Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

1. White House Office · Minor

Appoint an operations Deputy Chief of Staff with foreign policy credentials

Partially done

25 1. White House Office

“In recent years, Presidents typically have appointed two Deputy Chiefs of Staff: a Deputy Chief of Staff for Management and Operations and a Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy. … If their roles are separated from that of the policy deputy, this deputy should have a strong grasp of international affairs and robust foreign policy credentials.”

What has happened

  1. Partially done

    The post exists and is filled — William B. Harrison is Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations in the Annual Report to Congress on White House Office Personnel as of 2025-07-01 and 2026-07-01 — but the structural condition the Quote attaches to it does not hold. The Quote asks that where the operations deputy's role is separated from the policy deputy's, that deputy carry the foreign policy portfolio. In the 2026 report the foreign and homeland security portfolio sits with the *policy* deputy instead: Stephen Miller is Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Advisor. The appointment is made; the arrangement the Quote asks for is not evidenced, and that is what holds this at Partially done. **Unassessed clause:** the Quote's further condition that the deputy have "a strong grasp of international affairs and robust foreign policy credentials" names a quality of a person, and this site does not assess an appointee's personal qualities (GLOSSARY.md, *Unassessed clause*). The Status does not cover whether Harrison has those credentials, in either direction.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

Researched 2026-08-27, in one search that covered all of Chapter 1’s White House staffing asks.

  • HARRISON, WILLIAM B. — Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, in both the 2025 and 2026 reports. Two Deputy Chiefs of Staff exist, split operations/policy, as the Quote’s first sentence describes.
  • The condition is where this stops short. The Quote wants the operations deputy to carry the foreign policy weight; the 2026 report puts Homeland Security Advisor in the policy deputy’s title (MILLER, STEPHEN). That is the opposite allocation.
  • Settled on review, 2026-09-06. The open question was whether “robust foreign policy credentials” can be leveled at all. It cannot: the site does not assess an appointee’s personal qualities, and the rule is now the site’s Unassessed clause. This item is the worked example, and its rung does not move. The credentials clause is unassessed and named as such in the note; the partial rests on the other half of the same sentence — which deputy holds the foreign-policy portfolio — which is a checkable arrangement the annual personnel report answers, and it answers it against the Quote. The line the rule draws is between a person’s qualities and a checkable arrangement, and this Quote happens to contain one of each.
Action
appoint
Object
Deputy Chief of Staff for Management and Operations
ID
3