President Donald Trump on Sunday suggested he’s not firing additional Cabinet members anytime soon after he dismissed two in the last four weeks.
Trump fired Pam Bondi from her role as Attorney General on April 2, shortly after Kristi Noem was forced out as homeland security chief on March 5. The major Cabinet shake-up was the first since last May, when Mike Waltz, then the president’s national security adviser, became the first Cabinet official to be dismissed.
The president this week threw cold water on rumors that additional senior officials could be on the chopping block, in the wake of rumors that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s job could be on the line. Trump warned against reading into reports of an impending Cabinet shake-up, saying the country was on the right track, during an interview with The Hill on Sunday.
The rumors about Gabbard have spread amid suggestions she disagreed with the White House’s conclusion that Iran posed a direct threat to the U.S. due to its nuclear program, justifying the decision to launch a war against the country. Trump launched strikes against Iran on Feb. 28 after Iranian leadership told the U.S. that it had enough enriched uranium to make 11 nuclear bombs within 10 days, according to the president’s team.
When pressed on March 30 over whether he has confidence in Gabbard, Trump said, “Yeah, sure.”
“I mean, she’s a little bit different in her thought process than me, but that doesn’t make somebody not available to serve,” he told reporters on Air Force One. “I would say that I am very strong on the fact that I don’t want Iran to have a nuclear weapon because if they had a nuclear weapon, they’d use it immediately. I think she’s probably a little softer on that issue, but that’s OK. Some people are.”
An ambiguous social media post Gabbard made on the matter did little to quell questions about whether the country’s top intelligence chief was not in line with the White House on the Iran threat.
“As our Commander in Chief, he is responsible for determining what is and is not an imminent threat,” Gabbard wrote. “The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is responsible for helping coordinate and integrate all intelligence to provide the President and Commander in Chief with the best information available to inform his decisions.”
“After carefully reviewing all the information before him, President Trump concluded that the terrorist Islamist regime in Iran posed an imminent threat and he took action based on that conclusion,” she added.
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At the Department of Justice, Trump has suggested acting Attorney General Todd Blanche could be elevated to the attorney general role. Some Democrats, such as Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), appear open to backing Blanche as attorney general after the president tapped the senior official to fill in for Bondi.
“He’s doing very well. He could,” Trump told NBC News on Sunday, when pressed on whether Blanche could fill the spot permanently. “Everybody wants it. But Todd’s doing very well. He’s been with me a long time. … He’s very much freed up.”