As Kristi Noem and Pam Bondi have learned, in Donald Trump’s world, loyalty to him is seldom reciprocated. They are just the latest in a string of people he has fired over the course of his two terms in office.
It is not surprising that someone who became famous for the use of the phrase “You’re fired” in his stint as a reality TV star would be quick to give the axe to anyone who displeases him. This is part of the reason his first administration set modern records for personnel turnover, and his second may break those records.
The people he lets go are not the only ones to pay the price. Trump’s readiness to throw anyone under the bus damages democracy by showing that loyalty to him and ruthlessness, efficiency in carrying out his agenda matter more to him than service to the people.
Democracy requires the kind of competency that the president does not seem to value. As Prof. Rosa Brooks explains, “A shared notion of competence is essential to democracy.” The kind of competency that democracy demands, she says, “Encompass(es) not only skill and efficacy but also judgment, humility and empathy.”
And if personnel decisions are also an indicator of the quality of a president’s judgment, Trump has failed mightily. His failure is especially telling because the president regularly boasts that he hires and appoints only “top, top people” who are “the best and most serious people.”
This boast was echoed on November 21, 2024, when the then President-elect announced Bondi’s appointment with great fanfare, lauding her experience and success in making “the streets safe for Florida Families.” In typical Trumpian fashion, he said that she “did such an incredible job” in reducing drug trafficking.
“I have known Pam for many years,” he added. “She is smart and tough, and is an AMERICA FIRST Fighter, who will do a terrific job as Attorney General!”
Nine days earlier, he described Kristi Noemhas as “very strong on Border Security….I have known Kristi for years, and have worked with her on a wide variety of projects. She will be a great part of our mission to Make America Safe Again.”
In both cases, the claim that he had known his appointees for years makes his decision to let them go less than two years after he selected them even more of an indication, as the Washington Post put it, that “he has made a mockery of… (his) pledge…” to appoint only the best people.
Looking back at his first term, the Post notes that, “One of the people Trump hired for the White House was working as a foreign agent while advising him during the election. His campaign chairman caught the Justice Department’s attention for similarly surreptitious work. And a third campaign adviser was reportedly surveilled by the FBI as part of an investigation into whether or not he was a Russian spy. The tales of Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, and Carter Page… have…raised persistent questions about his judgment.”
In addition, the president has treated the people he terminates with cold, cavalier indifference. Recall that he fired former FBI Director James Comey while Comey was in Los Angeles at a speaking engagement. Then he took to Twitter to denounce him and congratulated himself on doing “a great service to the people in firing him. Good Instincts.”
In June 2019, Trump’s “good instincts” led him to nominate James Esper as Secretary of Defense. At Esper’s swearing-in ceremony, the president said, “There is no one more qualified to lead the Department of Defense than Mark Esper….“I am confident that he will be an outstanding Secretary of Defense. I have absolutely no doubt about it. He is outstanding in every way. And we’re honored to have you aboard.”
Seventeen months later, in November 2020, he fired Esper, tweeting, "Mark Esper has been terminated. I would like to thank him for his service." He did so even though, as NPR reported, “Esper earned the derogatory nickname ‘Yesper’ for seemingly acquiescing or remaining silent…” no matter what outrageous thing the president did.
Trump wanted to fire Esper months earlier after the Defense Secretary did not deploy regular military forces to quell riots in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. But by the time Trump got around to firing Esper, the Defense Secretary had plenty of company.
A Brookings Institution study released in January 2021 found that “turnover among the most influential positions within the executive office of the president” was higher in Trump’s first term than it had been in the first term of any other president going back to 1980. The same was true for members of President Trump’s first-term Cabinet. Fourteen people left the Cabinet. The next highest were the eight people who left the Cabinet in President George H.W. Bush’s first term.
The pace of churn has not slowed since he returned to the Oval Office. Time.com identifies seven senior officials that the president has already removed, including Bondi and Noem.
Time reminds us that the first was Mike Waltz, his National Security Advisor, whom the president fired in May 2025. “Waltz’s ouster came weeks after…a bombshell report that he had organized a group chat on the encrypted messaging app Signal to coordinate a sensitive military operation against Houthi militants in Yemen.”
Last May, Cameron Hamilton was also removed from his position as the acting head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, “After he broke with the Administration by testifying to members of Congress that he did not approve of dismantling the agency.”
But it turns out that as much as Trump seems ready to fire people, he does not like to do it in person. So, he typically uses intermediaries or relies on social media.
He fired Reince Priebus, his first chief of staff, by a tweet as he was waiting on the tarmac for Trump to get off Air Force One. Trump used the same medium to let Rex Tillerson, Secretary of State in his first administration, know that his services were no longer needed.
In Bondi’s case, the president broke the pattern, delivering the news as the two of them rode together in a limousine so they could attend the oral argument in the birthright citizenship case at the Supreme Court. Not only was this an awkward place to fire her, but as the Daily Beast observes, he did so “brutally,” saying only, “I think it’s time.”
Capturing the cruelty of the moment, it adds, “Even after she was fired in the limousine, she begged to stay….(and) was forced to enter the Supreme Court knowing her time was up.”
This time, he showed a graciousness toward Bondi that has often been sorely lacking in his remarks about others he fired or who left the government. According to NPR, he called her a “Great American Patriot and a loyal friend” in a Truth Social post. He praised her for doing “a tremendous job overseeing a massive crackdown in Crime across our Country…. (and added) We love Pam….”
Small consolation.
As Trump once admitted, "I consider firing everybody. At some point, that's what happens." America’s democracy would be better served if he spent less time considering firing people and more time finding people whom he would never have to think about firing.
Brooks rightly notes that “Democracy… is unsustainable without competence at every level. We need citizens who understand our political system and who are capable of evaluating competing arguments, and we need leaders capable of developing and carrying out wise policies.” Those who have left the administration, as well as many who remain, have not shown themselves capable of doing so, and the American people are worse off because of it.
Austin Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College.
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