Looking Back on 2018: Departures from the Trump Administration
Leaders come and go, but particularly with Trump
By Shreya Joshi
The Progressive Teen Contributor
A S PRESIDENT TRUMP CROSSES THE HALFWAY MARK IN HIS TERM, his Cabinet and top advisers will look quite different in 2019 versus the beginning of 2018. Nicknamed the “Revolving Door”, the Trump Administration has had an extremely high turnover — with high-profile officials resigning, being fired, or quitting at a record pace. According to the Brookings Institution, as of January 16, 2019, staff turnover for senior White House aides was an astounding 65%, extraordinarily higher than it was at the same time in other administrations. In Trump’s first 14 months in office, nine cabinet members have left the administration, which is the same number of secretaries that left Obama’s cabinet throughout his entire eight-year term. The sporadic changes constantly occurring speaks to the turbulent and unstable environment of the White House. All of these dramatic changes beg the question: how will this affect the administration going forward?
Effective April 9, 2018, former U.S. ambassador and Fox News analyst John Bolton replaced H.R. McMaster as national security adviser to Trump. A lieutenant general for the U.S. Army, McMaster held the position for thirteen months before resigning. During these thirteen months, the two frequently clashed as Trump reportedly never liked his “gruff and condescending” attitude. The decision came after months of tension between Trump and McMaster. Bolton, McMaster’s replacement, was a controversial pick to become the next national security adviser considering his hard-edged, hawkish views on topics like North Korea, Iran, and Syria. Appointing a hard-line figure like Bolton suggested that Trump was ready to embrace a more aggressive and hostile foreign policy.
Around this same time, Trump replaced his Secretary of State Rex Tillerson with Mike Pompeo (Pompeo was sworn in on April 26, 2018). Tillerson had failed to yield any major influence on internal policy debates over North Korea, Russia, etc., the morale at the State Department under his watch was an all-time low where 60% of the top ranking diplomats resigned, and he alienated the President who had reportedly complained about his “totally establishment” views on foreign policy. Within weeks of Bolton and Pompeo on board in their respective roles, the President, facing less resistance from his hawkish advisors, announced the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal on May 8, 2018.
With the exception of Saudi Arabia and Israel, all of U.S. allies, and China, Russia opposed the U.S. withdrawal from this deal. The repercussions of this move are still ongoing with the possibility of more hard-line elements gaining ground within Iran, the threat of retaliation against Israel, and fanning sectarian conflicts from Syria to Yemen. President Trump was also in part emboldened to withdraw from this deal by what he saw as “maximum pressure” campaign to get North Korea to the negotiating table. He sent Pompeo to negotiate with North Korea around the same time he withdrew from the Iran deal, and managed to secure the release of three Americans held captive by North Korea (as a positive gesture of goodwill) before his first face to face meeting with the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong Un on June 12, 2018 in Singapore. Nothing concrete came out of this meeting, and while North Korea has since then not conducted any test launches or detonations, both sides have accused each other of bad faith and no real progress has been made. President Trump’s recently concluded second meeting with Kim Jong Un in Vietnam also ended abruptly without yielding any tangible results. So all in all, not much progress on this front, and it remains to be seen what the future holds with regards to North Korea.
A number of key departures from the Trump administration in late 2018 were that of James Mattis (Defense Secretary), John Kelly (Chief of Staff), Nikki Haley (UN Ambassador), and Jeff Sessions (Attorney General). Gen. Mattis resigned after a disagreement with Trump’s decision to pull out troops from Syria (soon followed by another order to withdraw nearly half the troops deployed in Afghanistan). This move will likely empower Russia and Iran, and leave U.S. allies — the Syrian Kurds — at the mercy of ISIS and Turkey, not to mention the potential for resurgence of ISIS. Gen. Mattis followed his moral compass. His permanent successor has not been named yet, with Patrick Shanahan being the acting Defense Secretary. Given all this, the chaotic environment around the Trump administration's foreign policy in Syria and Afghanistan continues with no clear strategy.
John Kelly who served as Trump’s Chief of Staff for over a year tried and failed to bring some discipline to the White House. Towards the end, Trump and Kelly were reportedly not even speaking to each other. Again, his permanent successor has not been named yet, with Mick Mulvaney as the acting Chief of Staff. According to an article in Politico dated December 19, 2018, Mulvaney plans to “let Trump be Trump” and has no intention of reigning in Trump. This means even more chaos in the White House in the coming days, weeks, and months.
Nikki Haley was probably one of the most successful figures in the Trump administration. She managed to push Trump’s agenda and at the same time executed traditional Republican foreign policy. Her biggest accomplishment was her ability to get harsh sanctions on North Korea passed at the UN. She was tough on Iran, Russia, and made defending human rights a major theme during her stint at the UN. It remains to be seen if Trump can find a replacement for Haley who can balance the Trumpism along with standing his or her ground (Heather Nauert, President Trump’s original pick for Haley’s replacement recently withdrew her name for the role. He has nominated Kelly Craft since then).
Jeff Sessions’ departure was a long time coming. His relationship with the President had soured right after he recused himself from the investigation of the Russian interference in the 2016 election. While Sessions did the right thing by recusing himself, thereby handing over the control of the Russian interference investigation to his deputy, Rod Rosenstein (who in turn appointed the special prosecutor Robert Mueller), he pursued a hard line on immigration. His “zero tolerance” policy for illegal border crossings announced in May 2018, was the reason for the massive humanitarian crisis of separating migrant parents from their children at the U.S.-Mexico border. His replacement, William Barr, recently assumed office on February 14, 2019. It’s expected that Barr will continue to push a hard line on immigration and while he has given assurances (during his confirmation hearings) that he would not fire Mueller without good cause, it remains to be seen how much information Barr will make public, once the special counsel submits his report on the Russian interference.
There are a lot more departures from the Trump administration, and this article talked about just a few key departures and their potential impacts. For a complete list of departed members, click here. With members leaving and coming in at a record pace, it is safe to say that 2018 was a year full of major policy shifts and staffing changes. All of these changes leave us wondering: who’s next?
