Two months into his second term, Donald Trump’s White House Cabinet is just about full, with the Republican-led Senate confirming each of the president’s nominees. But as NBC News reported, the public doesn’t seem overly impressed.
A majority of American voters are generally disappointed with the people President Donald Trump has appointed to posts in his administration, according to an NBC News poll earlier this month — a record share in a question NBC News has measured at the start of four previous administrations.
It’s important to emphasize that the poll was conducted before the public learned that the White House’s national security team chatted in a Signal group about the sensitive operational details of a military strike in Yemen — potentially in violation of some federal laws — after they accidentally included Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, in their unsecured online conversation.
Even without this knowledge, 52% of Americans said they were “generally disappointed with the people Trump had appointed to lead federal agencies and departments” — the worst support for a Cabinet in the 21st century.
The survey results are notable, but they’re also a timely reminder of an underappreciated point: White House Cabinet agencies and their leaders matter, and when departments are led by unqualified amateurs, dangerous consequences are inevitable.
In early 2017, just a couple of days before Trump’s first inaugural, Matt Yglesias wrote a smart piece for Vox about Senate Republicans scrambling to confirm nominees who had no business leading powerful federal agencies. “[T]he GOP is only sabotaging itself by allowing Trump to draft this C-list roster,” Yglesias explained. “The president can’t be everywhere simultaneously — an effective Cabinet is how he extends his reach, influences more people, and gets more done. Rushing weak candidates through is a good way to put points on the board, but only weakens their own administration in the long run.”
The admonition proved prescient: GOP senators confirmed ill-equipped nominees, many of whom struggled mightily in their roles, some of whom were caught up in ethics scandals, and a few of whom were even referred to the Justice Department for possible criminal prosecution. Trump, in several instances, ended up publicly clashing with his own choices for his own Cabinet. The result was an administration that failed countless governing tests. Senate Republicans, driven by partisan loyalties, thought they were helping the president by confirming his unqualified first-term choices, but no one, including Trump, benefited when the administration struggled in tasks large and small. In the president’s second term, the problem doesn’t just persist, it’s actually worse, as Trump surrounds himself with more Cabinet secretaries who show loyalty to him personally but who are manifestly ill-suited to oversee powerful federal departments and agencies. The scandal known as “Signalgate” has brought this into sharp relief, and in the coming months, there’s no reason to believe the systemic problem will get any better.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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