Transcript
12:29 David Mark:
Greetings Everyone,
Happy Election Day! Welcome to the first Brookings-Politico live chat. The two organizations will be joining forces throughout the presidential transition to draw upon the expertise of our scholars and journalists.
I'm pleased to be chatting today with Darrell M. West, Vice President and Director of Governance Studies at Brookings.
12:30 David Mark:
Let's get started on the questions.
12:30 [Comment from John (D.C.)]
What are biggest challenges either candidate will face in the first 100 days?
12:30 Darrell West: The biggest challenge facing the next president clearly is the bad economy and the meltdown of leading financial institutions. That will take a lot of money to address and require the new president to delay implementation of some of his own initiatives.
12:31 David Mark: Before the economy became a central issue in the presidential campaign, much of the debate had also centered around Iraq. Obama has said he aims to withdraw troops within 16 months of taking office, and liberal Democrats in Congress will no doubt press him to follow through.
12:33 Darrell West: Obama's Democratic base both in Congress and in the country at large will want him to follow through on his commitment to withdraw troops from Iraq. If he does this, it will make sense politically but also help him scale back the cost of the war. That will help him have money to address some of his domestic initiatives.
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