The DHS Death Spiral

So many knives in backs and so much tea to spill and so many more knives in backs!

Photo by Andy Feliciotti on Unsplash

Last month I was discussing the current state of the federal government with some current federal employees. who had endured the first year of Trump’s second term. What I heard from these folks was pretty depressing. Morale across the federal bureaucracy was abysmal. Departments that used to attract the best of the best — like the State Department and Justice Department — were now hemorrhaging talent and having difficulty recruiting anyone of quality. Or, as one person told me, “outside of the Pentagon, the operational capacity of the federal government has been destroyed.”

The decline of U.S. state capacity has been a running theme here at Drezner’s World since Trump was inaugurated last January. Today, however, it seems worth focusing on the rapidly deteriorating state of the Department of Homeland Security. DHS is a tough test for the argument that U.S. state capacity is declining. While most government agencies have faced budget of staffing cuts, DHS received a massive budget increase after passage of Trump’s signature spending bill last year and has been on a hiring spree.

Despite the influx of dollars and personnel, however, evidence is mounting that DHS is the bureaucracy that can’t shoot straight… unless there’s an innocent civilian in point-blank range. This past Sunday John Oliver devoted his most recent show to recounting many of DHS’ sins, he didn’t have to work very hard to produce a damning segment:

It gets worse for Homeland Security. The wave of negative news stories and critical press leaks about DHS has reached typhoon levels. Consider the following:

1. It was a DHS agency that was responsible for the emergency closure of the El Paso airport earlier this month, according to the New York Times: “The abrupt closure of El Paso’s airspace late Tuesday was precipitated when Customs and Border Protection officials deployed an anti-drone laser on loan from the Department of Defense without giving aviation officials enough time to assess the risks to commercial aircraft, according to multiple people briefed on the situation.” Worse, according to NBC News, “U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials used an anti-drone laser that was provided by the military to shoot down objects that were later identified as party balloons.” This makes it sound like DHS is populated by morons or something.

2. Late last week the Wall Street Journal published a bombshell story about Kristi Noem’s leadership that it, to use inside-the Beltway parlance, real bad: “Within DHS, Noem and Lewandowski frequently berate senior level staff, give polygraph tests to employees they don’t trust and have fired employees—in one incident, Lewandowski fired a U.S. Coast Guard pilot after Noem’s blanket was left behind on a plane, according to people familiar with the incident. Simmering criticism over the past year for Noem’s policies and publicity moves exploded in Minneapolis, jeopardizing her grip over DHS and putting her standing with Trump on thin ice.” The level of embarrassing detail in that story — including reports about Noem’s affair with Corey Lewandowski — means plenty of administration insiders have had it with Noem and her team.

3. The WSJ story seemed to incentivize DHS insiders to leak to the press even more. NBC News provided a follow-up story on tensions between Noem and the Coast Guard that has an awful lot of solid detail. This section in particular demonstrates the witless incompetence, short-sightedness, and selfishness of current DHS leadership:

   Noem’s team clashed with Coast Guard staff last year after the Coast Guard plane she’d been flying on broke down and she had to fly back to Washington, D.C., on a backup jet, according to the two U.S. officials, the Coast Guard official , and the former Coast Guard official.

   While flying on the backup plane, Noem realized she had left some personal items, including her blanket, on the plane that had broken down, the two U.S. officials, the Coast Guard official and the former Coast Guard official said.

   When Lewandowski was informed that some of her personal items had been left behind, he yelled at the Coast Guard flight staff and threatened to fire them, according to the two U.S. officials, the Coast Guard official and the former Coast Guard official.

   The Coast Guard pilot came out of the cockpit to see what was happening, and Lewandowski insisted the plane return to where the broken-down jet was located to collect the secretary’s items, the U.S. official, the current Coast Guard official and the former Coast Guard official said.

   When the pilot refused, Lewandowski announced the pilot was relieved of his duty, according to the U.S. official, the current Coast Guard official and the former Coast official. The pilot explained that if he was fired, he would need to land the plane immediately while another pilot was found to continue the mission to Washington, the U.S. official, the current Coast Guard official and the former Coast Guard official said.

   Lewandowski ultimately relented and calmer heads prevailed by the end of the trip, the two U.S. officials, the current U.S. official and the former Coast Guard official said.

4. As recriminations go public, other DHS political appointees are heading for the exits. For example, Politico broke the news that DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin is planning on leaving.

There is a doom loop emerging with these stories. The political polling confirms that most of the American public is turning against DHS in general and ICE in particular. Other hard data from G. Elliott Morris bolsters this premise: “Multiple independent data sources all confirm the same finding: Americans are not on board with Trumpism, and evidently, they are willing to show that in protests and at the ballot box.” When even NRO’s Andrew McArthy is writing essays blasting the administration’s handling of particular immigration cases, Trump has lost his audience and lost it badly.

So, to sum up: continued DHS snafus and incompetent leadership have destroyed morale at the agency and lowered its standing among the general public. This will encourage more reporting and leaks that will paint DHS in the worst light possible —which will in turn further lower DHS’ political standing further. This cycle will repeat at least as long as Noem and her coterie are nominally in charge, but Trump doesn’t want to fire her because it makes him look weak — which, based on the polling, he very much is.

All the while, the erosion of U.S. state capacity will continue apace.