# Trump's First (Only?) Administration Cabinet and Political Appointees **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Tags:** trump\ **Created:** [July 29, 2024, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-first-only-administration-cabinet-and-political-appointees/1004977 "2024-07-29T22:04:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2024, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-first-only-administration-cabinet-and-political-appointees/1004977/1 "2024-07-29T22:04:11Z")
This is a question regarding the outcome of Trump’s appointees. As I understand it, Trump went into the White House with a desire to reduce the federal government. He knew (or was told) he couldn’t outright get rid of organizations, so instead he selected appointees with a reputation of being opposed to those organizations as run. Especially thinking of Department of Education and Nancy DeVoss, and Department of Energy and Rick Perry. Others were considered inexperienced or even incompetent. Like Ben Carson. What I’m looking for is information on those appointments, what impacts they had on the operation of those organizations, and if those impacts were lasting. Any appointments during Trump’s Admin are relevant of they meet the criteria. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2024, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-first-only-administration-cabinet-and-political-appointees/1004977/2 "2024-07-29T22:26:02Z")
Trump’s greatest victory in this strategy was appointing Louis DeJoy as Postmaster. He has royally screwed up a centuries-old institution. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2024, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-first-only-administration-cabinet-and-political-appointees/1004977/3 "2024-07-29T22:29:55Z")
If you are looking for a list of Trump appointees, > **[Political appointments by Donald Trump](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_appointments_by_Donald_Trump)** > > This is a list of political appointments of current officeholders made by the 45th president of the United States, Donald Trump. > Links to lists of announced positions from which candidates have withdrawn or appointees who have resigned or have been terminated, as well as lists of appointments to other independent agencies and of holdovers from previous administrations are below. If you are looking for retrospective analyses they will inherently be opinionated. Here are a couple examples: > **[The Ben Carson Years at HUD: Did He Make a Difference?](https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/ben-carson-hud-legacy/)** > > What will Ben Carson's legacy at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development be? Will history look upon Carson's HUD tenure kindly? [https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/04/betsy-devos-education-secretary-legacy-454872](https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/04/betsy-devos-education-secretary-legacy-454872) > **[Sonny Perdue is a rarity: A Trump Cabinet member who went the distance](https://www.ajc.com/politics/sonny-perdue-is-a-rarity-a-trump-cabinet-member-who-went-the-distance/P32SCV6GFJATFOTMFC2WB6ZCCU/)** > > U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue is among President Donald Trump's longest-serving senior advisors. The former two-term Georgia governor's policy impact on farmers could be felt for years. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![flurb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/51bf81/32.png) [@flurb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flurb)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2024, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-first-only-administration-cabinet-and-political-appointees/1004977/4 "2024-07-29T23:59:52Z")
I don’t think there’s an FQ answer to this question. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2024, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-first-only-administration-cabinet-and-political-appointees/1004977/5 "2024-07-30T00:43:47Z")
I agree. Moving to P&E. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2024, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-first-only-administration-cabinet-and-political-appointees/1004977/6 "2024-07-30T01:26:26Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > Trump’s greatest victory in this strategy was appointing Louis DeJoy as Postmaster. He has royally screwed up a centuries-old institution Not everyone agrees with that assessment. > **[Louis DeJoy's Surprising Second Act](https://time.com/6263424/louis-dejoy-trump-election-postal-reform/)** > > Initially cast as a Trumpian villain, Louis DeJoy is quietly delivering for the Postal Service, and Democrats > [@](#): > > The notion that DeJoy, 65, would help advance a key Democratic agenda item would have seemed unfathomable a few years ago. But to the astonishment of many in Washington, the man Democrats once denounced as a threat to American democracy has become one of their most important allies in government. Defying the far right, he delivered more than 500 million COVID-19 test kits to Americans in the winter of 2022. Crossing conservatives last December, he agreed to transition the Postal Service’s entire fleet to electric vehicles by 2026. DeJoy’s capstone collaboration with Democrats was the Postal Service Reform Act, which is arguably the most bipartisan piece of major legislation in the Biden era, drawing 10 more GOP Senate votes than the $1 trillion infrastructure bill. > > DeJoy may be the only person on earth who could have delivered these wins for America’s beloved, beleaguered agency. That’s partly because of the perverse credibility his association with former President Donald Trump and the scandalous 2020 headlines give him with Republicans. It’s also his stubborn insistence that he wasn’t going to allow allegations levied against him in the thick of an inflammatory political season define him… > > … The plan grows the agency, building new processing centers and centralizing the delivery network. It converts more than 100,000 part-time employees to full-time. And it adds new services, such as partnerships with local retailers to help them compete with Amazon. These potentially dramatic changes are a chief reason why the postal unions have embraced the self-made man who shares some of their blue-collar roots. ---
**Author:** ![Llama\_Llogophile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@Llama\_Llogophile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Llama_Llogophile)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2024, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-first-only-administration-cabinet-and-political-appointees/1004977/7 "2024-07-30T01:36:39Z")
Michael Lewis (Moneyball, The Big Short) has written about this: > **[The Fifth Risk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifth_Risk)** > > The Fifth Risk is a 2018 non-fiction book by Michael Lewis that examines the transition and political appointments of the Donald Trump presidency, especially with respect to three government agencies: the Department of Energy, the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Commerce. The book spent fourteen weeks on The New York Times non-fiction best-seller list. A lengthy excerpt from the book was published twice by The Guardian, using a quote from a top adviser to Trump Barack and Mich... I haven’t read the full book, but did read an excerpt article mostly about Rick Perry taking over at the Department of Energy. I seem to recall that a number of the various Trump appointees and staffers were no-shows to some of the instructional briefings held for them, and generally showed disinterest in the particulars of their new departments. ---
**Author:** ![flurb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/51bf81/32.png) [@flurb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flurb)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2024, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-first-only-administration-cabinet-and-political-appointees/1004977/8 "2024-07-30T02:21:49Z")
Perhaps relevant to what the OP is seeking, the Partnership for Public Service (an invaluable resource) did a study on federal employment trends during the Trump Administration. The federal workforce grew on average 0.9% per year during his term. This was a higher rate of growth than during Obama’s second term. Of course there were variations within this data, with the Department of Labor and employment-related agencies taking a sizable reduction. > **[How the federal workforce changed under the Trump administration](https://ourpublicservice.org/blog/how-the-federal-workforce-changed-under-the-trump-administration/)** > > A nonprofit, nonpartisan organization working towards effective government for the American people. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2024, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-first-only-administration-cabinet-and-political-appointees/1004977/9 "2024-07-30T19:20:19Z")
Thank you, @flurb. That’s somewhat in the neighborhood of what I want. I guess to frame my question better, I’m looking for who was appointed to which agencies, what their policy changes were what the impacts of those policies, and if they were lasting impacts, bad or good. Bringing up DeJoy is precisely the kind of thing, because it flies in the face of the regular narrative. I’m particularly interested in the agencies that Trump wanted cut back, not necessarily the ones he wanted enlarged. Though Homeland Security being a priority makes sense it wouldn’t reduce workers. At the same time, Trump introduced some horrifying policies like child separation from their families with no records kept to ensure reconnection. Coming to the end of Biden’s first term what are the lasting consequences? Families that will never be reunited because there’s no records to trace what happened? How many? Did anyone ever get punished for such cruelty? Rick Perry was the best and brightest Texas Republicans could bring to bear on three government agencies if he could remember them. DoE was one he wanted to close. Impacts of his tenure? Did he manage to learn what it actually does and why it exists? Department of Education advocating for vouchers to pay for rich kids to attend the schools they were already going to was one, right? Certainly the Republicans haven’t given up on that handout to the rich. We had voucher efforts on Texas defeated last year, but Governor Gregg Abbott seems determined to pursue it again until public schools are gutted in the name of paying private for profit schools for rich kids to attend. I didn’t want to poison the well, but I wonder if anyone has done an analysis on Trump’s effects, and goals for next time. If we are trying to discuss policy effects, then someone should do a deep dive on what came before. What would that analysis say about the effectiveness of Trump’s picks? ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2024, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-first-only-administration-cabinet-and-political-appointees/1004977/10 "2024-07-30T22:16:05Z")
Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Education should fit in here I think. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2024, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-first-only-administration-cabinet-and-political-appointees/1004977/11 "2024-07-31T00:27:37Z")
Mentioned in OP. What about her?