NOW THAT TRUMP’S CHIEF ECONOMIC ADVISER HAS RESIGNED, HIS TEAM MAY HAVE LOST ONE OF ITS LAST SANE VOICES. ANDREW COYNE TAKES A LOOK AT TRUMP’S APPOINTMENTS AND BREAKS THEM DOWN INTO SEVERAL CATEGORIES.
With this week’s resignation of chief economic adviser Gary Cohn, Donald Trump’s administration is said to have lost one of its last voices of relative sanity. That is, so far as anyone can tell.
There have been so many officials leaving the administration, so many coming in to replace them, that it is difficult to know just who is working for it at any given time, or what function they perform. Indeed, it is open to debate whether Trump himself should really be considered part of the Trump administration: his duties seem to consist for the most part of playing golf, watching Fox and Friends, tweeting, and picking fights with various Congressional leaders, cabinet members and White House staff.
For the bewildered, it is probably helpful to break Trump’s appointments down into several broad categories. They are:
1. The ones that haven’t
been made. By far the largest number. Under the U.S. constitution, some 1,200 out of the thousands of appointments a president might make must be confirmed by the Senate. The majority of these, more than a year after Trump was inaugurated,
remain unfilled. Of 639 key posts tracked by the Washington Post, just 274 have been confirmed. Another 145 nominees are awaiting confirmation, while 216 have yet to be nominated.
2. The ones that were made, but were either rejected or withdrawn before
they started. Trump’s pick for Secretary of Labor, Andrew Puzder, is the most high-profile of these: a former CEO of a fast-food chain, his nomination was withdrawn over allegations of wage theft, sexual harassment and spousal abuse. More than 20 other nominees have met the same fate, including Trump’s nominee for President of the Export-Import Bank, Scott Garrett; his first choice as White House communications director, Jason Miller; his drug policy adviser, Tom Marino; his environmental adviser, Kathleen Hartnett White, a climate change skeptic and co-author of the book Fueling Freedom: Exposing the Mad War on Energy; and his assistant secretary for Homeland Security, David Clarke, the controversial former sheriff of Milwaukee County who, among other contributions to civic life, is alleged to have abused several prisoners in his care.
3. The ones who have quit or been fired since being appointed. Another long list, nearly three dozen in all. These include his chief of staff, Reince Priebus; his press secretary, Sean Spicer; three communications directors, Michael Dubke, Anthony Scaramucci and Hope Hicks; his chief strategist, Steve Bannon; his Secretary of Health, Tom Price; his national security
adviser, Michael Flynn, for his involvement in the Russia business; FBI director James Comey, famously, for investigating it; his deputy, Andrew McCabe; and of course, Omarosa Manigault, the former Apprentice contestant whose precise duties at the White House remain a mystery.
4. The ones who are still in their jobs, but never should have been appointed. Again, a good number would fit this description. Among his advisers, there is Peter Navarro, the trade adviser whose recommendations include inserting a provision in all future U.S. trade agreements requiring that they be renegotiated whenever the balance of trade between the parties shifts against the U.S., and Stephen Miller, the 32-yearold “senior adviser” whose television appearances have been compared to Dracula, if he were a high-school debater. His cabinet includes the likes of Rick Perry, the former governor of Texas whose department, Energy, was one of those that as a presidential candidate he had proposed abolishing; Betsy DeVos, the Education secretary, whose ignorance of her portfolio, on vivid display at her confirmation hearings, shocked even hardened Trump-watchers; and Ben Carson, the Housing and Urban Development secretary, who initially declined to take the job on the eminently sensible grounds that he had never run anything.
5. The ones who are reasonably presentable, at least by this administration’s standards, but whom Trump spends most of his time undermining. Rex Tillerson
was a strange choice for Secretary of State, having no experience in government, politics or diplomacy, but was nevertheless seen as a person of substance, as the former chief executive of Exxon Mobil. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is not everyone’s cup of tea, and has his own issues on the Russia file, but as a member of the Senate was well regarded by his fellows. Chief of staff John Kelly was similarly well respected after a distinguished military career. All three have had to endure relentless public attacks from the president or his surrogates, often spiced with suggestions they were not long for the job. 6. The ones who appear to be part of an entirely different administration. Listen to Defence Secretary James Mattis, or UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, or National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster, and you might wonder: all three regularly take public positions quite diametrically opposed to Trump’s. Either he doesn’t notice, doesn’t care, or doesn’t dare fire them.
7. Jared and Ivanka. It’s never a good idea to appoint family members to senior posts: how do you fire them if they screw up? It’s especially inadvisable when their duties are ill-defined (among Jared’s assignments at one point: solving the Middle East) and their job experience lacking. Throw in multiple conflict-of-interest issues and, well, what is to be done with Javanka?
8. Mike Pence. Look, I know he’s weird, and way, way to the right. But at this point he’s the free world’s best hope.