What already seemed glaringly obvious to many is now being proved once and for all: Trump is not and never was prepared to take office.
An organized incoming president brings with them a hand-picked team that is ready to take over the White House from Day 1 to keep operations running smoothly. The total number of seats to fill is 4,000 with more than 1,100 of those needing Senate confirmations. While it’s impossible to fill all 4,000 on Day 1, the recommended number of people on an incoming presidential team is 450 at least, with nominees for the most important 100 jobs picked out and Senate confirmation-ready. But as the New York Times reports, our great, big-mouthed leader is not even close. He has no nominees for 75% of those top 100 jobs, and his skeleton team is light on governing experience.
After an election cycle riddled with insults and attacks on the Obama administration, you’d think that Trump would have his new administration locked and loaded. But alas, President Trump has asked to keep on staff about 50 essential officials from Obama’s administration — at least until he comes up with replacements. On top of that, the New York Times said in another article that Obama’s administration left 275 briefing papers including “nearly 1,000 pages of classified material on North Korea’s nuclear program, the military campaign against the Islamic State, tensions in the South China Sea, and every other kind of threat the new team could face in its first weeks in office,” and yet no one knows if anyone from the Trump administration has reviewed them.
It’s simple things like this that show just how overwhelmingly unprepared Donald Trump is to take office. He had two months to put together his top choices for an administrative team, or arguably longer, based on his boasts about how sure he was about winning the election from the start. So why scramble for an administration now? Why open himself and our country to being understaffed in the case of a threat? The answer is, he was never ready for this job.
Image via Flickr/The U.S. National Archives: Photograph of Socks the Cat Sitting Behind the President’s Desk in the Oval Office: 01/07/1994
More from BUST
“Global Gag Rule” Could Put Millions Of Women’s Health At Rick
This Group Of Feminists Claim To Be Pro-Life
9 Democrats’ Most Transparent Excuses To Miss Trump’s Inauguration
