Because he has been hiring too few people related by blood, marriage or friendship, he has wound up with unreliable “professionals.” A study by Kathryn Dunn Tenpas of the Brookings Institution found that first-year turnover of senior Trump administration officials was 34 percent, much higher than under any other president in nearly 40 years.
The obvious solution: more use of the friends-and-family plan. A family-based system may not work for immigration, but it works perfectly for staffing a presidency. I have this from an independent authority: Eric Trump. He said last year that nepotism is “a beautiful thing.”
And it is working beautifully. Beyond the formal roles in the White House for Ivanka Trump and husband Jared Kushner (responsible for everything from Middle East peace to reinventing government), and the informal roles played by Donald Jr. and Eric (responsible for antagonizing the special counsel), Trump’s friends-and-family plan has served him brilliantly. Members include:
