The Very Best People: President Trump and the Management of Executive Personnel

Abstract

To his supporters, one very attractive feature of Donald Trump's candidacy was his prior experience as a business executive. Trump promised that he would run America like a business and would select the very best people. In this article, we evaluate President Trump's approach to managing the executive branch by scrutinizing his approach to personnel. We reference two sources of important new data. We first examine data on nominations to all Senate‐confirmed positions during the last three presidencies. We also use data from the 2007, 2014, and 2020 (preliminary) Surveys on the Future of Government Service, surveys of thousands of appointed and career federal executives, to determine whether the president selected the very best people. We conclude by using the survey data to evaluate whether the president’s approach led to effective management. A close look at the new data reveals that the president has been slow to nominate officials to key positions. Federal executives rate the persons the president has appointed as less competent than appointees from the Bush administration or civil servants from the current one. The survey data also reveal that the president’s approach has done nothing to arrest the decline in the capacity of the public service. We conclude by discussing the implications of the Trump presidency for our traditional understanding of the president as chief executive. Specifically, we discuss whether we should reevaluate common beliefs about presidents caring inherently about the management of the executive.

Presidential Strategy amidst the “Broken” Appointments Process

“…While these costs alone may make a president short on time and resources consider an alternate route of appointments, Senate delays and decreased confirmation rates have required presidents to further consider alternatives (O'Connell 2014). With the traditional route made more demanding and less fruitful, confirmation is often only sought immediately for the most important positions (Lewis and Richardson 2021; O'Connell 2009). Presidents have increasingly left the remaining broad swath of PAS positions vacant for extended periods of time (Dull and Roberts 2009; Hollibaugh and Rothenberg 2017; Lewis and Richardson 2021; O'Connell 2009; Resh et al 2021).…”

“…In the face of this slowed down and less deferential appointments process, presidents often abandon the traditional route of appointments. During the first two years of the last three administrations, presidents on average have only made nominations to approximately 70% of presidentially appointed and Senate‐confirmed (PAS) positions, with the average time to nomination taking well over one year for each administration (Lewis and Richardson 2021). Further, between 1996 and 2016, only 60% of vacancies reported to the Government Accountability Office received subsequent nominations from the president (Kinane 2021).…”

Organizing the Biden Presidency

“…Most of the delay in getting appointments on board has been due to vetting and getting people actually nominated. At the end of their first two years in office, Bush 43, Obama, and Trump had made no nominations for 30% of Senate‐confirmed positions (Lewis 2021, 38). Though most delays are due to presidential failures to nominate, Senate confirmation has slowed from an average of 56 days during the Reagan administration to 115 days in the Trump administration (Partnership for Public Service 2020).…”

Not by the Numbers: Evaluating Trump's Administrative Presidency

“…Recent work highlights how executive branch agencies can increase presidents' transaction costs (Rudalevige 2021) or even undercut their goals (Potter 2019). But Trump regularly found himself at odds with career bureaucrats (Moynihan 2021) and lacked competent political appointees (Lewis and Richardson 2021).…”

“…But Trump regularly found himself at odds with career bureaucrats (Moynihan 2021) and lacked competent political appointees (Lewis and Richardson 2021).…”