HuffPost Review of Trump’s Cabinet Shows Secretaries are “Largely Absent” During Coronavirus Crisis
WASHINGTON, D.C. – “Many of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet members have been largely absent or have failed to use the powers of their agencies to respond” to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, according to a new HuffPost article finding that “for an ‘all-hands-on-deck’ approach, the muted response from a number of other secretaries is noticeable.”
“The absence of Trump’s Cabinet has been a staggering, if not unsurprising, abdication of leadership,” said Kyle Herrig, president of Accountable.US, a nonpartisan government watchdog group. “With millions of Americans losing their jobs and health care, the entire education system shifting to remote learning, and working people across the country struggling to pay rent, you’d think the Cabinet would show some urgency in upholding their oaths and helping the country navigate this crisis.”
The deep-dive feature found that the “overall approach” of Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia, Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, Environmental Protection Agency Secretary Andrew Wheeler, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue “has been to let the crisis sort itself out and assume that everything will eventually go back to normal. The disjointed approach from the Cabinet is consistent, however, with the White House’s lack of any clear plan for ending the crisis.”
###
