‘Count me out’: Conservative staffers have no desire to work for ‘radioactive’ Trump administration
According to the Washington Post, many positions in President Donald Trump’s administration remain unfilled because potential staffers are turned off by the volatile nature of the current White House.
Although White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer claimed he has people “knocking down his door” to work for Trump, 27 sources who spoke to the Post tell a different story.
“Trump is becoming radioactive, and it’s accelerating,” Bill Valdez, former Energy Department official and advocate for a group of 6,000 federal leaders told the Post.
“If you’re working with a boss who doesn’t have your back, you have no confidence in working with that individual,” Valdez said, referencing reports that Attorney General Jeff Sessions drew the president’s ire when he recused himself from the Russia investigation.
The personnel situation is so bad that a group of conservative politicians penned a letter to White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus about the administration’s “leadership vacuum.”
“We remain very concerned over the lack of secondary and tertiary executive-level appointments,” the letter signed by 25 leading conservatives read.
According to the Post, Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush had both filled far more positions by mid-June of their first terms than Trump — Obama had 151, Bush had 130, while Trump only has 43.
Many natural potential candidates for senior positions have turned them down for a variety of reasons including concerns about damaging their reputations, lack of job security and the threat of being under investigation.
“You can count me out,” an anonymous attorney who worked for George W. Bush’s administration who turned down “several” senior-level positions told the Post.
Read the entire report on the Trump White House’s hiring problem via the Washington Post.