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At 200-day mark, Trump nominations still lag
At 200-day mark, Trump nominations still lag
200 days with a Trump White House 01:48
Story highlights
- The Senate confirmed dozens of nominees last week, roughly doubling Trump's total
- Trump's 45% of nominees confirmed trails the more than 70% confirmed by his predecessors had at this point
Washington (CNN)On
President Donald Trump's 200th day in office, he still lags far behind
his predecessors in staffing up his administration, both in terms of
nominations and confirming those positions.
Any
new administration has to fill roughly 4,000 positions across the
government, more than 1,200 of which require Senate confirmation. While
no administration can accomplish that task in 200 days, the nonprofit
good-government group Partnership for Public Service recommends having
the most important 300-400 confirmed by August recess.
Trump hasn't come close.
The
President got a big boost to his progress last week when the Senate
confirmed en masse more than five dozen outstanding nominees -- roughly
doubling the number of nominees Trump has had confirmed.
But he still remains far behind.
As
of August 4, when the Senate left town for its August recess, Trump has
nominated 277 people for key posts, has had 124 confirmed, and has
withdrawn eight of the nominations, according to CNN's tracker.
Track Donald Trump's nominations
The Partnership for Public
Service has identified 577 executive branch positions as being
particularly essential -- and Trump has only successfully filled about a
fifth of them.
Meanwhile, his
predecessor fared far better at the same point in their terms. President
Barack Obama had 433 nominations and 310 confirmations at the same
point, President George W. Bush had nominated 414 and had 294 confirmed,
and President Bill Cilnton had 345 nominations and 252 confirmed.
Trump's
rate of 45% of nominees confirmed lags behind Obama's 72%, Bush's 71%
and Clinton's 73%. His nominees have also taken far longer to confirm --
an average of 54 days compared with 41, 35 and 30 respectively.
The
White House has consistently placed blame for its slow pace on
Democrats -- the minority party in the Senate -- arguing they've
employed stall tactics to slow-walk Trump's confirmations.
Indeed,
before the failure of the Senate to advance a plan to repeal Obamacare,
Senate Democrats were forcing Republicans to go through all procedural
steps for nominees, dragging out the process.
But
part of the slowness has also been due to difficulty getting paperwork
in for many of the nominees, and some announced nominations were not
transmitted to the Senate for formal consideration for months. Trump
also lags in naming officials amid reports that Cabinet officials and
the White House have butted heads over potential candidates.
Trump
has had his entire Cabinet confirmed, although when he selected John
Kelly as his chief of staff late last month, he created a vacancy at the
Department of Homeland Security. But experts say his slowness to fill
deputy positions at agencies is equally important, as those officials
handle much of the day-to-day management of government.
Partnership
for Public Service President Max Stier, who has advised multiple
presidents and presidential candidates, including Trump, on
transitioning into office, said the President should be prioritizing
filling positions if he wants to execute his agenda.
"While
the pace of nominations for political appointees has picked up in
recent weeks, critical leadership positions remain vacant at almost
every agency and department," Stier said. "The President must prioritize
getting his full team in place. Doing so will strengthen his ability to
run the government, achieve his priorities and deal effectively with
the inevitable crises that will take place in our complicated and
dangerous world."
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