The Trump Administration's Recursive Incompetence

Why are so many stories about the administration's beclowning of the executive branch surfacing now?

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

The hard-working staff here at Drezner’s World has made no secret of its low opinion of the Trump administration’s policy acumen. Their foreign policy is an omnishambles. Their foreign economic policy is a slow-motion disaster. Their immigration policy is riddled with lies, administrative errors, and a wanton disregard for the rule of law. And they are running the federal government into the ground.

Much of this echoes the witless incompetence of Trump’s first term, but with a twist. Eight years ago, the beclowning was not only on display — it usually arrived with a side-order of anonymous quotes from White House staffers and supporters acknowledging the fuck-ups. Indeed, these quotes provided much of the grist for the #ToddlerinChief thread and subsequent articles and book.

My expectations of the second term were different. As I argued late last year, Trump’s emphasis on hiring loyal sycophants would likely reduce the number of staffers willing to blab to the press about behind-the-scenes incompetence. Furthermore, Trump’s lack of shame and willingness to absorb any scandal also had the potential to reduce the media coverage of screw-ups.¹

I would posit that for much of the administration’s first three months, this held true. As Trump has overreached in his trade policy, his assault on higher education, and his efforts to look tough on immigration, however, his polling numbers have started to crater. He is approaching his 2017-levels of unpopularity, which to be clear are the worst in modern presidential history. Trump is also polling the worst he ever has on his management of the economy — arguably the issue that enabled him to scratch out a win last November.

One interesting result of this is that we are beginning to see myriad Trump advisors beginning to shift into CYA mode. They are now talking to reporters about behind-the-scenes rivalries and errors. And the result over just the last 72 hours has been a cornucopia of stories about this administration’s screw-ups.

Consider the Wall Street Journal’s Alexander Saeedy and Josh Dawsey coverage of Trump’s climbdown on his “reciprocal tariffs.” Apparently it involved having to stage a secret meeting with Trump when his economic advisors knew that Peter Navarro was otherwise occupied:

They needed to get the president alone.

On April 9, financial markets were going haywire. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick wanted President Trump to put a pause on his aggressive global tariff plan. But there was a big obstacle: Peter Navarro, Trump’s tariff-loving trade adviser, who was constantly hovering around the Oval Office.

Navarro isn’t one to back down during policy debates and had stridently urged Trump to keep tariffs in place, even as corporate chieftains and other advisers urged him to relent. And Navarro had been regularly around the Oval Office since Trump’s “Liberation Day” event.

So that morning, when Navarro was scheduled to meet with economic adviser Kevin Hassett in a different part of the White House, Bessent and Lutnick made their move, according to multiple people familiar with the intervention.

Now this might just be Bessent and Lutnick spinning that they are now the adults in the room — except that, remember, there are no adults in the room.

This reporting jibes with what Axios’ Marc Caputo writes about how Trump thinks about tariffs:

Trump keeps such a huge team of advisers because he invariably solicits conflicting opinions. He often suffers from analysis paralysis and can be particularly influenced by whomever he talks with last.

Trump also can be unclear on specifics, resulting in contradictory messages from his advisers, each of whom serves as a TV avatar of his tariff brain. Bessent and Lutnick have been criticized for giving mixed messages.

"We saw it in business with Trump," one adviser said. "He would have these meetings and everyone would agree, and then we would just pray that when he left the office and got on the elevator that the doorman wouldn't share his opinion, because there would be a 50/50 chance [Trump] would suddenly side with the doorman."

“There are too many people in his ear," the adviser said. "You didn't see this with other presidents. Nixon didn't act as the maître d' of his own supper club, where every millionaire and billionaire who could get to him at dinner could chime in and affect policy.”

Bear in mind that these damaging quotes are about the president’s thinking on trade. This is a policy arena in which Trump might not be terribly informed but he is highly interested and therefore hands-on. As I suggested prior to the start of his second term, on issues where he is even less knowledgeable, the likelihood of subordinate screw-ups — as opposed to Trump screw-ups — increases significantly. Or, as Max Kennerly explained, “One feature of Trump 2.0 is how it has even less management than Trump 1.0.”

For exhibit A in this bucket, consider the New York Times’ Michael Schmidt and Michael Bender on how the administration’s legal confrontation with Harvard was triggered in no small part by staff incompetence:

Harvard University received an emailed letter from the Trump administration last Friday that included a series of demands about hiring, admissions and curriculum so onerous that school officials decided they had no choice but to take on the White House.

The university announced its intentions on Monday, setting off a tectonic battle between one of the country’s most prestigious universities and a U.S. president. Then, almost immediately, came a frantic call from a Trump official.

The April 11 letter from the White House’s task force on antisemitism, this official told Harvard, should not have been sent and was “unauthorized,” two people familiar with the matter said.

The letter was sent by the acting general counsel of the Department of Health and Human Services, Sean Keveney, according to three other people, who were briefed on the matter. Mr. Keveney is a member of the antisemitism task force.

It is unclear what prompted the letter to be sent last Friday. Its content was authentic, the three people said, but there were differing accounts inside the administration of how it had been mishandled. Some people at the White House believed it had been sent prematurely, according to the three people, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about internal discussions. Others in the administration thought it had been meant to be circulated among the task force members rather than sent to Harvard.

But its timing was consequential. The letter arrived when Harvard officials believed they could still avert a confrontation with President Trump. Over the previous two weeks, Harvard and the task force had engaged in a dialogue. But the letter’s demands were so extreme that Harvard concluded that a deal would ultimately be impossible.

So, in other words, the Trump administration is just like every cocksure Harvard freshman who thinks they can BS their way into a good grade because this had worked for them in high school. In the end, the fact that the administration did not check its work before sending its letter is perfectly on brand.

Know what else is on brand? Pete Hegseth incompetently running a bureaucracy! We already know he sucks at operational security. It also turns out that, according to Politico’s Daniel Lippman and Jack Detsch, the Secretary of Defense also can’t hire people worth a damn:

Joe Kasper, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s chief of staff will leave his role in the coming days for a new position at the agency, according to a senior administration official, amid a week of turmoil for the Pentagon.

Senior adviser Dan Caldwell, Hegseth deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick and Colin Carroll, the chief of staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg, were placed on leave this week in an ongoing leak probe. All three were terminated on Friday, according to three people familiar with the matter, who, like others, were granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue….

The changes will leave Hegseth without a chief of staff, deputy chief of staff, or senior adviser in his front office.

“There is a complete meltdown in the building, and this is really reflecting on the secretary’s leadership,” said a senior defense official. “Pete Hegseth has surrounded himself with some people who don’t have his interests at heart.”

This week’s terminations follow a purge of top military officers in February, including former Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. C.Q. Brown and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti.

“There probably will be more chaos,” said a third defense official. “It certainly reinforces the fear factor, awareness that no one’s job is safe.”

Call me crazy, but I don’t think it’s great sign for U.S. national security when quotes like “there is a complete meltdown in the building” and “there probably will be more chaos” are used to describe the Pentagon.

This recursive spiral of incompetence stories is likely to persist for a spell.² Short of an economic turnaround, Trump’s polling numbers are unlikely to improve. And Trump is the architect of his bad economic situation. I have little confidence that his mixture of high tariffs, immigration restrictions, attacks on universities, deconstruction of the administrative state, and massive policy uncertainty will jump-start a slowing economy anytime soon. While Trump’s staff might be more loyal to his preferred policy ends this time around, they are going to want to spin as much as possible that the uncertainty and incompetence are not their fault.

In other words, the stories about incompetence will continue until the economy improves. And it won’t.

1. This was how his national security team was able to endure the Signalgate embarrassment without a high-level personnel shakeup.

2. Consider this story about Rubio firing the USAID administrator, something that likely would have had a half-life of multiple news cycles in most administrations.