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  "path": "/news/analysis/trumps-cabinet-fewer-firings-familiar-problems",
  "publishedAt": "2026-03-13T16:01:21.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.gzeromedia.com",
  "tags": [
    "Trump",
    "United states",
    "Cabinet",
    "Kristi noem",
    "2028 presidential election",
    "Jd vance",
    "Marco rubio",
    "Trump administration",
    "_fired or forced out_",
    "_Total turnover_",
    "_dried up_",
    "_remove_",
    "___Axios___",
    "_Defense Department_",
    "_sharing war strategies_",
    "_other_",
    "_reports_",
    "_president_",
    "_US public_",
    "_Reports_",
    "_began_",
    "_firing_",
    "_reported_",
    "_public’s wrath_",
    "_shot and killed_",
    "_greenlit_",
    "_told_",
    "_wrote_",
    "_piling praise_",
    "_approve_",
    "_seize_",
    "_attack_",
    "_virtually every single poll_",
    "_differed_",
    "_polling_"
  ],
  "textContent": "\n\n\n\nUS President **Donald Trump** ’s first term in office sometimes looked like an episode of “The Apprentice.” He _fired or forced out_ eight Cabinet members, with 14 in total leaving – more than the preceding three presidents combined. _Total turnover_ among his top officials was 92% across all four years, higher than that of his immediate predecessors. **Michael Flynn** , for example, was removed as national security advisor less than a month after Trump first took office, while **Anthony Scaramucci** lasted just 10 days as White House communications director.\n\n“The first administration was just musical chairs,” **Matthew Bartlett** , a State Department official during Trump’s first term, told GZERO. “It became something of a sideshow.”\n\nFast forward to the second term, and the number of firings has _dried up_. Turnover among his top White House lieutenants was down in the first year of his second term, compared to the corresponding year of his first stint. It took Trump over a year to _remove_ a Cabinet member: the US president removed **Kristi Noem** as Homeland Security secretary last week.\n\n* * *\n\nIt’s part of a larger strategy for Trump’s inner circle, which White House Chief of Staff **Susie Wiles** laid out just before the inauguration.\n\n“My team and I will not tolerate backbiting, second-guessing inappropriately, or drama,” Wiles told ___Axios___ in January 2025. “These are counterproductive to the mission.”\n\nThe new approach hasn’t necessarily borne stability, though.\n\nThere have been reports of disarray at several agencies within the Trump administration. First, it was the _Defense Department_: **Pete Hegseth** was found to be _sharing war strategies_ on Signal chat that included a journalist from __The Atlantic__ , amid _other_ _reports_ of chaos at the Pentagon. Last summer, Attorney General **Pam Bondi** angered both the _president_ and the _US public_ alike with her handling of the Epstein files. Early this year, those same Epstein files revealed that Commerce Secretary **Howard Lutnick** had a closer relationship with the child sex offender than he initially stated.\n\nThen there’s Noem. _Reports_ of chaos at DHS _began_ to emerge earlier this year, including the _firing_ – and immediate rehiring – of a Coast Guard pilot who forgot to bring a blanket from one plane to another. Then there was her _reported_ affair with **Corey Lewandowski,** Trump’s longtime adviser and Noem’s de facto chief of staff at DHS. She also incurred the _public’s wrath_ after she suggested that **Alex Pretti** had engaged in “domestic terrorism” before ICE officers _shot and killed_ him in Minneapolis in January.\n\nThen came her testimony to Congress late last month: the former South Dakota governor claimed Trump had _greenlit_ her decision to spend $220 million on an ad promoting herself. The US president denied this. “I never knew anything about it,” he _told_ Reuters.\n\nDays later, Noem was gone from the department, reassigned to a new role as special envoy for the Shield of the Americas.\n\n“I thank Kristi for her service at ‘Homeland,’” Trump _wrote_ on social media.\n\n**Let’s back up a second.** When Trump returned to office last year, he decided to prioritize loyalty over experience when selecting his Cabinet officials. Gone were the establishment types like **Jim Mattis** at the Pentagon, **John Kelly** at DHS, and **Rex Tillerson** at State. In were those with a track record of loyalty: Hegseth, Noem, and even **Marco Rubio** , who had renounced his anti-Trump rhetoric of the 2016 presidential campaign.\n\nIn one sense, the strategy has worked. Trump’s department heads have remained ruthlessly loyal to him. They tirelessly stick to Trump’s messages, and berate those who cross the president – recall, for example, the meeting with Ukraine’s President **Volodymyr Zelensky**. During Cabinet meetings, they often take turns _piling praise_ upon him. They have also been careful not to step on his toes: Exhibit A is Rubio passing Trump a note, telling him to _approve_ a social media post announcing a ceasefire deal in Gaza.\n\nBut while this administration has had fewer issues with turnover and disloyalty, another challenge persists: Cabinet members still have their own agendas they want to advance. Sometimes they have clashed on policy, notably with the decisions to _seize_ Venezuelan strongman **Nicolás Maduro** and _attack_ Iran – these decisions split the isolationists with those who favored intervention.\n\nIt all suggests the glue keeping the Cabinet together is not particularly sticky.\n\n“It’s not clear to me that there’s ideological cohesion [in the Cabinet], but that’s true of MAGA generally,” **Jackson Carpenter** , a Texas GOP delegate, told GZERO. “It’s really more of a personal allegiance than it is a than it is an ideology.”\n\n**The line of succession.** There’s something else that may soon cause division, something that is familiar to many past administrations: political ambition. Several incumbent Cabinet members have previously run for president: Rubio, Interior Secretary **Doug Burgum** , Health and Human Services Secretary **Robert F. Kennedy Jr.** , and Director of National Intelligence **Tulsi Gabbard**.\n\n“I wouldn’t be surprised if any of them ran again,” said Carpenter.\n\nThen there’s Vice President **JD Vance** : though he hasn’t run for president before – his only political race, outside of being Trump’s running mate, was for US Senate in 2022 – he has led _virtually every single poll_ for the 2028 GOP nomination over the last year.\n\n“You have polling that is just mind boggling right now,” said Bartlett. “We’ve never seen this type of dynamic where the MAGA base and the Republican Party are so dead set on a JD Vance as the heir apparent.”\n\nThe most obvious rival to the vice president right now is Rubio. Since Trump started focusing on foreign policy over recent months, the secretary of State has become one of the commander-in-chief’s most trusted allies – Bartlett described as a “remarkable MAGA spokesperson for the president.” Trump, who said on Monday that his foreign policy _differed_ from Vance’s, has even started _polling_ his close allies on which of the two they prefer, according to the __Wall Street Journal__.\n\nStill, given Vance’s huge head start in polling, there may only be one way that Rubio can catch up with the vice president: getting Trump to intervene and endorse him.\n\n“You have the political laws of motion here, which is that it looks like Vance will be the nominee,” said Bartlett. “Unless a massive force, namely the president, decides to change that.”\n\nIf Rubio tries to garner Trump’s endorsement – at the expense of Vance – Trump’s ability to keep his Cabinet in check will be tested again.",
  "title": "Trump’s Cabinet: fewer firings, familiar problems"
}