Juan Williams Uses His Happy Meal Understanding of Politics to Lecture You About Cabinet Staffing
The Hill's Newest Editorial Standard: 'Sure, But Have You Considered That Trump Actually Meant It?
Juan Williams recently wrote a piece for The Hill claiming President Trump is isolated from his cabinet and unwilling to fire failing officials. His argument sounds damning at first glance. A list of scandal-ridden cabinet members, low approval numbers, and the famous “You’re Fired” catchphrase from The Apprentice all make for compelling theater. But Williams commits the same error he seems to criticize: he frames this administration through the wrong lens entirely.
Trump is not the victim of a runaway cabinet. He is the architect of one that functions exactly as designed.
Let’s start with the data. The Brookings Institution published a comprehensive analysis of Trump’s second-term staffing record on January 27, 2026. Their findings directly contradict Williams’ premise. Trump’s first term was historically chaotic, with turnover rates that dwarfed his predecessors. According to Brookings research, over 30% of Trump’s A-Team departed during his first year in office, compared to just under 30% in his second term. While both numbers exceed historical averages, the trajectory matters: Trump learned from his first term and prioritized stability this time around. This was not an accident. Trump empowered external organizations like the America First Policy Institute, the Center for Renewing America, and the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 to prepare comprehensive transition plans. He made 163 personnel announcements during the transition period, 33 more than Obama and more than twice the number from his first transition (Brookings Institution, 2026).
The Brookings analysis confirms what should be obvious: Trump’s team placed a premium on loyalty above all else in evaluating staff for his second administration. This is not dysfunction. This is the point.
Williams lists a series of scandals involving cabinet members and asks why Trump has not fired them. He treats this as evidence of weakness or isolation. But the question itself reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of how this administration operates. The Brookings research shows that Trump has aggressively exercised and tested the bounds of his removal power to create an executive branch that is less independent and more accountable to him. In his first year alone, Trump fired or attempted to fire 18 board and commission members with statutory “for-cause” protections, along with two executive agency officials. He fired 16 presidentially appointed inspectors general within his first week in office (Brookings Institution, 2026). This is not a president who is reluctant to fire people. This is a president who fires the people he wants to fire.
The cabinet members Williams cites remain in place because they have not violated the one standard that matters in this administration: loyalty to Trump. That is not a defense of their competence. Kristi Noem’s handling of the Minneapolis shooting, Pam Bondi’s bungling of the Epstein files release, Kash Patel’s controversial handling of the Charlie Kirk assassination investigation, Lori Chavez-DeRemer’s reported investigations into workplace misconduct, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s response to the measles outbreak are all serious issues. But Williams assumes these scandals should trigger automatic firings based on traditional measures of performance. That assumption no longer applies.
Consider the confirmation context. Brookings researchers note that the average time between Trump’s second-term cabinet nomination announcements and confirmations was 84 days. Trump withdrew 54 nominees in his first year, nearly four times as many as Biden’s 14. The Senate’s confirmation process is deliberately slow, and replacing a cabinet member means navigating that process again while potentially losing seats to opposition senators (Brookings Institution, 2026). When Trump fired National Security Adviser Waltz after the Signal group chat scandal, he did not simply terminate him. He moved him to a Senate-confirmed position as U.S. Representative to the United Nations. That is how this administration operates: carefully, strategically, with an eye toward maintaining loyalists in confirmed positions rather than creating vacancies that enemies might fill.
Williams also overlooks the institutional changes that make his criticism outdated. In September 2025, Senate Republicans invoked the nuclear option to change how executive branch nominations are processed. This allowed the Senate to bundle unlimited nominees for simultaneous confirmation votes. The result? By the end of his first year, 352 of Trump’s nominees had been confirmed, over 100 more than in his first administration. The confirmation rate reached 77.5%, the highest percentage in a first year since George W. Bush’s 80.9% (Brookings Institution, 2026). Trump has more loyalists confirmed now than he did in his first term. The system is working as designed.
The Brookings analysis identifies three key lessons Trump learned from his first term. First, transition planning matters, and he invested heavily in it. Second, loyalty must be the primary criterion for hiring. Third, presidents can test and push past legal and normative guardrails to centralize power (Brookings Institution, 2026). Every cabinet member who has survived the first year of this administration has passed the loyalty test. Every scandal that has not triggered a firing is a scandal the White House has calculated is survivable.
This brings us to the most significant flaw in Williams’ argument. He treats the Trump administration as if it should be evaluated by the same standards as previous administrations. That premise is incorrect. Trump has systematically dismantled those standards. He has removed inspectors general designed to provide independent oversight. He has fired board and commission members intended to exercise independent authority. He has recalled career foreign service officers who might exercise independent judgment. The Brookings report notes that the Merit Systems Protection Board and the National Labor Relations Board were left without quorums for months, unable to decide cases (Brookings Institution, 2026). This is not dysfunction. This is the reconstruction of the executive branch around a single principle: total loyalty to the president.
Williams quotes Fox polls showing Trump’s disapproval at 70% among moderates and 78% among independents. He cites a 54% majority believing the country is worse off than a year ago. These numbers may be accurate, but their relevance depends on what we are measuring. If we are measuring public opinion, Trump’s numbers are indeed poor. But if we are measuring the administration’s effectiveness at achieving its stated goals, the picture looks different. The White House has staffed the executive branch with loyalists. It has confirmed more nominees than in the first term. It has removed independent watchdogs. It has centralized decision-making in the Oval Office. By its own metrics, this administration is succeeding.
The real question is not whether Trump will say “You’re Fired.” The question is whether the American people want an executive branch built entirely around personal loyalty to one person, with independent oversight eliminated and institutional independence treated as an obstacle. Juan Williams describes chaos and dysfunction. What the evidence actually shows is a deliberate restructuring of the federal government designed to concentrate power in the White House. That restructuring is working exactly as intended. Whether that is what Americans want is a question they will have to answer at the ballot box. But we should at least be clear about what is actually happening.
For those seeking additional evidence that punditry has hit rock bottom and is actively mining underneath, Juan Williams' masterclass in stating the obvious can be found here: https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/5717124-trump-refuses-fire-officials/
---
Works Cited
Brookings Institution. (2026, January 27). Assessing President Trump’s second-term staffing record. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/assessing-president-trumps-second-term-staffing-record/
Williams, J. (2026). Trump refuses to fire officials. *The Hill*. https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/5717124-trump-refuses-fire-officials/