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Tag: white house staff
White House Suffering ‘Unprecedented’ Job Vacancies Under Trump

White House Suffering ‘Unprecedented’ Job Vacancies Under Trump

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

The word “acting” often comes up in connection with the administration of President Donald Trump — as in Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, or Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin K. McAleenan. There has been a considerable amount of turnover in the Trump Administration, which has been so chaotic that veteran journalist Bob Woodward even named his most recent book, “Chaos: Trump in the White House.” And the heavy volume of vacancies in the U.S. federal government is the subject of a report by Dareh Gregorian for NBC News.

Gregorian reports that presently, there are “138 nominees awaiting confirmation by the Senate” and “132 positions that have no nominee at all.” And according to Max Stier, president of Partnership for Public Service (a nonprofit that tracks presidential appointments), “what we have seen is unprecedented, with consistent vacancies across the government.”

Trump’s nominees, Gregorian observes, have been “averaging 105 days between nomination and confirmation” — whereas “the average time for President Barack Obama’s nominations to clear was 93 days.”

Nonetheless, Gregorian notes, there has been some “forward motion” on nominations in the last two weeks, with Trump nominating Shanahan to permanently head the U.S. Defense Department, Mark Morgan being nominated to head the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Jeffrey Byard to head the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). But Gregorian also notes that according to an online Partnership for Public Service/Washington Post tracker, “the Trump Administration still has vacancies in 277 top positions out of just over 700 appointments that require Senate confirmation.”

There has been so much turnover in the Trump Administration, according to Stier, that the confirmation process in the Senate is being overwhelmed.

“The system is on overload,” Stier told NBC News. “You have too many people trying to get jammed through the Senate.”

IMAGE: Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney.

Report: Top White House Aides Losing Patience With Trump

Report: Top White House Aides Losing Patience With Trump

 

President Donald Trump’s White House and administration have seen unprecedented turnover, and according to a new report from Vanity Fair reporter Gabriel Sherman, the boss is continuing to frustrate and alienate many of his top advisers.

Sherman reported that Communications Director Bill Shine, Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, and economic adviser Larry Kudlow are all growing frustrated with Trump, particularly after the disastrous government shutdown.

The report explained:

White House Communications Director Bill Shine has told friends he’s angry that Trump has singled him out for the bad press during the government shutdown. “Bill is like, ‘you’re the guy who steps on the message more than anyone,’” said a Republican who’s spoken with Shine recently. Economic adviser Larry Kudlow has told people he’s probably got six months left. “Larry’s really tired of it all,” a source close to Kudlow said.

…The special privileges and access afforded to Kushner and Ivanka have been alienating Trump’s acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney. “Mick is not entirely thrilled with the family,” a Republican close to Mulvaney told me. Multiple sources said Mulvaney is looking for a way out of the West Wing. He’s said to be interested in a Cabinet position, either at the Commerce Department or Treasury, and he’s reportedly been pursuing the University of South Carolina presidency. A senior White House official recently lobbied a friend of Mulvaney’s to convince Mulvaney to stay.

Sherman also reported that Trump was generally pleased with the reaction to his State of the Union, which drew some praise from conservative corners.

But the continuing dysfunction in the White House — and Trump’s reported habit of primarily relying on his family members — indicates that the president’s worst tendencies are not abating. He’s not capable of running a well-managed administration that competently handles complex situations as they arise or creates effective decision-making procedures to drive a positive political agenda.

“Trump is hated by everyone inside the White House,” a former White House official reportedly told Sherman. “It’s total misery. People feel trapped.”

Danziger: The Check Is In The Mail

Danziger: The Check Is In The Mail

#EndorseThis: Trump’s Worried Aides Leaking All Over His New Presidency

#EndorseThis: Trump’s Worried Aides Leaking All Over His New Presidency

Donald Trump has yet to complete the first week of his presidency, and already his worried aides are leaking all over him with unattributed quotes that depict the man as a childish ignoramus who spends too much time on Twitter and watching cable TV, and too little time on policy and governance. In other words, the same narcissistic, intellectually stunted clown whose election we warned against months ago.

What the torrent of leaks suggests is that those same worried aides — the GOP appartchiks who lie publicly on Trump’s behalf about voter fraud, the size of the Inauguration Day crowd on the National Mall, and scores of other topics — are now telling the truth “off the record” to the Washington reporters despised by their boss.

Seth Meyers takes “a closer look” at the weird fugue state of the White House, truly “unpresidented” (as Trump might tweet)  in the annals of any new administration. Scary and weird, but somehow still funny.