According to a report at the Washington Post, Donald Trump is still in the process of pushing out experts serving the government in multiple capacities and filling their positions with "rogues" and sycophants who will tell him what he wants to hear instead of harsh realities.
That trend is likely to continue if he survives impeachment and is re-elected.
As the report notes, "When he first took office, most assumed the new president would adapt, perhaps against his will, to the ways of Washington, its bureaucratic processes and legions of subject matter experts."
"Instead the president has turned the U.S. government into a version of the Trump Organization, full of wheeler dealers inside and outside the official ranks who exist to do his political bidding," the report from Greg Jaffe continues "In this version of Trump’s Washington, the rogue actors are the real players and the traditional, professional class in the National Security Council, the State Department and the Pentagon are largely irrelevant."
Pointing out that the president has turned over the reins of power to outsiders like appointee Gordon Sondland who, in his position as European Union ambassador, oversaw experts like Fiona Hill, a top adviser on Russia and Europe, the report states that Trump's management style does not value expertise.
"From the moment he took office Trump has shown little interest in working the traditional levers of state, which he views as slow, cumbersome and untrustworthy," the report states. "His national security advisers, meanwhile, have struggled and largely failed to adapt to his unusual approach to governing. Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, who was fired by Trump in 2018, sought to leverage the foreign policy bureaucracy's expertise on behalf of a president with virtually no national security experience."
Noting, "The prospect of an angry and mistrustful Trump alarms old Washington," the report quotes a former State Department official who spent two years serving in the Trump White House, saying, “Unfortunately, the impeachment will make the president hellbent on the destruction of the civil service if he wins a second term," before adding, “It’s terrifying.”
You can read more here.
