Trump’s Early Personnel Moves 

A few weeks into Donald Trump’s presidency, we can see the outlines of his personnel strategy taking shape. The transition got off to a hot start, with Trump naming all Cabinet nominees in record time, but after the first month, the pace of personnel announcements leveled off to match the speed of other recent presidents. 

By Inauguration Day, the Trump transition team publicly announced 163 appointees compared to 130 during the Barack Obama transition and 230 by Joe Biden’s team during the same timeframe. Forty-five of Trump’s announced appointments did not require Senate review. The other 118 nominees required Senate approval, a process that can take days, weeks or months.  

Nominating more than twice as many individuals for Senate-confirmed roles as for non-confirmed appointments sets the second Trump administration apart from recent presidencies. Biden, in particular, foresaw delays in the Senate confirmation process and focused on naming a large number of high-level appointees not requiring Senate confirmation. This allowed him to have trusted political appointees immediately on the job  in senior leadership positions. The evolving Trump 2024 strategy allows many more nominees to queue up for the confirmation process than in prior administrations, but these appointees cannot get started right away. All recent presidents have faced the same challenge, with many of the Trump appointees responsible for carrying out the president’s  ambitious policy agenda not yet on the job. 

The administration’s initial focus on Senate-confirmed appointees has continued into the first weeks of the administration. As of Feb. 12, 153 nominations had been submitted to the Senate and 14 had been confirmed, with those approved requiring an average of 10.4 days to proceed from nomination to final confirmation.  

Compared to prior administrations, the Trump in his second term is well ahead on submitting nominations and has nearly twice as many confirmations at the equivalent time compared to his first term and during for Biden's early days in office. Despite some hearings being rescheduled due to paperwork delays, the Senate has moved quickly on the Trump nominees so far. Hearings for all his Cabinet nominees are complete or were scheduled as of Feb. 12. Based on the current pace, the Senate appears to be on track to confirm the full Cabinet well before any of the prior three administrations. Deputy secretary nominations are also outpacing recent administration: 13 have been submitted thus far while the past four administrations required an average of four months to do the same.  

Critically, the Senate typically approves Cabinet members more quickly than the other 1,300 positions requiring confirmation, but nominations have not been made for hundreds of jobs that that require Senate approval. The average time to confirmation has increased over recent administrations’ first terms, growing from 49 days during the Reagan administration to 193 days by the end of the Biden administration.  

Confirmation times may be long, but nominees do not necessarily sit idly by in the early days of an administration. Some nominees may receive a temporary transition appointment so that they can support the administration from Day One, although the Federal Vacancies Reform Act specifies that individuals in these roles may not serve in the position for which they are nominated and usually serve in an “advisory or consultative capacity.” 

Public data is not yet available on the total number of permanent or temporary non-confirmed appointees who assumed their roles in the early weeks of the administration. Regardless, filling all 4,000 presidentially appointed positions represents a monumental task and no administration has ever done it successfully during the first year in office. The responsibility now rests with the White House Office of Presidential Personnel, which will need to work diligently and efficiently to continue building out this administration through the first hundred days and beyond.