At least 4 more Trump aides face the chopping block: DC insider

Pam Bondi has been booted out of the Justice Department and Kristi Noem is gone from the Department of Homeland Security. Who’s next?

It’s not unusual for a president to shake up the Cabinet ahead of crucial elections, and Trump especially needs to look like he’s shaking things up. His approval ratings are in the cellar, he can’t find an exit strategy for his unpopular war, the prices of gas is soaring, and other prices are rising. Worse yet for him, the midterm elections are on the horizon, and Republicans now have the slimmest of majorities in the House and Senate.

“He’s very angry and he’s going to be moving people,” an official familiar with potential personnel changes told Politico. Presumably Trump also knows that new Cabinet appointments may be difficult to confirm next year, especially if Democrats gain more seats in the midterm elections.

I’ve worked in and around enough White Houses to know the signs. Here’s one: White House spokesman Davis Ingle said Friday that Trump has “the most talented Cabinet and team in American history.” That’s a tell that Trump is looking to get rid of some of them, and soon. But who?

It will be one or all of the following:

Lori Chavez-DeRemer
Trump’s Secretary of Labor, Chavez-DeRemer, is facing misconduct allegations that include drinking during workdays from a “stash” of alcohol in her office, taking subordinates to an Oregon strip club while on an official trip, and having an affair with a member of her security team.

The White House has already forced her top aides to resign amid these and related scandals. (As if these weren’t enough, her husband has been barred from the Labor Department building after female staff accused him of unwanted sexual advances.)

In January, sources described Chavez-DeRemer as the “boss from hell,” saying she demanded staffers run personal errands and do other menial tasks unrelated to their government jobs. More than two dozen department employees described in interviews with The New York Times a toxic workplace characterized by an absentee secretary, hostile aides, and a deeply demoralized staff. It’s a f------ mess. I say this with particular sadness because I really loved the Department of Labor when I was its secretary.

Tulsi Gabbard
Trump’s Director of National Intelligence p----- off Trump by failing to condemn former counterterrorism chief Joe Kent after Kent criticized Trump’s attack on Iran and then abruptly resigned.

In addition, Gabbard has been noticeably lukewarm in her support for Trump’s war. She has a long history of criticizing U.S. involvement in Middle East conflicts. Earlier last week, Trump told reporters that Gabbard was “a little bit different in her thought process than me” on Iran. “She’s probably a little bit softer on that issue, but that’s okay.” (These words don’t bode well for her.)

Gabbard, recall, is a former Democrat who unsuccessfully ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020 before crossing over and supporting Trump in the 2024 election.

One additional hint that Gabbard’s time in the Trump regime may be coming to an end: Trump’s communications director says Trump “has total confidence” in Gabbard, “and any insinuation otherwise is totally fake news.” Doth protest too much.

Both DeRemer and Gabbard may hang on for now if Trump doesn’t want to be seen firing another woman so soon after firing Noem and Bondi. On the other hand, he’s never been reluctant to insult the fairer sex.

Howard Lutnick
Trump’s Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, is also skating on thin ice.

Lutnick admitted in February that he had traveled with his family to Jeffrey Epstein’s private Caribbean island in 2012, four years after Epstein was convicted of child sex trafficking. The real problem for Lutnick is that he’d previously denied any relationship with Epstein and stated that he “barely had anything to do with that person.” His late admission has stirred up bipartisan calls from Congress for him to resign.

Lawmakers are also questioning a $1.6 billion Commerce Department funding deal involving Cantor Fitzgerald, a company Lutnick headed before becoming Commerce secretary that’s now led by his sons. In January, the Commerce Department agreed to provide critical-minerals startup USA Rare Earth with $1.6 billion in funding. Rare Earth selected Cantor Fitzgerald to help secure additional funding, a clear conflict of interest.

In addition, White House aides have been irritated by Lutnick’s style of freelancing policy ideas and potential deals without prior approval.

Yet Wall Street isn’t eager to get rid of Lutnick, fearing that removal of one of Trump’s top economic aides would ruffle the Street at a time when it’s already ruffled.

Pete Hegseth
Trump won’t fire his Secretary of Defense (War) as long as the U.S. is fighting Trump’s war with Iran. But after Trump has declared victory and exited — which is likely to be quite soon — Trump will need someone to take heat for the war’s failures.

Hegseth is utterly inept, which doesn’t distinguish him from others in Trump’s Cabinet. But his ineptness has become especially apparent during this war, with Hegseth making absurd claims such as “We didn’t start this war, but under President Trump we’re finishing it” and “America is winning decisively, devastatingly, and without mercy.”

At a recent press briefing, Hegseth complained about a CNN report that Trump had underestimated Iran’s ability to disrupt global oil traffic by closing the Strait of Hormuz — saying we “don’t need to worry about it” — even as the Strait’s blockage was already proving to be Iran’s most powerful leverage in the war.

He also denied that the U.S. bombed the school where some 175 children were killed, although evidence shows that to be the case. His insistence that the U.S. “never targets civilians” is refuted by the U.S. military’s killing of at least 157 people on 40 small boats in the Caribbean without evidence they were “narcoterrorists” rather than civilians.

So, today’s Office Hours question: Who will Trump fire next?

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/

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