In the event of re-election for a second term, Donald Trump did not rule out the resignation of his entire cabinet. The American leader said this at a press conference in Bedminster (New Jersey). He added that he will again recruit those people who meet his requirements.

“In general, as I understand it, (as it happens - RT ), in many cases, if we win, the president dismisses everyone, and then recruits those he wants. This has happened before. I think it makes sense. I have a very nice office with few exceptions. I cannot say that I am delighted with everyone, "Trump said.

At the same time, the head of the White House did not confirm the information of the American media about plans to remove from his post the head of the Pentagon Mark Esper in case of victory in November.

“No, I get along well with him (Esper - RT ). Everything is all right with him, ”the American leader noted.

We will remind, the messages about the intentions of the head of the White House to fire Esper appeared after the head of the Pentagon opposed Trump's idea of ​​using the army against demonstrators. The minister then stressed that he does not support initiatives calling for the application of the law "On uprising".

Staff turnover

In the United States, officials from the Trump team have repeatedly become the targets of fierce criticism, especially from the Democrats.

So, at the end of July, Democratic Party members from the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee released a report claiming that the effectiveness of the Department of State is decreasing due to poor leadership from the head of the department Mike Pompeo and the Donald Trump administration.

It is noted that "for the last three and a half years" the structure "has suffered from the suspension of recruitment, inept attempts to" reform ", initiatives to reduce funding, as well as" long vacancies. " As an example, the situation is given when the Trump administration did not submit a candidacy for the post of deputy foreign minister for arms control for almost a year and spent another six months to find a replacement in the person of Marshall Billingsley. The document also says that the Trump administration has often offered to consider candidates with insufficient qualifications to work in the State Department.

Trump himself was sometimes dissatisfied with the work of his team, who repeatedly removed advisers and other representatives from their posts.

One of the most notorious stories was the dismissal of John Bolton, who served as the president's national security adviser. Trump decided to remove him from office in September 2019, explaining this by disagreeing with Bolton's approach to international relations. As the head of the White House noted then, the ex-adviser "made very big mistakes." 

Several months after Bolton was fired, excerpts from his new book began to appear in the media, in which he talks about "abuse of power" by the president. The US Department of Justice, in turn, accused the former adviser of disclosing classified information and filed a lawsuit against Bolton, but the memoirs about his work in the Trump administration were eventually published anyway. In the White House, the publication of the book was regarded as a betrayal. Trump even called Bolton's work "lies" and "made-up stories."

Earlier, in March 2018, Trump dismissed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and nominated CIA Director Mike Pompeo for this position. As noted by sources in the White House, this was due to the negotiations on North Korea. Trump previously criticized Tillerson for his policies, claiming that he was wasting time negotiating with Kim Jong-un.

  • US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
  • Reuters
  • © Petr David Josek / Pool

Just a few months after his appointment, Pompeo advised officials who disagree with the 45th US president's policies to step down. Then he explained this by the fact that Trump wants to establish joint work of American departments.

At the same time, the turnover in the president's team is more a trend than an exception to the rule, political analysts note. Trump regularly fires employees heading a wide variety of structures. So, in June, he changed the head of the election headquarters, in April he decided to dismiss the Inspector General of the intelligence community, Michael Atkinson, who played an important role in the process of launching the impeachment procedure, in February 2019 he removed the head of the Pentagon, James Mattis, in November 2018, Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and in December of the same year, he announced the dismissal of the country's Interior Minister Ryan Zinke, who was accused of embezzling budget funds.

"The problems have not disappeared anywhere"

As the director of the Franklin Roosevelt Foundation for the Study of the United States at Moscow State University, Yuri Rogulyov, notes, this state of affairs is "not surprising" since Trump entered politics from business without having trusted representatives among the political elite.

“Trump never managed to organize a team of officials who would support him in everything. Accordingly, there are no his direct followers in political terms, people on whom he could rely as much as possible. Hence such frequent resignations and staff turnover. Trump came to the White House from his business, which he ran all his life. And there he hired whoever he wanted, and in the same way he fired. He adheres to the same principle in the presidency, given that he was not in the civil service and had not been involved in politics before, "Rogulyov explained in a conversation with RT.

He noted that "problems with the staffing of Trump's team are still observed."

“Even now, when his presidential term comes to an end, a significant number of such vacancies are not filled. Moreover, turnover is observed even in those posts for which he himself appointed candidates. One of the side effects of all this is the leakage of confidential information, which then emerges in the media, ”Rogulyov stated.

He also added that initially in the Trump cabinet "there were a sufficient number of people who either did not trust him or were critical of him."

“We have observed this, and these problems have not disappeared anywhere,” the expert noted.

At the same time, Trump, according to Rogulev, has just now demonstrated his readiness to completely change his environment in order to “distance himself from the cabinet, which is accused, in particular, of ineffective fight against coronavirus infection”.

“He does not exclude the possibility of replacing some of the officials, thereby recognizing that there are those in the cabinet who really need to be replaced. All this is needed to reduce the intensity of criticism in his direction for incompetent or insufficient actions regarding COVID-19 and the consequences of fighting the pandemic. So he wants to shift some of the responsibility off to his cabinet members, ”the analyst says.

  • White House
  • Reuters
  • © Al Drago

Nikita Danyuk, director of the Institute for Strategic Studies and Forecasts of RUDN University, adheres to a similar point of view. According to him, Trump's electoral strategy is to focus voters' attention on their merits and "try to write off the shortcomings on the persons who were responsible for specific areas of activity."

At the same time, according to Danyuk, the "personnel leapfrog" that is observed during the Trump presidency is due to the fact that the head of the White House "is very often important not professional competence, but maximum loyalty."

“Therefore, when he is under the pressure of criticism, and members of his team do not defend him, but try to abstract away, he perceives it as a betrayal. Hence the statements about the change of his cabinet, "Danyuk said in an interview with RT.

At the same time, political analysts doubt that Trump will be able to assemble a more effective team a second time if he is re-elected.

“However, such a turn of events cannot be ruled out. After all, now the head of Bely already has more experience, he knows more people from the world of politics, ”says Rogulyov.