Trump Transition Timeline: From Election Day to Day 100 of His Administration

A lot has happened in the weeks since Election Day, and President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team has been busy laying the groundwork for the incoming administration. Between vetting and announcing nominees for various positions in the executive and judicial branches and working with Congress on a legislative agenda, a lot has been happening and there are many key dates to remember. With that in mind, we thought it’d be helpful to have them all in one place so it’s easier to keep track of key upcoming dates, which we’ll keep updated with new developments.

November 8, 2016: Donald Trump wins the presidential election, taking 30 states and 306 electoral votes to Hillary Clinton’s 232. Clinton won the popular vote by about 2.9 million votes, making this the fifth time in U.S. history that the winner of the popular vote lost the Electoral College.

November 13, 2016: Trump begins selecting key advisers, naming RNC Chairman Reince Priebus as the White House Chief of Staff and Steve Bannon as Counselor to the President.

November 18, 2016: Trump announces his first Cabinet pick, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) as Attorney General, along with two other high-level nominations — Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS) for CIA Director and Gen. Michael Flynn as National Security Adviser.

December 9, 2016: Congress reaches an agreement to fund the government through April 28, 2017 and casts its final vote of the session to avoid a government shutdown. The Trump administration had requested that Congress not provide funding for the entirety of fiscal year 2017 so that the new administration could leave its mark on the federal government’s operations sooner.

December 19, 2016: The Electoral College votes and confirms Trump’s victory, though two faithless electors turned against him and another five defected from Hillary Clinton, putting the final electoral vote margin at 304-227 with 7 votes going to others. Of the others receiving votes, three went to Colin Powell, and one each was cast for Gov. John Kasich (R-OH), Ron Paul, Faith Spotted Eagle, and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). It was the first time since 1808 that multiple faithless electors have voted against a living candidate they were pledged to support.

January 3, 2017: The 115th Congress will officially begin its session and new members will take their oaths of office. Confirmation hearings for Trump’s appointments to the Cabinet, Supreme Court, and other high-level positions can officially begin, although actual confirmation votes will have to wait until the new administration takes office. Congress will technically be in a lame duck session until Inauguration Day, when President Obama departs and Trump is sworn in.

January 6, 2017: A joint session of Congress that will be overseen by Vice President Joe Biden will convene to formally count the ballots of Electoral College voters and finalize the election results.

January 10-11, 2017: Confirmation hearings for Attorney General nominee Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) will be held in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

January 19, 2017: President Barack Obama’s final full day as POTUS. Obama hasn’t yet announced when he will deliver a farewell address to the nation, but it will likely occur on or before this date.

January 20, 2017: Donald Trump will be sworn in as president at noon local time in Washington D.C., taking the oath of office and delivering an inaugural address. Trump has laid out a robust plan for actions he plans to take on his first day in office, which includes proposing a constitutional amendment to enact Congressional term limits, withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, withdraw from NAFTA or start renegotiations, and impose a hiring freeze on the federal workforce.

March 16, 2017: The debt ceiling — which limits how much the federal government can borrow — will come back into effect on March 16 after being suspended by a 2015 bipartisan budget agreement. When that happens, it will be reset to include the debt issued during the suspension, bringing it up to a level of $20.1 trillion. This will likely cause the Treasury Dept. to use its "extraordinary measures" to use accounting maneuvers to let the federal government continue borrowing, which could buy lawmakers a few months before they're forced to raise the debt ceiling.

April 28, 2017: Funding for non-essential federal programs runs out at 11:59:59 p.m. ET, meaning that Congress will have to pass legislation to provide for more funding or a partial government shutdown will occur.

April 29, 2017: The 100th day of the Trump administration. In his first 100 days, Trump plans to work with Congress to not only fund the government through the rest of fiscal year 2017, but also repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act and pass a broad tax reform package.

You can track all of Trump’s appointments here, and use the "Take Action" button below to tell your Senators how to vote on a nomination.

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— Eric Revell

(Photo by Gage Skidmore)