One of the biggest shortcomings of President Donald Trump’s tenure in office was its revealed lack of fully supportive Cabinet secretaries and career officials in various agencies and departments who were committed to implementing his “America First” policy agenda.
If Trump should win re-election to a second term in 2024, hiring better and more like-minded personnel to support his agenda would be a top priority, The Western Journal reported.
Trump himself acknowledged as much in a recent discussion with Thomas Klingenstein, chairman of the board of The Claremont Institute, when asked about what he might do differently if he were to be re-elected as president.
“People, people, people”
Klingenstein wrote about his recent telephone conversation with former President Trump in the Claremont Institute’s publication, The American Mind, which covered a variety of topics.
“I asked President Trump what two or three things he would do differently were he to get a second term. He gave me a very good answer, I think — he said, ‘People, people, people,'” Klingenstein wrote. “Obviously, he knows that many in his administration ill-served him, sometimes even undercut him.”
Trump reiterated, as he has noted previously, that he’d only been to Washington D.C. a handful of times prior to being elected president, and therefore was not familiar with how the political establishment operates, “And so he took advice from the wrong people, RINOS mostly.”
“I asked what he would do differently were there a next time,” Klingenstein added. “He responded in the common-sense way he invariably does: ‘I now know the right people,’ he said.”
Loyalists recruiting and vetting future staffers
Making better personnel and hiring decisions, based on recommendations from “the right people” instead of establishment types, was an overarching aspect of a lengthy article from Axios in July about the “radical plan” to fundamentally alter the federal bureaucracy staffing-wise in a prospective second term for Trump.
Trump is now surrounded by true loyalists who are actually committed to his “America First” agenda and is supported by a number of legitimately pro-Trump organizations and policy think tanks. Gone are the establishment types who advised Trump to hire other establishment types who then worked subversively to block, stall, or undermine the president’s agenda.
Those loyal individuals and groups have reportedly been hard at work to recruit and create databases of thoroughly vetted candidates who are devoted to the “America First” policy agenda to not only fill out Cabinet positions but also the arguably more important upper- and mid-level management of the various departments and agencies, as well as Republican staff positions in Congress.
Actually draining the “swamp” of federal bureaucrats
Also at play is a plan to use executive action on Day One to change the way federal employees, particularly career bureaucrats, are categorized and to make it easier for them to be fired and replaced if they are insufficiently committed to advancing Trump’s “America First” agenda.
As much as Trump was blocked at virtually every turn by Democrats and establishment Republicans, it can be argued that it was the disloyal career officials who fill out the ranks of the federal bureaucracy who did the most to stymie and subvert Trump’s agenda, and it is good that this problem appears to be a top concern to be immediately addressed if Trump returns to the White House.