The Biden administration has a new challenge emerging for the second half of the term

Political appointees often leave an administration after the first two years. The pace of departures from the Biden administration at two years is happening at a quickening pace. The Federal Drive with Tom Temin  spoke with Brookings Institution Senior Fellow, Katie Tenpas.

Interview transcript:

Tom Temin
We talk about this, periodically, with you. And the two year point, though, is when a lot of people leave, normally, in every administration, just to level set. Correct?

Katie Tenpas
Yeah, generally speaking, turnover is pretty low in year one and then there’s a pretty big uptick in year two. The only exception, going back to Ronald Reagan, was Donald Trump. And that’s because his first year turnover, was a whopping 35% off the charts outlier. And then the second year was 31%, which is so quite high. But he’s the only one who had a slight downtick in year two. But again, I attribute that to the fact that year one was so incredibly high. And if you go back to Reagan, all the other presidents had very low turnover the first year and then it bumped up.

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Tom Temin
And for purposes of the count that you did, we’re not talking about the entire plumb book, but just certain selected subset, in which is that subset.

Katie Tenpas
So this subset includes key influential positions in the Executive Office of the President. And within the Executive Office of the President, you have, what most people know of as, the White House staff. But then you also have really important entities like the National Security Council, the Office of Management and Budget, the Council of Economic Advisers, the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. It’s all the stub offices. So my sample, includes 66 senior staffers, two of them are confirmed, which will be the OMB director. And the director of [Office for Management and Budget’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA)] and Office of Science and Technology Policy. But generally speaking, these are unconfirmed positions. Presidents choose these people to serve. And he also chooses when they leave. But in the case of Biden, he has only had two, what I would call, forced resignations. There was one in the first year and the second year, it was the head of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, Eric Lander, who was forced out in part, because of his behavior and his treatment of staff. I guess there was verbal abuse that was reported in The Washington Post. But generally, most of Biden’s departures have been kind of their own choice. They’ve chosen to move on to the private sector. They’ve been promoted to other positions, which I count as turnover, because it then requires that they filled the position they’ve left, causes a disruption, decreases efficiency and all of those things. So some people are promoted, most people depart for other reasons, kind of private reasons. And move on to the private sector or to nonprofits.

Tom Temin
But the 66 are the jobs that have the real policy influenced, probably more so than say, the Agriculture Secretary or VA Secretary, where big policies still come from the White House.

Katie Tenpas
Exactly. And what’s happened over time. If you looked at the presidency, say since, Eisenhower. You’d find that over time, presidents have internalized expertise in the White House and power has become centralized in the White House, which has come at the cost of the cabinet secretaries. The one thing I would say that’s unique about the Biden administration and the Cabinet Secretaries is, that he does tend to involve them more than his predecessors. I have heard that there are more cabinet meetings. And oftentimes, he brings in cabinet secretaries for press conferences and things of that nature. So it seems as though he is trying to, kind of, reverse the tide of cabinet secretaries having less influence and actually bringing them in more frequently.

Tom Temin
And getting back to the 66, in the second year here. Of course, Ron Klain, the Chief of Staff of the White House, famously, has departed. But that’s almost always a two year stint, isn’t it for the most part?

Katie Tenpas
Well, yeah, and let me just make one clarification. So there are 66 senior staffers. And of those 66, 21 departed in year two, five departed in year one. So it’s not 66 departures in year two, it’s the whole sample of influential staffers is 66. And Ron claim, technically, his departure was announced the day after the two year mark. So he is, technically, my first year three departure. His departure does not tabulate into the year two.

Tom Temin
All right. And so how does the second year final net Biden departure rate, compare with other presidents?

Katie Tenpas
For Biden himself, it was a huge uptick. It was more than quadruple. But I would say that, to compare to other presidents, he’s sort of back in line with President Bush and he’s closest to President Clinton. The two presidents who have had more turnover, at this point in our administration, were Ronald Reagan and Donald J. Trump. So he’s third overall, but his numbers are much closer to that, of Clinton and Bush. Obama was very low. George H.W. Bush was very low. But he is more in line with President Clinton.

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Tom Temin
We’re speaking with Katie Tenpas, she’s a nonresident Senior Fellow at Brookings specializing in governance studies. And do we know what causes these different rates? What do we infer from this? What are the lessons here?

Katie Tenpas
Well, I think that there was a huge uptick from between year one and year two for Biden, because year one was so low. So statistically, it’s very low the first year you can expect a bigger uptick in year two. But it’s also the case that, you might recall, a lot of these people who have left worked on the campaign, they went through that horrible period where there was a contested election, which required a lot of, probably, 20 hour working days. They had a truncated transition the first year, even though they were able to attain some legislative success. Second year, they were saying legislative success. It’s just been exhausting. It’s been challenging. So even though they had majorities in the House in the Senate, they were razor thin. And it meant that every legislative victory, had to be full of compromise and negotiation and pretty much narrow wins. Also, you have to remember, they took office at a time, when it’s right at the point where they were distributing COVID vaccines. So COVID is still with us. That’s been an ongoing challenge. Inflation has been a challenge. Russia invading Ukraine has posed a new challenge. It’s never easy in these jobs. But I would say that the two years, plus, the part during the transition in the campaign itself, was incredibly arduous. And so I can see a lot of these people running out of gas. And just needing a break. These jobs are some of the most stressful jobs in the country, I would argue. So you do see turnover. Again, it’s in line with presidential and so it’s not out of the ordinary. If it were my hope, I wish that people once they agreed to work for the president, they would stay all four years, unless the president didn’t want them to. Only because, four years goes by quickly. This is an opportunity for them to make a difference. And it’s not like you’re the CEO of PepsiCo where you can stay eight years, 10 years, whatever. This is a finite period of time, in which you can have tremendous influence. And from your perspective, you’re doing good for the country.

Tom Temin
These jobs are probably fun and exhilarating for three months, then maybe just exhilarating for six months. And then they get to be, kind of a drag, because often, they’re five day, six day, sometimes, seven day workweeks, correct?

Katie Tenpas
Oh, yeah. And if you’re in the communications part of the staff, it’s 24/7. Because the media is 24/7. And you’re constantly reacting to news around the world. It’s constant. I would say, for all of them, not just communications. It’s high stress, it’s probably seven days a week for most of them, at the highest level. I’m talking these are the most senior staff that I focused on. And I would say, I’m guessing, they’re all working seven days a week. And everything is so consequential. Like, you’ve talked about prescription drugs, or getting medicine for diabetics and decreasing the price. These things all have huge consequences, whether to assist Ukraine to try to defend themselves. How many tanks do you send over? Everything is consequential. The debt ceiling right now that they’re dealing with. None of these issues are things that, it won’t matter if they don’t deal with. They all matter. The stress has got to be just beyond what anybody can imagine. And so if you look back, going back all the way to 1981. You do see that there’s a fair amount of turnover in these senior positions. And to me, I wish it wasn’t that way. But I think it’s just the reality, that people cannot endure that much stress and those long hours for so long.

Tom Temin
And I wanted to ask you about one particular position that’s, highly visible. And that’s the person that stands there at the press conferences in the White House, trying to answer, well, not really having the answers that the press is looking for. And getting some really dumb questions, frankly. If you listen to these things, that run on for an hour or so. That job looks particularly stressful, because it often sounds like the person doing the answering, is not really in the meetings where the answers are generated. And so they’re kind of making up what they think they are expected to say.

Katie Tenpas
And you hit on two things. One is that Jen Psaki, was one of the most visible year two departures and had that position. And the other thing, just to talk about the role of the press secretary, is that they actually are segregated to some extent, because they are not involved in all the meetings. Because if they were, then when someone said, what is Ron Klain think about, aid to Ukraine. They would have to say, because they were in that meeting. Whereas they can sort of plead ignorance of things, because they’re not included in some of those high level, more political, probably, more charged meetings. And so press secretaries, going way back, have been separated to some extent. And they kind of are allowed information on a need to know basis. And that is deliberate, its strategic.

Tom Temin
And of course, none of them end up poor when they leave those jobs. So there’s that.

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Katie Tenpas
Yeah, I mean, oftentimes, if they’re good at what they did, they can find more lucrative jobs in the private sector, or in the media themselves. But those jobs are not easy either. So they’re just working under different pressures and responding to different pressures. But I’m sure their hours are still extraordinarily high.

Tom Temin
And just a final question, what’s the appeal for those that come in year three and four? If a lot of the important work has been done in years one and two. Especially, in two term presidencies, where you might be in year seven and eight, where things really, the gas is out of the bag there.

Katie Tenpas
Yeah, well, I think a lot of people, if they’re committed to the candidate, now president, they just want the opportunity to work for that individual. So it’s more out of kind of like a loyalty and a desire to make a difference. And then year three, there are still things going on. You might be somebody that has more political savvy. So you’re brought in year three, because that’s when presidents start to look to the reelection campaign. And so they need somebody who can provide specific advice. How will pursuing this initiative, how might it affect the reelection campaign? Where should we make this announcements? Which state across the country is the most valuable to make this announcement? So somebody that has, kind of, those political skills can be extremely helpful. And if you are a committed Democrat, if you like President Biden, this is an opportunity of a lifetime even though it’s year three.

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