Trump blames vacancies on 'lousy process'

President Donald Trump blamed the rampant understaffing across the government’s executive branch on the “lousy process” of confirmations and told Fox Business that he is being unfairly blamed for a system that is outside his control.

“I am waiting right now for so many people. Hundreds and hundreds of people. And then they’ll say why isn't Trump doing this faster?’ You can't do it faster because they're obstructing. They're obstructionists,” Trump said in an interview that aired Wednesday morning. “So I have people, hundreds of people, that we’re trying to get through. I mean, you see the backlog. Can't get them through.”


Across the federal government, the Trump administration has yet to fill hundreds of positions, including deputy secretary positions at multiple department and top ambassadorial posts. While Trump blamed the slow-moving confirmation process, others involved in filling the vacant posts have blamed an inefficient White House process, marked by disagreement and “paranoia,” that is overseen by the president himself.

Contrary to Trump’s claim that he has “hundreds and hundreds of people” awaiting confirmation, the White House had, as of April 7, put forward just 24 nominations for the 533 key posts that require Senate approval. Of those 24 nominees, 22 have been confirmed.

Former President Barack Obama had 54 nominees confirmed by April 7, 2009. Former President George W. Bush had 32 by April 7, 2001, and Bill Clinton had 44 as of the same date in 1993.

Trump did tout one major confirmation that his administration has won, that of newly sworn-in Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, the president’s pick to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. But even that confirmation required a historic tactic, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell successfully marshaling votes to remove his chamber’s filibuster rules for Supreme Court nominees, allowing Gorsuch to be confirmed via a simple majority instead of the historic 60-vote threshold.

“The newspapers will say ‘Trump doesn't get them through.’ Well, it’s nothing to do with me. Statutorily, you have to go through this process,” he said. “So it's been a lousy process. It's taken a long time to get my Cabinet done, and as you know, it's not even done now. This is record stuff. We’re talking about records in terms of time and it's very sad.”

