March 6
On This Day In 2018
Trump’s White House is the “most toxic working environment on the planet.”
As a Trump staffer elaborated to Axios: “Usually tough times bring people together. But right now this atmosphere is ripping people apart. There's no leadership, no trust, no direction and at this point there's very little hope.”
And that quote came only 14 months into the Trump Administration! Spoiler alert: It did not get any better in the final three years.
So why does that matter? Trump had a difficult time getting top-ranked experts to join his Cabinet, given his horrible personal reputation. So he was left with third-rate advisors, in a period when top-rated people might have helped overcome Trump’s own inexperience and questionable decision-making.
But even the folks who did join his team quickly decided to leave.
OTDI 2018, the White House announced the departure of yet another top aide, Gary Cohn, the Director of the Economic Council. It was part of a continuing pattern. Here are the numbers, as reported by CNN:
“57% of Trump’s ‘A Team’ staffers have left the White House in just its first year and a half, according to statistics maintained by Brookings Institute’s Kathryn Dunn Tenpas. That nearly equals the turnover among top staffers for the entire first terms of Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George H.W. Bush.
And “Tenpas’ data may actually undersell the changes in Trump’s Administration, given that she only counts one departure for each office. So, while Trump has had five communications directors since being elected President, they only count as one departure in Tenpas’ calculations.
“Focusing just on Cabinet secretaries, the numbers are equally stunning for Trump…and may underestimate the chaos of Trump’s Cabinet.”
Knowledge, experience, and continuity help define excellence in these jobs. Some turnover is fine. Trumpian “chaos” is not.
Sources/Links for further reading
Axios explains why Trump’s White House is uniquely awful
CNN details Trump’s inability to keep top staffers
On This Day In The Trump Administration: Trump’s White House is the “most toxic working environment on the planet;” can't keep good staffers. More turnover than his predecessors combined.