MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The Senate would also have to confirm President Trump's eventual replacements for attorney general and labor secretary. Lori Chavez-DeRemer is the latest cabinet departure resigning this week amid allegations of misconduct. Let's get a read on the politics of this from Alex Conant. He's a Republican strategist and senior partner with Precision Strategies, which is a public affair firm. Good morning, Alex. Thanks for joining us.
ALEX CONANT: Good morning. Good to be with you, Michel.
MARTIN: So the Brookings Institution looks at cabinet turnover going back to President Reagan's administration. It found President Trump's first term had the highest turnover. Now, just over a year into his second term, three cabinet members are gone. Does President Trump have trouble finding and keeping people?
CONANT: You know, I think he picks a lot of untraditional people. You know, he doesn't pick a lot of people from the Senate or traditionally from politics. He tends to pick people from the business world, media people, very, very wealthy people. And those people, I think, are untraditional. They're not used to government. I think they get in there and oftentimes it's not what they expected. You know, being a cabinet secretary is not very glamorous. I think six of them are being hauled up in front of Congress today to testify. Your - all of your private information and your finances are laid out bare. And you end up running a government bureaucracy that's filled with bureaucrats who oftentime (ph) are pushing back on you. So I think - you know, I think he picks untraditional people, and I'm not surprised that they oftentimes don't last very long.
MARTIN: Yeah. But the irony being that these three people who have left - Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem - actually had the more traditional backgrounds. If you think about it, Kristi Noem, a governor, the first chair - the first secretary of Homeland Security. Tom Ridge, a governor. Pam Bondi was an attorney general. Lori Chavez - or a state attorney general. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, a - you know, a member of Congress, who was endorsed by one of the states - you know, one of the country's...
CONANT: Yep. Yep.
MARTIN: ...Largest unions. So ironically, they are the people with kind of the most traditional backgrounds. Do you see anything linking those three besides that?
CONANT: I mean, I think what linked all three of them is that they were picked for one reason and one reason alone, which is that Trump thought that they do - would completely push forward his agenda. And I think once they became distractions or they failed to push aspects of his agenda or they were too slow to push aspects of his agenda, he found them very, very replaceable. And we've already replaced the DHS secretary. I expect - I mean, he's - he has its deputy attorney general filling that role now. I expect we'll have a new labor secretary very promptly. And the new people will look a lot like the old people in the sense that they are going to be completely devoted to the president's agenda.
MARTIN: Well, one common thread, they're all women. As a political strategist, how do the optics of that work?
CONANT: Look, I don't think anybody listening knew who the labor secretary was a week ago. I don't think that these people, the individuals themselves are especially important. When Trump ran, he said he was going to pick the best people for positions, regardless of their race or gender. And I understand many listeners might not think that these are necessarily the best people, but I don't think that the fact that they're women is what's going to be held against the president. Clearly, he has other women in very senior roles in the administration, including the first woman chief of staff. He has his DNI is a woman, the director of National Intelligence. And I wouldn't be surprised if he replaces at least one of these roles with another woman.
MARTIN: How you think the president's base views all this turnover? You think it will matter?
CONANT: I don't think it matters. I mean, his base is loyal to Trump and Trump alone. The MAGA movement is - it follows him, not whoever his cabinet secretaries are. And these three, in particular, didn't have any unique political followings. You know, I think if it was somebody like HHS Secretary RFK, who does have his own political following, or even my former boss Marco Rubio, who has a lot of admirers now in the conservative movement given how he's handled his job over the last year, it might - there might be some political cost, but not for these three at all.
MARTIN: And how is this affecting his agenda as briefly as you can?
CONANT: It's - I don't think it is at all. I mean, I think he's frustrated by the lack of action in some of these agencies. And I think we're already seeing the new deputy attorney general moving fast on a couple of his priorities. You know, I think he just wants people in these jobs that can get the job done.
MARTIN: That's Alex Conant. He's a Republican strategist with Precision Strategies. Alex, thanks so much.
CONANT: Good to be with you.
(SOUNDBITE OF JEL'S "KNOW YOU DON'T") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
