Trump’s Overhaul of the Federal Bureaucracy Backed by Recent Survey Research

Since returning to office for a second term, President Trump has taken aggressive action to overhaul the federal bureaucracy. After a week in office some of Trump actions towards federal workers include: removing employment protections for civil servants, firing17 inspectors general, reassigning career officials in the Department of Justice, sending home 160 staffers from the National Security Agency and firing the lawyers at the Department of Justice who prosecuted Trump under special counsel Jack Smith.

Trump’s efforts have been met with hostility and criticism from the media and predictably from his political opposition.

Opinionist Phillip Bump at the Washington Post  writes Trump’s actions are “a sharp disruption of how the government works.” Bump laments that “Trump is clearly interested in…seeding loyalists throughout the executive branch.”  At Axios, Zachary Basu and Dave Lawler explain that Trump is “transform[ing] the federal bureaucracy into an army of loyalists.” Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, who represents 140,000 federal workers in Virginia, told reporters “This gleeful hatred of the federal workforce will lead to nothing good.”

But are Trump’s efforts to transform the government workforce justified by a real concern that his policy platforms–which earned him a presidential victory–will be thwarted by anonymous bureaucrats?

Recent survey research suggests Trump is right to be concerned. Napolitan Institute found that just 45% of Federal Government Managers would follow a legal order from President Trump if they thought the order was bad policy and instead would do what they thought was right. Among managers who voted for Kamala Harris that figure jumps to nearly three-quarters (69%.) The survey also found a majority (52%) of the federal managerial class voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.

Those current survey results are consistent with events that developed in the first Trump Administration, where we learned how bureaucratic opinions on “right” policy interfered with the power of the duly elected executive officer.

Former diplomat Jim Jeffrey revealed that his team routinely mislead the Trump Administration after the president had ordered the withdrawal of troops from Syria. “What Syria withdrawal? There was never a Syria withdrawal,” Jeffrey said. “When the situation in northeast Syria had been fairly stable after we defeated ISIS, [Trump] was inclined to pull out. In each case, we then decided to come up with five better arguments for why we needed to stay. And we succeeded both times. That’s the story.”

“We were always playing shell games to not make clear to our leadership how many troops we had there,” Jeffrey said in an interview.

While Jeffrey’s revelation came after Trump had left office from his first term, there was a real time revelation of a policy conflict between President Trump and the “interagency consensus” that would become foundation of the first Trump impeachment.

The policy difference originated from a phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky when Trump requested Zelensky open an investigation into possible corruption at the Burisma energy company before receiving a military aid package. Trump’s 2020 election opponent Joe Biden’s son was on the board of Burisma.

A central part of the subsequent impeachment case was testimony from Lt. Alexander Vindman (ret.), who had been detailed to the National Security Council and present for the phone call. Vindman explained in his opening statement to the House impeachment committee he was concerned the president chose to wield his executive authority in a way that was at odds with the “interagency consensus.” Vindman testified “…a false narrative of Ukraine inconsistent with the consensus views of the interagency,” Vindman said in his opening statement. “This narrative was harmful to U.S. government policy. While my interagency colleagues and I were becoming increasingly optimistic on Ukraine’s prospects, this alternative narrative undermined U.S. government efforts to expand cooperation with Ukraine.”  But Vindman and the “interagency consensus” have no authority to determine or execute their interpretation of U.S. government policy or in other words, “do what they thought was right.”

The New York Times editorial board supported and encouraged the usurpation of executive authority in favor of the “right” bureaucratic opinion by praising the government bureaucracy overriding or ignoring President Trump’s lawful authority. “…patriotic public servants — career diplomats, scientists, intelligence officers and others…have somehow remembered that their duty is to protect the interests, not of a particular leader, but of the American people.”

There is no way to know exactly how extensive bureaucratic resistance interfered with Trump’s ability to govern in his first term, but we do know 46% of current Federal Government Managers would ignore the legal order of President Trump and instead do what was “right.” Trump is making the correct move to overhaul the federal bureaucracy in order to deliver on the campaign promises that got him back in office.

Elizabeth Sheld is a veteran political strategist and pollster who has worked on campaigns and public interest affairs.

This article was originally published by RealClearPolicy and made available via RealClearWire.