Washington (AP) There are many of leaders in American political history who made the pledge to upend Washington after taking office. Donald Trump, however, might turn out to be unique and seems more concerned with subduing the federal government than with readjusting it.
A potential war of attrition between the future Republican president and American institutions has been set up by Trump’s tendency to choose individuals who mistrust or even despise the organizations they have been appointed to command while filling his government.
According to presidential historian Doug Brinkley, there has never been anything similar to what Trump is proposing. Dismantling the federal government is what we are discussing.
As Kash Patel, Trump’s nominee for FBI director, travels to Capitol Hill for a preliminary round of discussions with senators who will determine whether to confirm him to the position, his strategy will become much more apparent this week. Patel, a former national security officer who has described himself as an avid Trump supporter, has discussed closing the agency’s headquarters, dividing its duties, and going after Trump’s alleged adversaries.
Trump appears to want to integrate the country’s law enforcement agencies into his political operation, which is based in the White House, according to Greg Brower, a former U.S. attorney who was the FBI’s senior congressional affairs director.
Brower stated, “I’m just not sure a majority of senators are willing to endorse that major course change.”
Trump wants Pete Hegseth to run the Pentagon, but Republican senators are already debating whether to back him despite claims of financial mismanagement, heavy drinking, and sexual misbehavior. Hegseth, a former Fox News contributor and Army veteran, has said that woke liberal philosophy is pervasive in the military. Additionally, he wants to eliminate women from combat roles.
The next government aims to dismantle the Deep State, a term used to describe long-standing civil workers who have irritated Trump and his supporters, according to Karoline Leavitt, a spokesman for Trump’s transition team and the incoming White House press secretary.
She stated in a statement that the American people’s overwhelming mandate to alter the status quo in Washington led to President Trump’s reelection. That s why he has chosen brilliant and highly-respected outsiders to serve in his Administration, and he will continue to stand behind them as they fight against all those who seek to derail the MAGA Agenda.
Margaret Spelling, who served as education secretary under President George W. Bush, said it is probably not a good management style to treat government employees as adversaries.
If you re going to turn the tide or redirect the ship of state, you ve got to have help doing it, she said. And that s people who work there already.
Spelling s former department could be outright eliminated if Trump has his way. Hischoice of education secretary, Linda McMahon, has never worked in the field. She served for one year on the Connecticut Board of Education and is a member of the board of trustees at a private university. McMahon lead the Small Business Administration during Trump s first term, and she made a name for herself by running World Wrestling Entertainment, a cultural juggernaut that features musclebound men beating each other up in elaborately scripted fights.
Trump s plans for the federal government blend conservative ideology, which has long viewed Washington as too intrusive in Americans daily lives, with his personal vendettas. After being plagued by investigations and contradicted by career officials during his first term, the returning president has no interest in a replay and he s more skeptical of insider views that clash with his own instincts.
Some of his personnel choices have alarmed political opponents, but Trump s approach could prove appealing to voters whose faith in governmenthas sunk to record lows in recent years.Only about 2 in 10 Americans trust the government to do the right thing always or most of the time,according to the Pew Research Center, down from around 4 in 10 who said this in 2000 before the upheaval of a global financial crisis, an inconclusive war on terrorism and a worldwide pandemic.
Kay Schlozman, a Boston College political science professor, said Trump s nominees could be viewed as an extension of his capacity to question the received wisdom and question the supposed elites who always run everything.
Some of the largest gaps between expertise and personnel have been evident in public health. Trump chose Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tolead the Department of Health and Human Servicesdespite his reputation as one of the most prolific spreaders of unfounded theories aboutthe supposed danger of vaccines.
Trump also picked Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a critic of public health measures like lockdowns and vaccine mandates that were used during the coronavirus outbreak,to run the National Institutes of Health, the country s top medical research agency.
In other areas of government, loyalty has often been prized over expertise. Lee Zeldin, a former New York congressman, never served on any committees dealing with the environment during nearly a decade on Capitol Hill. Now he s on deck to lead the Environmental Protection Agency.
Brinkley said it s not uncommon to have presidents attempt to change how Washington works. Richard Nixon tried to circumvent government agencies by centralizing decision-making in the White House, and Warren Harding stocked his Cabinet with business leaders.
But Brinkley said Trump s approach is more venomous, and he seems to be setting up his staff to compete to be the most zealous.
It s got a gladiator feel, he said. They each want to show that they ve got a scalp to punish the so-called deep state, the legacy media or the Democratic Party.
Another way that Trump is taking on Washington is theDepartment of Government Efficiency, an independent advisory organization that will be run by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.
Musk, the world s richest man, and Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur, plan to provide ideas ondramatically reducingfederal spending and cutting the government workforce. They also said Trump should sidestep Congress whenever possible,setting up a potential constitutional clash.
Theda Skocpol, a Harvard University professor of government and sociology, agreed that Americans are often doubtful about Washington s effectiveness.
But it doesn t mean there s going to be an easy path to eliminating entire departments or functions of government because people will realize they have the stakes in those things, she said.
However, Skocpol said, chaos might be the actual goal.
Parts of American conservatism have been trying to make government a mess when they control it, and then use it as an argument for less government, she said.
____ Associated Press writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report.
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