re effective in doing their job. So what do you want to get from them? One method is sometimes people just write these outlets off wholesale where that strategy sometimes has its merits, but more often than not, the American people do deserve to know what’s happening, and they read these outlets.
So what is the value that these outlets can bring to the table? Simply put, they can factually cover what is occurring. So should you be fighting with them on how everything the president did is is really great? You should certainly be having that fight, but odds are they’re not going to write a glowing piece. But can they factually capture everything that’s happening and any data that you can bring to support on how it’s good for the American people?
That’s something you should certainly be fighting for. But, also, you shouldn’t be getting into their game where you’re looking at everything from their world view, where what the American people elected the president to do is bad. You should never give up that fight, but also you don’t need to waste your time if you’re not gonna convince them. And the second category is the conservative media outlets. Sometimes they need a little more help where here is something factually that’s happening, but also here is how it ties in with the present’s agenda that your readers largely support.
Sometimes it this takes some extra background calls. Sometimes this takes giving them some scoops so that they can get ahead of the coverage. It’s also important to keep in mind the resource disparity. If I’m a legacy media outlet, I have 100 or sometimes even 1,000 of reporters that I can throw on beats upon beats. For example, Bloomberg.
They have hundreds of reporters that will write up nearly every single legal filing of note, every single regulation of note. And they basically basically have the resources to cover almost everything of substance coming out of an administration, especially if it’s gonna make someone money. Whereas if I’m a conservative outlet, oftentimes, they’re running on a scale that is smaller. They don’t have the sheer number of reporters that are able to cover every microbeat. So sometimes, if you’re going to send out a press release, the Bloomberg type will will pick it up.
And sometimes, one of these conservative outlets, they may want to cover it, but they just don’t have the resources. So in order to reach the audience of the American people that support the president’s agenda, sometimes you need to do a little bit of handholding where you reach out to an editor beforehand, you can embargo something, and help them with their resource allocation just by simply giving them a heads up. The last matter I want to discuss is the tactics that you have at your disposal to communicate with the American people. One of the large tools that you’re going to do this with is press releases. For those of you who have served, you’ll be familiar with this phenomenon.
And for those of you who haven’t served in a presidential administration, this is how it usually works. You go into the office, then you get a call from someone possibly deep in the organization. Hey. I have a press release that needs to go out today. Can you send it out?
If that’s where you’re at, something has gone wrong already. This gets into this mentality that I mentioned before where the communicators just simply are distributors of information. Rather, you should be in the driving seat. You should be crafting the messaging. You should be bringing in key information on how it implements the president’s agenda to make Americans’ lives better.
And if a press release is already drafted, it’s too late. If there is a regulation or some sort of charge from law enforcement or some sort of policy change, you really need to be part of the discussion in the first place. And the reason for this is, like I mentioned before, if you are a policymaker, they can get so in the weeds that they can become disconnected from the American people. But also, they’re not going to think about how to package it to the American people or how it could be received by the American people. They can just frankly get a tunnel vision and that’s the value add for communicators.
You’re regularly engaging with the media. You’re regularly engaging with the American people through the public sentiment on social media and such that you really can bring something to the conversation. I know how intimidating it can be when you’re in an agency, say the Department of Justice. You’re the only person who didn’t get a law degree from an Ivy League University and they’re talking about some important regulation. I know how intimidating it can be to really offer your 2¢, but I assure you, that’s what the American people want you to do.
They want someone who is implementing the president’s agenda and bringing that to fruition. So if you’re ever in those positions, don’t be shy. The president or the White House put you in this position to do this very thing. And, also, you’re reading a lot of media, and that actually is an important perspective to bring to the table. So it can be as simple as, okay, well, what is the strategy going to be in implementing this regulation?
Simply sending out a press release is usually the proposal from most people who don’t do communications. Usually, I’m working on a regulation if I’m a policy person. What am I going to do? Send out a press release, and then they call it a day. And then you’ll get the call a few days later.
Why is anyone covering my press release? Well, usually it’s because it’s boring, where your job is to make sure it connects with the American people and it connects with the media. So if you’re part of these policy planning discussions, you can help them craft the message from the beginning so that it’s not turning around a ship at the last minute. You can make sure things largely stay on track up until the point of the press release. So once you’re at the point of the press release, most of your work is done.
The messaging is lined up, the, way that the regulation is branded, and also the rollout. You can also factor in other things on exclusives, whether it’s a broadcast exclusive with an interview with a principal or whether it’s a print exclusive. You can factor that into the rollout beyond just a press release because oftentimes, if there is any type of big policy change, it’s because something’s gonna hit the federal register or something’s gonna be out today. And calling a reporter up and saying, hey. This thing’s happening in 2 hours is gonna get you different coverage than I’m alerting you.
Here’s an embargo. Here’s the actual regulation. Here’s the actual press release. It’s coming in a week. That’s going to generate you better coverage, but also it will improve your relationships.
It will help you have credibility with reporters so that they really know you’re part of the process and an insider, and they’re going to work with you differently. And this gets me to another important point, which is simply to pick up the phone. When you’re working with press releases, it’s very simple to just get in this email mode where everything is emailed and you communicate with reporters, everything in writing. If you look at the great communicators who get points on the board, they’re talking to reporters. When a reporter reaches out about any type of regulation or anything you’re doing a press release on, you become a subject matter expert, and you can walk them through what is actually going to accomplish.
You’re going to demonstrate to the reporter you know more than them because you’ve been doing your homework, and also you know more than them because you’re part of the deliberations. So as you’re part of these deliberations, you can figure out what is in the interest of the American public, where you can show you’re implementing the president’s agenda, and you can communicate that to a reporter in the appropriate way, whether it’s on background, on the record, off the record, and you can also craft the storyline in ways that you can’t in writing. As you’re part of all these deliberations and forming the policy, you want to just make sure that you’re part of the conversation. And one way that you can do that is simply by showing up and doing your job. So if you are given a certain portfolio at a cabinet agency or if you’re at the White House, you should be regularly talking with those who are implementing some sort of policy.
You shouldn’t only be seeing them when, hey, there’s a press release ready to go out. You should be checking in with them every day or so. Hey. What do you have coming down the pipeline? Hey.
Here’s a news story that, you know, we could use your help on. And when you’re part of the process and you let policymakers know that by working with you, they’re going to get better coverage, it’s going to be more factual, conservative media is going to be trumpeting how great this priority is and this policy is, you’re going to be brought into the process earlier so you can help craft the policies, so you can help craft the messaging, so you can help craft the strategy. And that’s when the calls come in and you can really do your job effectively. And that’s how you break out of this mold that many communicators find themselves in where you’re just simply a person on a screen pressing send on an email that goes to everyone too late in the process. Another important tool that you’ll have is background briefings.
A lot of the magic that happens in communicating what a president or his administration is doing happens in ways that aren’t even directly reported. These are background calls, off the record calls, and other types of briefings where you’ll give out access to high ranking or sometimes mid level officials in order to condition coverage in the long term. For mainstream outlets, you can make sure that they understand the issue better so they can be more factual, or for conservative outlets, you’re helping them understand issues so they can see how it ties in with the president’s agenda and how he’s implementing it. As you’re doing these background calls, they can be very helpful, but sometimes working with decision makers, they might not see the value because they’re not getting a clip right away. They’re not getting some glowing review or write up.
That gets back to one of the first points I made on credibility. The media needs to understand that you are a gatekeeper and that you’re going to help them do their job, and you need to create an incentive structure where they want to come to you rather than go around you. So by helping them do their job better, by setting them up with important officials who are making decisions, you can help them trust you that you’re in the know, but also help them come to you when they’re writing a story. You’ll also be faced with many instances where from legacy outlets, they’re writing a damaging story about someone or something or some agency that you are responsible to be their spokesman for. There’s one tactic that I think is particularly effective in this.
It doesn’t hurt to just stop and take stock and say, what are the facts as you understand them? What facts can I give you that could tell you that you’re wrong? And that oftentimes will take them aback because they’re never really asked that. And also, you can ask them about how they’re doing their job. You can say, okay, you’re writing the story.
Am I the last call that you’re making? Who who else have you talked to? Have you been researching this? Or ask them about how they came to the conclusions they have. Some of the more honest reporters will tell you point blank.
I haven’t talked to as many people as I would have liked to or I don’t know as much as I should. And sometimes, even with these legacy outlets, you can fill in important information that they would not have otherwise. As long as they’re being honest with you in their limitations, that usually shows some sort of humility that they’re willing to work with you and get things right. Another one of the tools that a communicator has in your toolbox that’s very important is op eds and speeches. If you’re working with a cabinet official or even many of the lower ranking officials, there are a lot of speeches that these principles will give.
Many times in any type of communications office, this is how it happens. You’re a speechwriter or you’re in the speech writing office or you’re someone who’s just designated to write speeches. You get a calendar invite and you’re told, we need a speech by this date, and then you draft it. Or sometimes the principal will draft it themselves and just send it to you to send out. Whenever principals will put something on the calendar for a speech or they draft something, sometimes they’ll think of it just as a regular churn.
But this is really missing many of these big opportunities for speeches and for op eds. Think of all the speeches that were given in any presidential administration, and then think of how many that you have seen where someone sent it to you and said, oh my gosh. Have you seen this speech? They said things that I’ve thought about it, but they’ve never put it like that. They were so right.
These are one of these few opportunities where we can really have thought leadership. Most of what you do in communicating is contributing to the churn. This is the daily breaking news of some regulation or policy change or some military conflict or crisis. But speech writing is the ability to set trends in the long run, to pave an intellectual framework they can go down as you’re implementing the president’s agenda. And if you remember this, you can really take speeches and op eds and turn them into what they should be, opportunities to tell Americans how you’re improving their lives and also to sell a vision.
Oftentimes, we have this vision setting during presidential campaigns and then it kinda peers out once the government power is taken by a presidential candidate and they’re actually sworn in as president. Yet, if you think of many of the big speeches, like Reagan’s City on a Hill speech, that was given while he was president or the tear down this wall speech. Those are these opportunities that we should be going for. These are really hard moments to create, but we have enough of the tools to do it. So inevitably, there is a time crunch.
You are going to have to do some of these churn speeches, but they should really be avoided. When you leave the administration, you don’t wanna be thinking, man, I had all these opportunities to tell these great stories, to sell the American dream, or to lay out a vision for what America could be. Before you get in and when you’re in, don’t get stuck in the churn and think, what would a life changing speech look like? What would a speech be like that everyone is talking about for the next few months? What is it does a speech look like that the New York Times editorial board is going to have a meltdown over?
If you’re doing that, odds are you’re doing something right. And you need to think about selling something that gets the American people excited because you’re genuinely going to help them. While, certainly, I couldn’t cover everything you need to do to be successful in serving as a communicator in a presidential administration and working with the media, hopefully, I gave you enough tools that you need to understand what you would be taking on. Ultimately, the most important thing is the commitment to public duty. If you’re going into public service to get something from it rather than to give to your country, you’re getting into it for the wrong reasons.
Everyone you work with will be able to see through it, albeit many of them are in that public service position because they’re trying to get something out of it. But if you truly decide to make a sacrificial move and sacrifice for your country and that’s your reason for serving, everyone will be able to tell and your country will be better for it, but also you’ll be better for it. Whenever you speak with the legacy media, you’re not going to live in fear of them. You’re going to encounter them as someone entrusted by the American public, and they will notice. They’ll notice that you don’t crave their approval because you’re speaking with the approval of the American people.
Whenever you’re working with writing speeches or op eds, you will have a conviction that the American people put you in this position and that you won’t have any type of inadequacies or any other complexes that you’re trying to flesh out in your speeches. You’re going to be focused on delivering what the American people want, and that is, simply put, a constitutional government. You’re coming in to implement the will of the people, the will of the president, and simply put, to help the government function. Thank you.