Trump Faces Starting Term Without a Cabinet

With less than 10 days until President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, Republicans worry that government bureaucracy will prevent the new president from starting his term with a fully confirmed Cabinet.

Cabinet and Cabinet-level nominees traditionally face extensive paperwork obligations, including FBI background checks and financial disclosures, but Republicans are now suggesting that this bureaucratic process has the potential to obstruct Trump’s agenda in the early days of his administration. As the Washington saying goes, “Personnel is policy.” The Senate needs to act quickly if senators want the Trump agenda to become the Trump reality. 

Some Senate Republicans have proposed beginning the hearings for Trump’s nominees while the rest of their required paperwork is being completed. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, for example, has scheduled a hearing next week for energy secretary nominee Doug Burgum as he continues to complete his paperwork and send it to senators. 

A majority of both Trump and Joe Biden’s initial Cabinet or Cabinet-level nominees who were not withdrawn were confirmed either in February or March of the president’s first year in office. 

During Trump’s first term, his secretary of defense and secretary of homeland security nominees were the only nominees confirmed the first day. Those picks, Jim Mattis and John Kelly, had a much easier time navigating the national security bureaucracy as both were retired four-star Marine Corps generals. Their stars also evoked a certain level of deference from senators considering their confirmation.

By the end of January 2017, Trump had five total Cabinet-level nominees confirmed (four department heads and the ambassador to the United Nations). The last initial Trump department nominee to be confirmed was the head of the Department of Agriculture, Sonny Perdue, who took office on April 25, 2017, over a year after the administration began. Alex Acosta, Trump’s second nominee to lead the Department of Labor was confirmed by the Senate two days later. 

It was not until May 2017 that the Senate had fully confirmed all of Trump’s Cabinet and Cabinet-level posts.

Biden had similar results getting his nominees confirmed before the end of his first month in office. He had four Cabinet-level positions filled by the end of January 2021. Those were his nominees to lead the Defense Department, State Department, and Treasury Department, plus the director of national intelligence. Biden’s last initial Cabinet-level nominee was confirmed just four months later, in May 2021. 

Recent reporting on the nominees for the second Trump Cabinet has suggested that secretary of state nominee Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.; ambassador to the United Nations nominee Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y.; and director of Central Intelligence Agency nominee John Ratcliffe are the most likely to be confirmed on Day One. 

Rubio appeared cheerful in a post about a meeting he had last month with Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, and the hawkish Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., about his nomination.

Both Rubio and Stefanik have experience with contentious hearings through their time in Congress, and they both still have connections on Capitol Hill. Stefanik, known for her grilling of university presidents during a hearing on campus antisemitism, has not yet resigned her seat in the House of Representatives and has served in House GOP leadership, which means she has extensive relationships with both House and Senate members.

Before Ratcliffe served as the director of national intelligence from May 2020 until the end of Trump’s first term, he also was a member of Congress. The combination of legislative and national security experience will serve as a boon for the CIA-bound Ratcliffe. But Rubio has an even greater advantage because he is not only a member of the body considering his nomination but is considered a leading voice on foreign affairs.

Having won both houses of Congress and the White House, Republicans are tasked now with governing. They will have a lot on their plate in the upcoming months, including passing one or more reconciliation bills to attempt to implement many of Trump’s priorities, such as deporting illegal aliens, renewing the American energy industry, and passing tax cuts. Failing to implement such “America First” priorities has the potential to imperil the Republicans during the midterm elections.

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