For a while Trump tried to blame Democrats for obstructing the confirmation of his nominees. Then all of the sudden he switched and said that he had no plans to fill all those “unnecessary” positions.
“When I see a story about ‘Donald Trump didn’t fill hundreds and hundreds of jobs,’ it’s because, in many cases, we don’t want to fill those jobs,” Trump said…
“A lot of those jobs, I don’t want to appoint, because they’re unnecessary to have,” Trump said. “You know, we have so many people in government, even me. I look at some of the jobs and it’s people over people over people. I say, ‘What do all these people do?’ You don’t need all those jobs.”
Over four months into this administration, Politico reports:
According to the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service, the White House has announced nominees for just 117 of the 559 most important Senate-confirmed positions.
But apparently the administration is running into yet another problem with this.
President Donald Trump’s effort to fill hundreds of vacant jobs across the federal government has hit a new snag: Russia.
Potential hires are paying close attention to the expanding investigations, which have now begun to touch senior Trump aides, with some questioning whether they want to join the administration.
In writing about Trump’s need to hire a new communications director now that Mike Dubke resigned, Buzzfeed talked to 20 Republican communicators and operatives to get their perspective. The responses were, shall we say, interesting.
“Hell no!” said one Republican — one of the most common types of response BuzzFeed News got from operatives. “That would be career suicide.”…
“That’s like asking someone who just witnessed a horrific bungee jumping accident whether they would like to go next,” one Republican source responded in a text message.
“It would be only a few months on the job before tapping out the ‘I want to spend more time with family’ email,” another said…
“It’s attractive to someone who is willing to ruin their reputation or who isn’t worried about what the future of their career looks like,” said one GOP communications specialist with presidential campaign experience. “You have to be willing to manage the unmanageable.”
Said a second veteran of the Bush White House: “You’re going to come out of the administration with your reputation in tatters, your credibility utterly destroyed, and your job prospects close to nil unless you want a low-level CNN contributorship.”
But my absolute favorite came from someone who was trying to put a positive spin on the possibilities.
“Coming on board now is a bit like taking over communications for the White Star Line after the Titanic has sunk,” a former George W. Bush staffer said. “I mean, no one is going to blame you and how much worse can it possibly get?”
I hate to tell you “former George W. Bush staffer,” but it can (and probably will) get a lot worse. Even if it doesn’t, there is this to contend with:
“You’ve got to get a lawyer if you go in there,” a former GOP communications staffer said. “It’s not just what you get paid, it’s, ‘Is there a stipend for your legal expenses?’”
On the one hand, I’m tempted to point and laugh at the ridiculous notion of anyone choosing to go to work for this knucklehead. But then I remember the consequences of having an idiot in the White House surrounded by idiots who work for him. In other words, like everything else associated with Trump, there’s no good ending to this story.
