WASHINGTON (AP) — In the history of American politics, there is no shortage of presidents who promised to shake up Washington as soon as they arrived in the White House. But Donald Trump may prove to be in a league of his own, and he appears more interested in beating the federal government into submission than recalibrating it.
In staffing his administration, Trump has shown a tendency to select people who distrust or even disdain the agencies they have been chosen to lead, creating a potential war of attrition between the incoming Republican president and America’s institutions.
“There’s nothing like what Trump is proposing to do,” said Doug Brinkley, a presidential historian. “We are talking about dismantling the federal government.”
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Trump’s approach will become even clearer this week when Kash Patel, his pick for FBI director, heads to Capitol Hill for a first round of meetings with senators who will decide whether to confirm him to the post. Patel, a former national security official who has branded himself as an avid Trump follower, has talked about closing the agency’s headquarters, splitting its responsibilities and attacking Trump’s perceived enemies.
Greg Brower, a former U.S. attorney who served as the FBI’s top congressional affairs official, said Trump wants the country’s law enforcement agencies to run “part of his political operation outside the White House.”
“That’s a major change in direction that I’m just not sure a majority of senators want to endorse,” Brower said.
Republican senators are already considering whether to back Pete Hegseth, whom Trump wants to lead the Pentagon despite allegations of sexual misconduct, excessive drinking and financial mismanagement. Hegseth is an Army veteran and former Fox News commentator who has described the military as awash in “woke” liberal ideology. He also wants to remove women from combat roles.
Karoline Leavitt, spokesperson for Trump’s transition team and the new White House press secretary, said the next administration wants to “destroy the Deep State,” a term for entrenched officials who have frustrated Trump and his allies.
“President Trump was reelected thanks to a strong mandate from the American people to change the status quo in Washington,” she said in a statement. “That’s why he has chosen brilliant and highly respected outsiders to serve in his administration, and he will continue to stand with them as they battle all those who try to derail the MAGA agenda.”
Margaret Spelling, Secretary of Education under President George W. Bush, said it is “probably not a good management style” to treat government employees as adversaries.
“If you want to turn the tide or turn the ship of state in a different direction, you need help,” she said. “And those are the people who already work there.”
Spelling’s former department could be eliminated outright if Trump has his way. His pick for education secretary, Linda McMahon, has never worked in the field. She served for one year on the Connecticut Board of Education and serves on the board of directors of a private university. McMahon headed the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term, and she made her name running World Wrestling Entertainment, a cultural juggernaut in which muscular men beat each other up in elaborately scripted fights.
Trump’s plans for the federal government combine conservative ideology, which Washington has long seen as too intrusive in Americans’ daily lives, with his personal vendettas. After being plagued by investigations and contradicted by career officials during his first term, the returning president has no interest in repeating and is more skeptical of insider views that clash with his own instincts.
Some of his personnel choices have alarmed political opponents, but Trump’s approach could prove attractive to voters whose confidence in government has sunk to record lows in recent years. According to the Pew Research Center, only about 2 in 10 Americans trust the government to do the right thing all or most of the time, compared to about 4 in 10 who said this in 2000 – before the upheaval of a global financial crisis, an inconclusive war against terrorism and a global pandemic.
Kay Schlozman, a political science professor at Boston College, said Trump’s nominees can be seen as “an extension of his ability to question received wisdom and question the so-called elites who always run everything.”
Some of the biggest gaps between expertise and personnel are evident in public health. Trump chose Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, despite his reputation as one of the most prolific spreaders of baseless theories about the alleged danger of vaccines.
Trump also chose Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a critic of public health measures like lockdowns and vaccine mandates used during the coronavirus outbreak, to lead the National Institutes of Health, the nation’s top medical research agency.
In other areas of government, loyalty is often valued over expertise. Lee Zeldin, a former New York congressman, never served on any committees dealing with the environment during nearly a decade on Capitol Hill. Now he’s on deck to lead the Environmental Protection Agency.
Brinkley said it is not unusual for presidents to try to change the way Washington works. Richard Nixon tried to bypass government agencies by centralizing decision-making in the White House, and Warren Harding filled his Cabinet with business leaders.
But Brinkley said Trump’s approach is more toxic, and that he appears to be setting up his staff to compete to be the most diligent.
“It has a gladiator feel,” he said. “They all want to show that they have a scalp to punish the so-called deep state, the traditional media or the Democratic Party.”
Another way Trump is tackling Washington is through the Department of Government Efficiency, an independent advisory organization that will be led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.
Musk, the richest man in the world, and Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur, plan to propose ideas on drastically cutting federal spending and downsizing the government workforce. They also said Trump should bypass Congress whenever possible, creating a potential constitutional clash.
Theda Skocpol, a professor of government and sociology at Harvard University, agreed that Americans often doubt Washington’s effectiveness.
“But that doesn’t mean there will be an easy path to eliminating entire departments or functions of government, because people will realize that they have stakes in these matters,” she said.
But according to Skocpol, chaos may be the real goal.
“Parts of American conservatism have tried to make a mess of government if they could control it, and then use that as an argument for less government,” she said.
____ Associated Press writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report.
