With President Donald Trump’s approval rating plunging to a record low of just 33%, he is eager to find someone — anyone — to blame for his tanking popularity. Anyone, that is, except himself.
Instead of getting the message the American people are sending, Trump is instead leaning on an old trick from his reality television days and shaking up the cast of characters in his dysfunctional administration. He may think a purge will fix things, but high-profile firings won’t cure what ails an administration derailed by his own incompetence and failures.
High-profile firings won’t fix what ails an administration derailed by his own incompetence.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s unceremonious ouster last month and Attorney General Pam Bondi’s firing on Thursday made them the first big-name MAGA loyalists to get the ax this second term, but they likely won’t be the only ones. Trump’s first term is a reminder that when he’s cornered and increasingly unpopular, his most loyal flunkies often find themselves out of a job. That leaves key administration officials facing a difficult choice: Walk away now or face the growing risk of a presidential Truth Social post telling you to pack up your desk.
If Trump could fire his way into the economic golden age he promised voters last year, the economy would already be surging at the expense of the tens of thousands of federal workers his administration fired. But as he’s belatedly discovering, good governance is a little more complicated than that.
It’s no coincidence that Noem and Bondi exited stage far right as voters delivered Trump his worst-ever approval ratings in what were stronghold areas for the Republican Party. A CNN poll published April 1 found Trump 14 points underwater on immigration issues; a growing number of independents are abandoning his disastrous mass deportation scheme. A majority of voters also believe Trump is covering up the crimes of convicted sex offender and suspected sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, an issue he tasked Bondi with resolving months ago, to no success. Trump has always been willing to forgive rank incompetence, but letting him look bad in public? That’s a cardinal sin.
Make no mistake, Trump’s bumbling enablers deserve their firings. Noem’s tenure at the Department of Homeland Security was equal parts mismanagement and malice, where her most notable public act was wasting $220 million in taxpayer money on a glitzy television ad. She also presided over the radicalization of Immigration and Customs Enforcement into a violent and lawless group that now ranks among Americans’ most hated government agencies. Her desire to enact Trump’s mass deportation policies at any cost directly led to the deaths of American citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota and Ruben Ray Martinez in Texas.
Noem’s tenure at the Department of Homeland Security was equal parts mismanagement and malice.
Bondi bungled the release of the Epstein files so severely that it has become an endless Republican nightmare. She also transformed the Justice Department into Trump’s personal enforcement wing and failed multiple times to prosecute the president’s political foes. Her DOJ lost more career federal prosecutors than at any time in its history, and the department is so strapped for talent that it recently lowered hiring standards in an effort to backfill thousands of vacancies.
Trump didn’t suddenly become concerned about staffing efficiencies at the Justice Department. Instead, his plan to purge even more senior officials appears to be driven by the staggering unpopularity of his war in Iran, a conflict two-thirds of Americans strongly oppose. But Trump’s decision to invade Iran was his alone, and as commander in chief he bears sole responsibility for the high gas prices and economic chaos his “little excursion” is inflicting on the American people. Accepting that reality is simply too much for Trump, so the White House firings will continue until morale improves.
The Washington rumor mill is already swirling with speculation that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard could be next. Trump reportedly polled his closest advisers about booting Gabbard, who never fully endorsed his Iran strategy and now appears to be iced out of the White House inner circle. Trump is also reportedly considering firing Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll over disagreements about how to proceed in Iran. Lost on Trump is the fact that his administration’s Iran-strike skeptics were right and he was catastrophically wrong. Instead of listening to their counsel, Trump wants them gone.
Voting contestants out of the boardroom may have been compelling television when Trump merely had to pretend to be a leader, but it’s a disastrous policy when American families at home and troops abroad are paying the costs of the president’s ineptitude.
American families at home and troops abroad are paying the costs of the president’s ineptitude.
The proof is in the numbers. Nonpartisan data analyst VoteHub found that Trump’s approval rating has declined by roughly 1 point per week since the beginning of his second term. If that trend continues, he’ll hit this year’s midterm elections as one of the most unpopular presidents in modern history — and his majorities in Congress will likely evaporate in a historic string of defeats.
It’s hardly a secret that Trump would rather be popular than effective, but his inability to listen to what his advisers and the American people are saying means he is destined to be neither. Firing everyone around him won’t change the fact that the problem has always been the person in charge.
Max Burns is a Democratic strategist and founder of Third Degree Strategies. Find him on X, @themaxburns.