“Our institutions are failing the American people and will continue to do so until accountability is demanded by the public and restored by our political leaders.”
Under Trump, it was better -ed.
“The White House, how may I help you?” answered the president’s personal assistant.
“Good morning,” I said, “this is Deputy Secretary Bernhardt at Interior. I’m serving as the backup quarterback at the Department of the Interior and I need to get information to the president. He told me I should call him if I needed him to know something, but I don’t necessarily need to talk to him. Perhaps you could send me to whomever I’m really supposed to talk to about items like this?”
She laughed and replied, “The president will call you back in a few minutes.”
Sure enough, President Trump returned my call a few minutes later. I laid out the situation and told him what I intended to do. The whole process took a few minutes.
Such was my experience with President Trump throughout my tenure. He was accessible when you needed his input, his counsel, or a decision, and he was more than able to contact you whenever he had an issue he wanted to be addressed. His willingness to work and communicate with the executives he had placed in various cabinet agencies was extraordinary. He empowered the department leadership while also ensuring that information flowed directly from the agencies to him. He expected to communicate directly with me, and I was expected to communicate directly with him. As a cabinet secretary, I understood that he expected me to determine how best to execute the priorities he had asked me to focus on within the confines of the law and get to work. He was focused on outcomes and expected his department leadership to advance his policy agenda. In my opinion, he allowed competent leaders to move forward at a much quicker pace than many of his predecessors by selecting a goal, letting them get to work, and not allowing his other staff to get in their way.
President Trump’s enabling leadership avoided the massive periods of inactivity that plagued much of my prior experience in the Department of the Interior under George W. Bush. Far more critically, Trump’s expectation that those serving in the executive branch actually report to him reflected a reality about the presidency and his view of it. The Constitution of the United States confers all the executive power of the United States on the president. Only the president has been entrusted by the American people with this power. Therefore, Trump expected that everyone in the executive branch would be working to accomplish the things he committed to the American people that he would do if elected, which he wanted done.
But President Trump was not served as well by all his appointees. He was sabotaged by many of them, as we know - ed.