It is a White House run on the impulse of one man. And as the record shows, Donald Trump’s gut instinct on picks for his administration has been off…way off. The latest example is GOP Congressman John Ratcliffe, who Trump had selected to the Director of National Intelligence. But even before the nomination was formally submitted, Trump pulled it back. Sound familiar? As Politico reported in May, Trump has pulled a slew of nominees.
“In total, Trump has withdrawn 62 nominees since taking office, according to data provided to POLITICO by the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit that tracks federal vacancies. At this point in his presidency, Barack Obama had withdrawn 30 nominees.“
Yesterday, when asked about the vetting candidates, Trump said the the press is part of the process. Good thing because the White House is obviously not. When Trump announced Ratcliffe would be returning to Congress, he blamed the press. In a tweet, the president said Ratcliffe had been “treated very unfairly by the LameStream Media,” and that it would be “miserable… to deal with these people.” Hours later it was this:
From Politico:
“He’s impatient and impulsive,” a former senior White House official said. “When he makes a decision, he wants to move forward. There aren’t any people around him urging caution.”
“It’s been a steady march toward an unrestrained president,” the former official said. “We’ve now reached the complete extreme of the spectrum in which the president is deciding something in private based on the recommendations of one or two people.”
