President Trump can and should direct his administration to cooperate, in every agency of government, with transition teams for the apparent victor of this year’s election, President-elect Joe Biden.

This doesn’t mean Trump cannot contest election results in court. In fact, cooperation on the transition would not harm Trump’s court battles in any way. It also would be extremely unlikely to harm current or future operations of government. Yet the failure to start transition planning could hinder a new administration’s ability to carry out basic, noncontroversial actions of government that serve the American people.