Day 137: Donald Trump Can’t Stop Sabotaging His Own Team
If there’s been one theme from the past 137 days, it’s been abject chaos in the White House. A large percentage of that stems from an ineffectual leader who continues to put his team in awful positions for success.
Today, Politico reported that Donald Trump made a few last minute changes to his speech in front of NATO leaders last week, blindsiding his national security team. He failed to include language reaffirming the critical Article 5 provision that stipulates a threat to one member is a threat to all members. Plainly, without Article 5, NATO is worthless. National security adviser H.R. McMaster, Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson all supported underscoring the importance of the provision at the summit and worked hard to ensure it was included in the speech. As recently as the day before the speech, it was included. But in the last 24 hours, edits to the speech were made.
It was not until the next day, Thursday, May 25, when Trump started talking at an opening ceremony for NATO’s new Brussels headquarters, that the president’s national security team realized their boss had made a decision with major consequences — without consulting or even informing them in advance of the change.
Of course, this put the entire national security team in an awful position. Caught flat-footed, not realizing that Trump had made crucial last minute changes, they were forced to spin Trump’s words and engage with and reassure their colleagues quietly through diplomatic channels.
That’s has been a recurring problem since Trump’s first weekend as president when he sent Press Secretary Sean Spicer to the podium to berate the media and declare that Trump had the greatest inauguration turnout in the history of the universe. Spicer’s credibility hasn’t been the same since.
Trump has put other members of his team in similarly bad spots.
He pronounced son-in-law Jared Kushner, a 36-year old — who doesn’t appear to have many actual skills beyond being born rich and marrying a Trump — would be in charge of everything from peace in the Middle East to opioid epidemic in America to diplomacy with China to reforming the VA to streamlining the federal government. Even if Kushner hadn’t begun to dug his own grave by committing numerous felonies, there was 0.00% chance he could accomplish all of the things that were was put on his plate.
Furthermore, most of the top jobs throughout government remain dangerously understaffed, something that’s been a huge issue for months.
Trump has nominated a mere 55 people in the last two and a half months. This puts extra strain on all of his secretaries and deputies. It limits the amount of work they can get done.
For certain positions, it greatly restricts departments’ ability to respond effectively in the event of pressing events, or worse, national emergencies.
Furthermore, lawyers at the DOJ attempting to argue that the Muslim Ban is actually a Travel Ban are undercut by Trump’s own statements to the contrary on Twitter and at rallies. When they lose due in large part to Trump’s words, Trump blames the courts. Look at today, for instance.
Trump managed to simultaneously blame the DOJ for his unilateral decision and made it more difficult for them to advocate for his policies.
His words on social media are so scattered and often crazy, that is puts his entire team in spin mode for days on end. Republicans in Congress are unable to push their agenda because they’re forced to answer questions about middle of the night tweets.
Numerous stories over the last few months have indicated members of his inner circle are close to being fired. Others state that Trump loves a chaotic environment and a “survival of the fittest” attitude around him. Both of these contribute to backstabbing, leaks and strife that compound the inability to get anything done.
Not only does Trump put his team in positions that have a high chance of failure, but he encourages his team to put other members of the team in positions that have a high chance of failure.
137 days in, 1325 to go
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