With Latest Missteps, Veneer of Discipline in 2nd Trump Term Falls Away

 

News Analysis

With Latest Missteps, Veneer of Discipline in 2nd Trump Term Falls Away

 

The mistakes, miscommunications and flip-flops are piling up after an early run defined by a flood of major policy changes that were rolled out at breakneck speed.

 

Luke Broadwater

By Luke Broadwater

Luke Broadwater is a White House correspondent. He reported from Washington.

April 21, 2025

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/21/us/politics/trump-administration-missteps.html

 

When President Trump assessed his team’s performance in late March, he boasted that the White House had executed “two perfect months.”

 

Border crossings were down. Military recruitment was up. The stock market was humming.

 

Mr. Trump was achieving his maximalist policy goals with efficiency and minimal internal drama, a notable change from his first term. The White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, known as the “ice maiden,” received much of the credit.

 

But in recent weeks, the veneer of a more disciplined White House has begun to crack.

 

The defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, shared sensitive military information in not one, but two Signal group chats. The I.R.S. has had three different leaders in the span of a single week. A Salvadoran man living in Maryland was deported because of an “administrative error.” And, in yet another misstep, administration officials kicked off a war of threats with Harvard University by sending a letter to the school prematurely, two people familiar with the matter said.

 

While the chaos has not reached the first Trump administration’s levels, the mistakes, miscommunications and flip-flops have started piling up after an early run defined by a flood of major policy changes at breakneck speed.

 

“There was a good reason to believe it would be more disciplined this time around,” said Hans C. Noel, a government professor at Georgetown University.

 

Conservative groups, through Project 2025, laid the groundwork for Mr. Trump to quickly enact his agenda upon taking office. Almost immediately, the president opened investigations of his perceived enemies, issued sweeping executive orders and slashed the federal work force as part of a flood-the-zone strategy aimed at distracting his opponents and throwing them off balance.

 

Much of the infighting that occurred during Mr. Trump’s first term came as he clashed with veteran Washington officials who tried to tone down his impulses.

 

Back then, some of the president’s most radical ideas were checked by people like John F. Kelly, the Trump White House’s longest-serving chief of staff; Jim Mattis, Mr. Trump’s first defense secretary; and Gary Cohn, an economic adviser.

 

But those men are long gone, and their positions have been filled mostly by people who are true believers in the president’s agenda.

 

That, almost by definition, means fewer internal clashes. But it also means the agency heads running the country often lack experience in managing large institutions or even traditional policy backgrounds.

 

“In order to filter out people who are on board with what he wants, that prioritizes loyalty and it prioritizes a certain set of ideological worldviews over competence,” Mr. Noel said.

 

Harrison Fields, a White House spokesman, said he disagreed with any analysis that the second Trump administration has high levels of dysfunction.

 

He said many of the so-called mistakes reported in the media have had no effect on the administration’s effectiveness.

 

“You can’t have this many results with high levels of dysfunction,” he said.

 

But there has been a growing list of missteps.

 

This weekend, some Trump officials said that a hostile letter sent to Harvard, inciting a public battle, should not have been sent and had been unauthorized, even as the administration stands by the letter’s demands.

 

That news came just after Mr. Trump replaced the acting commissioner of the I.R.S. after a power struggle between the billionaire Elon Musk and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who oversees the agency.

 

Mr. Musk, whose information about government cuts has been riddled with errors, has also fought openly with other Trump officials, including the president’s top trade adviser, Peter Navarro.

 

The administration’s tariff policy has whipsawed back and forth so rapidly that businesses planning their futures can barely keep up.

 

Also this month, the president fired more than a half-dozen national security officials on the advice of the far-right agitator Laura Loomer, who was granted access to the Oval Office and ticked through a list of officials  she deemed disloyal.

 

In general, however, the president has been reluctant to fire those close to him in part because he doesn’t want to be seen as giving a victory to the news media.

 

Mr. Trump expressed confidence in Mr. Hegseth on Monday, one day after The New York Times reported that he had shared details about forthcoming strikes in Yemen in a private Signal group chat that included his wife, brother and personal lawyer.

 

“We have the highest recruitment numbers I think we’ve had in 28 years,” he said. “No, he’s doing a great job. It’s just fake news. They just bring up stories. I guess it sounds like disgruntled employees. He was put there to get rid of a lot of bad people and that’s what he’s doing so you don’t always have friends when you do that.”

 

Matthew Foster, government professor at American University, said Mr. Trump ran a more disciplined campaign in 2024 but that’s different than assembling a governing team. Those running agencies for the first time are prone to make beginners’ mistakes, Mr. Foster said.

 

“Campaigns are different than governing,” he said. “One thing you can say about the Trump administration is they are trying to fulfill their promises, right? They are trying to check all those boxes and do it in the way they argued. And we’re seeing that what’s a good campaign is not necessarily good administration.”

 

Luke Broadwater covers the White House for The Times.