August 29, 2017

With Hurricane Harvey pummeling Houston, Trump supporter Laura Ingraham and the Fox and Friends hosts want to know why Trump isn't staffing important government positions in his administration.

In a break from their usual glorification of Trump, Brian Kilmeade asked guest Laura Ingraham about this problem.

Kilmeade asked, "Where's the staff? Where's homeland security? Where are the nominations? Why are they being held up and why are so many positions don't have nominees for them yet?"

For months, C&L and other major new outlets have been asking the same questions.

In June, The Washington Post asked, "President Trump has a major staffing problem. He has been president for five months, and yet his agencies are severely understaffed at the highest levels."

On August 4th, the Chicago Tribune writes, "...critical leadership positions remain vacant at almost every agency and department in the federal government. Just seven of the 15 Cabinet agencies have their No. 2 leaders in place, leaving day-to-day operations to career civil servants in acting roles."

Ingraham replied, "We only have had a FEMA director since June."

And in a turn of that will make your own head spin, Ingraham admitted that we do need the federal government to make America work properly under all conditions.

She continued, "I think we can all look at these horrific pictures, and we can conclude that a federal government does need staff. We see it acutely in need of staff in a situation like this. This isn't the only crisis we're facing. This is massive - humanitarian. We're also facing a huge crisis with North Korea."

"We're facing a crisis of confidence across the country where people wonder even with President Trump in, he said he was going to drain the swamp, can we have a government that works for the people and not just have a people enslaved to the government," she said.

Kilmeade jumped in, "You have 117 that need confirmation. 106 have been confirmed, but 366 positions with no nominee."

Ingraham replied, "Yeah. I mean, this is a question that has to be posed to the administration. I know they have a lot on their hands, but we have to have people in place. If there's a plan to not staff and cause the ultimate shrinkage of government, then let's hear about that as well, but at Homeland Security, at FEMA, at the US trade representative's office where they're doing that huge renegotiation of NAFTA."

"You know Bob Lighthizer does not have a permanent deputy in place. He does not have a team of people right underneath him who are permanent for this administration. That's a massive undertaking and, you know, they're doing it with a much smaller staff, and it's really -- it's not ideal," she said.

Not ideal?

That's a massive understatement, but they made the correct points.

You can't run a functioning government without people in place. Trump seems most concerned about who is bringing him his news clippings and what criticisms he's receiving instead of who will help Americans when a natural disaster strikes.

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