In his first year back in the White House, President Donald Trump avoided using his famous “You’re fired” phrase when it came to members of his Cabinet. But this year is shaping up to have far more changes.
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In less than a month, Trump removed Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi. The shake-up has spurred the possibility that the president’s desire to project stability among his top appointees has passed, and more changes are coming in the near future.
“I expect something in terms of the next several weeks, and the president is mulling both changes and reorganizations,” said a person directly familiar with Trump’s thinking, who added that they didn’t know who could be next.
Nothing, of course, is certain, and individuals who are in his favor may suddenly find themselves out, and vice versa.
It’s a stark departure from Trump’s previous term. Then, several high-level administration officials left during his first year in office, including Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price, national security adviser Michael Flynn and White House chief of staff Reince Priebus.
This time, some top administration officials have faced high-profile scandals or missteps, but Trump opted not to remove them.
“For the first year, they wanted to avoid the bad optics — the stuff that comes with high-level staff churn,” said a Trump ally, who, like others in this article, was granted anonymity to speak freely. “That is ending. He no longer seems to care about the perception issue.”
Among those who have been at the center of public controversies or missteps are Department of Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, each of whom has received varying degrees of public backlash for personal scandal or decisions their agencies have made.
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Why did President Trump fire Pam Bondi?
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Lutnick has been caught up in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, forced to explain why he appears multiple times in the late convicted sex offender’s files and why he visited his private island. Lutnick has said he “did not have any relationship with him.”
“He’s been on the rocks off and on,” a Trump adviser said of Lutnick’s standing.
The adviser said he’s also fallen out of favor with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles.
“I don’t think she is a big fan,” a second Trump ally familiar with the White House’s thinking said. “That can be a problem if the administration is in reset mode.”
A White House spokesperson said that Trump continues to support his administration officials.
“President Trump has the most talented cabinet and team in American history,” White House spokesman Davis Ingle. “Patriots like DNI Gabbard, Secretary Lutnick, and Secretary Chavez-DeRemer are tirelessly implementing the President’s agenda and achieving tremendous results for the American people. They continue to have the President’s full confidence.”
Spokespeople for Lutnick, Gabbard and Chavez-DeRemer did not immediately return requests for comment.
Wiles, these two sources said, had been a driving force behind the idea that Trump’s first year in office should not be dominated by headlines of administration turnover, but that calculation from top officials has since changed.
“Susie was trying to hold it off as long as she could, but once you oust the attorney general, you may as well rip the Band-Aid off on a couple of others,” the Trump ally said.
Some see the timing — more than a year into the administration — as a natural point for turnover and a signal that Trump is willing to adjust when he deems course corrections necessary.
“It’s a year and a half in, and they are analyzing what’s working and what’s not working,” said a former administration official from Trump’s first term. “He understands that there are times when you need to make a change.”
“He’s a demanding boss,” the person added. “He has high expectations at all times.”
Others say that if there’s more reshuffling — the president is famously the host of “The Apprentice,” a show based on firing contestants — it’s a return to form for Trump.
“Watching the Cabinet right now is like a reality TV show — but it’s not ‘The Apprentice’ as much as it may be ‘Survivor,’” said Matthew Barlett, a GOP consultant who worked in the first Trump administration. “Personal responsibility and public accountability are essential in government service, but these moves seem more about presidential loyalty and frustration.”
A shake-up before the November election also has the added benefit of some certainty in the Senate, where Republicans control the majority and are more likely to confirm Trump’s nominees. Waiting to bring in new officials until after November risks running into the potential of Democrats in charge, or a narrow margin of Republican control.
Trump announced Noem — who faced significant backlash and congressional scrutiny over a $220-million taxpayer-funded ad campaign prominently featuring her encouraging migrants to self-deport — was leaving DHS in a social media post shortly before she was set to give the keynote address at a Nashville event attended by members of police unions.
A few weeks later, Trump informed Bondi that her time was nearing an end while they were in the motorcade together on the way to the Supreme Court on Wednesday, according to an administration official, but they didn’t finalize the decision or timeline in that conversation. It was left open-ended, the official said, and Bondi thought she might still be able to save her job.
The next day, Trump announced she was fired.
The administration official described the Noem and Bondi firings as “totally separate situations.” Trump had been considering firing Bondi for months, whereas the decision to fire Noem was quicker. Trump told NBC News he “wasn’t thrilled“ with Noem’s performance testifying before Congress in March and the $220-million ad campaign.
Bondi, on the other hand, had lost the confidence of Trump and his allies over time for her handling of the Epstein files and the Justice Department’s inability to secure indictments against the president’s political foes, as NBC News previously reported.
Trump praised Noem and Bondi after their departures. He moved Noem to another administration job leading the newly created Shield of Americas, and he called Bondi a “Great American Patriot.” Bondi said she will be moving into the private sector.
Matt Schlapp, chairman of the Conservative Political Action Conference, interviewed then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche onstage last week in Texas at the group’s annual meeting. That was a few days before Bondi was fired and Blanche became acting attorney general.
Schlapp, in an interview on Friday, said that he had told Blanche beforehand about the criticism that the Justice Department hadn’t done enough to hold Joe Biden’s administration accountable for what Schlapp called “clear wrongdoing.”
Blanche told Schlapp that he welcomed “hard questions” and was prepared to give “good answers,” Schlapp recalled.
“He was certainly aware that people are saying, ‘Come on, why are people taking so long’” to prosecute former Biden administration officials, Schlapp told NBC News.
But even with a change in leadership at the Justice Department, the prosecutions still might not be as successful as Trump would like — coming up against facts, law and evidence that do not support viable criminal prosecutions, according to former federal prosecutors.
Aside from Lutnick, another administration official who has faced public blowback is Chavez-DeRemer, who leads the Labor Department. Her husband has been prohibited from entering the Labor Department’s headquarters after allegedly sexually assaulting female staff members. A D.C. police investigation was closed after authorities found no evidence of a crime. Two of her aides have also resigned amid an internal investigation into possible misconduct. Chavez-DeRemer has denied wrongdoing.
Gabbard, who ran for president as a Democrat in 2020, has also been in the spotlight since the war with Iran started because of her longstanding public opposition to “regime change,” including in Iran. Last month, one of her top deputies resigned over his opposition to the Iran war.
During a hearing last month before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Gabbard said it was not her job to determine if Iran was an “imminent threat” to the U.S., which was one of Trump’s initial justifications for the attacks.
The potential shuffle comes as Republicans are trying to hold onto slim majorities in both the House and Senate in the midterms, but it’s unclear how much these changes might affect the election.
“People, especially those in the MAGA movement who follow this stuff closely, care to some degree,” said a Republican directly involved in several GOP Senate campaigns. “But for the most part, it will still be the economy driving things. These Cabinet moves are a flashpoint that people react to quickly, but they tend to go away quickly.”
“This sort of stuff is an emotional high for people in the moment,” this person added, “but don’t tend to last.”
