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Brian Klaas, Opinion contributor 3:18 a.m. ET June 21, 2017

President Trump in the Cabinet Room on June 13, 2017.(Photo: Susan Walsh, AP)

The United States government is suffering from a new phenomenon: the Trump Brain Drain. For the first time in memory, the American government is havingdifficulty recruitingthe best and the brightest at thehighest levelsof power.

Qualified public servants areturning downplum government jobs because they don't want to be exposed to the risks of serving in President Trump'sWhite House. West Wing power-brokers are lawyering up (even Trumps lawyer hashireda lawyer). A special counsel is reportedly investigating the president himself for possibly obstructing justice.

The reputational risk of working for Trumps administration is enormous, and it's not just because of the endless spiralingscandals. There's alsothe now routineTrumpian ritual of sacrificing his staff on his altar of self-sabotage.We all know the drill: Sean Spicer or Sarah Huckabee Sanders or another sacrificial lamb offers up a flimsy lie to protect Trump. (He fired Comey because he was toohard on HillaryClinton!) Trump repays the favor by contradicting his staff almost immediately on Twitter or TV. (I fired him because of the Russia thing.)

Yet working for this president has become a bewildering exercise in trying to figure out whats worse: paying exorbitant legal fees, being tossed under the proverbial bus by your boss, orrisking becoming a national punchline (we almost feel sorry for you, Sean). The loyalty that Trump infamously demands from subordinates is clearly not a two-way street.

At least there are job perks. Build your CV with the unique experience of being subpoenaed by Congress. Practice your leader worship skills as youre forced to proclaimyour fawning admiration for Trump during a public Cabinet meeting. And if those dont entice you, who wouldnt jump at the chance to work for a beleaguered president withrecord low approval ratings, a hot temper, and a stalled legislative agenda?

The United States is less safe and government is less effective when top talent must think twice about serving the president.

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Less than five months into the Trump presidency, there is a record number of vacancies. Of 558 key presidential appointments requiring Senate confirmation, only43 have beenfilled(less than 8% of the total). And before you echo the frequently tweeted but incorrect Trump accusation that this is due to Democrat "OBSTRUCTIONISTS, remember that405of the 558 positionsdont even have a nominee yet. This snails pace of selecting peoplewhich involves getting them to agree to serveis unprecedented in modern history.

When the post of FBI director opened up (through, shall we say, questionable means), at least fivededicated public servants publicly withdrew from consideration.Several seasoned veterans pulled themselves out of therunningto replace Michael Flynn as national security adviser. EvenKellyanne Conways husbandwithdrewfrom consideration for a powerful Justice Department role (perhaps he had learned some alternative factslife inside the Trump administration from a well-placed counselor?).

The Trump Brain Drain is sapping talent beyond the White House, too. Six cyber security executives toldReutersthat Trumps caustic attacks on intelligence agencies had provoked a marked surge in skilled hackers and cyber talent leaving government agencies to pursue careers in the private sector.Even lawyers, who used to flock to Trump like moths to a litigious orange flame, are now staying away. Four different law firmsdeclinedto represent Trump not only because they feared that Trump wont listen to their legal advice but also because working with Trump wouldkill recruitmentfor their firms the trickle-down economics of the Trump Brain Drain in action.

Of course, there are many, many excellent and experienced public servants in the Trump administration (Defense Secretary James Mattis, National Security AdviserH.R. McMasterand Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao spring to mind). But Trumps top day-to-day advisers are no dream team. We must call an unqualified spade an unqualified spade.

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There's hardly anyone on Trump's senior staff who hasushered abill through Congress. White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, the former Republican Party chairman, has never held elective officeand came to his job withvirtually no experienceat the federal level. Two of Trumps top advisers now some of the most influential people in the world arewoefully unqualified relatives. And former Breitbart chief Steve Bannon has as much business being in the Oval Office as Russian ambassadorSergey Kislyak, yet here we are.

It gets worse. You could start a joke by saying A neurosurgeon and a wedding planner walked into a bar but there's a real-world punchline. Last week, Trumpappointedhis familyswedding planner to run federal housingin New York. Her boss, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, is an impressive neurosurgeon, but its hard to see how operating on brains is a relevant qualification for his post.

In other words, Trumps hiring decisions are compounding the recruitment brain drain because many people he selects are unprepared for their roles. Unless he changes his ways, his presidency will continue to languish from the one-two punch of his own incompetence and the governments inability to recruit top talent.

Brian Klaas is a fellow in comparative politics at the London School of Economics and Political Science and author ofThe Despot's Accomplice: How the West is Aiding and Abetting the Decline of Democracy. Follow him on Twitter@brianklaas.

You can readdiverse opinions from ourBoard of Contributorsand other writers ontheOpinion front page,on Twitter@USATOpinionand in our dailyOpinion newsletter.To submit a letter, comment or column, check oursubmission guidelines.

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The Donald Trump hiring crisis means America's got no talent - USA TODAY

Kevin DrumJun. 20, 2017 6:33 PM

Lets see. So far President Obama has (a) wiretapped Trump, (b) deliberately planned the destruction of Obamacare for 2017, (c) caused the Mike Flynn debacle by failing to properly vet Flynn,1 (d) personally organized anti-Trump protests around the country, and (e) caused the death of Otto Warmbier because he was too weak-kneed to stand up to North Korea.

Its standard practice for new presidents to declare that things are even worse than I thought, usually offered up as an excuse for why the country hasnt blossomed under new leadership within the first month.2 Its also standard to attack your predecessors policies. But its decidedly not standard to accuse your predecessor personally of illegal, unethical, and cowardly acts.

I suppose Obama will continue to stay quiet about this, partly because its tradition, partly because thats who he is, and partly because speaking up might be counterproductive at the moment. But Im pretty sure Im not the only one who wishes hed toss tradition aside and just lay into Trump. Id pay to see it.

1For the record, Flynn was fired by Obama in 2014 because he had become deranged. Obama personally warned Trump about this.

2Also newly elected governors, mayors, district attorneys, sheriffs, dogcatchers, and PTA presidents.

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Donald Trump, Classy As Always - Mother Jones

During the 2016 election, many voters were dismayed by both major-party candidates. Hillary Clinton was the personification of the Washington establishment foreign-policy hawk, with her dismal track record of urging ill-conceived military interventions. And Donald Trump, who railed against squandering American blood and treasure abroad, possessed neither the knowledge nor the experience nor the discipline nor the character to steer Americas approach to geopolitics in a better direction.

As if those choices weren't dispiriting enough, I fretted that for all Donald Trumps denunciations of the Iraq War and promises to spend money at home rather than abroad, a careful assessment of his words showed that his own instincts were interventionistthat he was no less likely than his opponent to blunder into a major war.

In Syria today, President Trump is risking just such a conflict.

American forces and American allies are not only taking territory from ISIS, theyre holding that territory against regime forces, David French writes at National Review. Theres a word for what happens when a foreign power takes and holds territory without the consent of the sovereign state invasion. In many ways, current American policy is a lighter-footprint, less ambitious version of the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Were using local allies, but our own boots are on the ground, and were directly defending our forces and our allies from threats from Syrias own government. In his estimation, the key warring parties increasingly face a stark choiceagree to a de facto partition of the country or inch toward a great-power conflict.

To wit, an American fighter shot down a Syrian warplane on Sunday, the first time the American military has downed a Syrian aircraft since the start of the civil war in 2011. Observers immediately called the incident a marked escalation in the conflict.

And their view was quickly vindicated: Russia on Monday condemned the American militarys downing of a Syrian warplane, suspending the use of a military hotline that Washington and Moscow have used to avoid collisions in Syrian airspace and threatening to target aircraft flown by the United States and its allies over Syria.

Those skeptical of U.S. intervention in the Syrian civil war have long warned that it could escalate into a civilization-warping conflict between nuclear powers. But neither Vietnam nor Afghanistan nor Iraq nor Libya has persuaded todays hawks to sufficiently weight the unintended consequences that plague all complex military interventions. And there are so many varieties of hawks that are urging action.

The complexity of the civil war in Syria is underscored by the fact that the ascendant pro-war faction inside the Trump administration is composed of Iran hawks. According to reporters Kate Brannen, Dan De Luce and Paul McLeary at Just Security, antagonism toward Iran is causing two officials in the Trump White House to push for broadening the conflict, against the advice of officials at the Pentagon:

Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the senior director for intelligence on the National Security Council, and Derek Harvey, the NSCs top Middle East advisor, want the United States to start going on the offensive in southern Syria Their plans are making even traditional Iran hawks nervous, including Defense Secretary James Mattis, who has personally shot down their proposals more than once, the two sources said Despite the more aggressive stance pushed by some White House officials, Mattis, military commanders and top U.S. diplomats all oppose opening up a broader front against Iran and its proxies in southeastern Syria, viewing it as a risky move that could draw the United States into a dangerous confrontation with Iran, defense officials said. Such a clash could trigger retaliation against U.S. troops deployed in Iraq and Syria, where Tehran has armed thousands of Shiite militia fighters and deployed hundreds of Revolutionary Guard officers.

Put another way, Iran hawks in the Trump White House want to broaden the conflict there in a manner that pits the U.S. against another country that also seeks the defeat of ISIS, the ostensible reason the U.S. is involved in Syria in the first place.

Meanwhile, hawks in Iran are escalating that countrys role in Syria: Iran announced Sunday the Iran Revolutionary Guards had launched ballistic missile strikes on Saturday against ISIS targets in Syria, dramatically escalating the countrys role in the Syrian conflict. The mid-range ground-to-ground missiles targeted militants in eastern Syria in retaliation for the deadly terrorist attacks in Tehran earlier this month.

The American public does not want a major intervention in Syria.

There has never been a congressional vote authorizing U.S. military operations in Syria against anyone, and there has been scant debate over any of the goals that the U.S. claims to be pursuing there, Daniel Larison notes. The U.S. launches attacks inside Syria with no legal authority from the U.N. or Congress, and it strains credulity that any of these operations have anything to do with individual or collective self-defense.

And the push for escalation is a particular betrayal for Trump voters who supported the candidate based on rhetoric about quickly defeating ISIS and otherwise eschewing war. Here is what Trump had to say back when President Obama was contemplating a greater U.S. role in Syria: What I am saying is stay out of Syria AGAIN, TO OUR VERY FOOLISH LEADER, DO NOT ATTACK SYRIA - IF YOU DO MANY VERY BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN & FROM THAT FIGHT THE U.S. GETS NOTHING!

Today, escalation in Syria risks those very bad things, along with American lives and treasure, but Trumps current rhetoric suggests he is more focused on his ongoing feud with the news media, Hillary Clinton, and whether he is under investigation. His approach carries all the risks of Washington establishment hawkery with none of the steadiness, experience or discipline that helps to mitigate them.

Were inching toward an outright invasion and extended occupation of northern Syria, French writes at National Review. All without congressional approval. All without meaningful public debate. Will Trumps base stand for this betrayal? So long as he is commander in chief, the U.S. will suffer from the worst qualities of the establishment and its antagonists. It is hard to imagine a president less fit to avoid catastrophe.

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Donald Trump No Longer Wants to 'Stay Out' of Syria - The Atlantic

Another day, another low point for Donald Trump. The president's approval rating, which has proved historically bad since he took office, has sunk again.

The latest survey from CBS Newsout Tuesday found his approval rating had hit a new low of 36 percent, while 57 percent disapproved of the job he is doing. Trump's approval rating has declined over the last few monthsin the CBS News poll. Forty-three percent approved of him in early April, a number that dropped to 41 percent by late April and now has hit the new low of 36 percent in late June. The previous low for Trump was 39 percent in February.

Trump's support among Republicans might have been a factor in the drop. Seventy-two percent of GOP respondents approved of the president's job performancewhich sounds like a lotbut actually represents an 11-percentage-point fall compared with April.

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The poll found that the investigation into Trump's potential ties with Russia, the country that interfered in the 2016 election as it aimed to helpget the GOP candidate into office, hasdragged down his popularity. His firing of FBI Director James Comey and comments suggesting the move was connected to the bureau's Russia probe, as well as his near-constant focus on the investigation, might not be helping him with the American people.Just 28 percent of respondents approved of the way he's handled the probe, according to CBS, while 63 percent disapprove. About one-third said Trump's approach on the process has left them thinking less of the president. Fifty-sevenpercent of GOP respondents approved of Trump's handling of the Russia investigation.

Thirty-nine percent of all respondents thought the Russia investigation was a critical national security issue, while 32 percent thought it was a distraction. Twenty-seven percent thought it was a serious issue but not as serious as other issues.

The CBS News survey, conducted bySSRS,sampled1,117 adults across the country though telephone interviews from June 15 through June 18. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points for the full sample.

Other recent surveys haven't brought good news for Trumpeither. The tracking poll from the generallyright-leaning Rasmussen Reports, a survey often cited by the president on Twitter, found Trump's approval rating had fallen 2 percentage points over the weekend, to 48 percent. Gallup's tracking poll, meanwhile, pegged Trump's approval at just 38 percent Monday, closing in on the president's lowest point in the survey35 percentwhich he hit in late March.

The weighted average from data-focused website FiveThirtyEighthad Trump's approval rating at 38.7 percent Tuesday morning, while his disapproval stood at 55.3 percent. FiveThirtyEightaggregates public polls to come up with the average figure and accounts for each survey's quality, timeliness, sample size and any partisan leanings.

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Donald Trump's Approval Rating Plummets to New Low as Republicans Grow Wary Amid Russia Investigation - Newsweek

President Donald Trump has said he will make an announcement as to whether he taped conversations with FBI Director James Comey before sacking him, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said at the close of todays press briefing.

I expect it this week, he added. When he is ready to make that announcement, I will let you know.

Asked for a yes/no answer to the question, Does Trump believe the Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election, Spicer pulled out his I have not sat down and talked to his about that specifically gag, adding, I will be glad to touch base and get back to you. In rough numbers that translates to dont hold your breath.

Didnt he say it was fake news? a reporter shouted at Spicey as he was wrapping that answer; he declined to acknowledge the question.

Spicer played Trump Victory-Lap Translator, in re last weeks return to this country of American college student Otto Warmbier, who the Obama administration had been unsuccessful in getting released. Warmbier died at home Monday after being held in captivity by North Korea for more than a year during which he suffered major brain damage and slipped into a coma.

The president was pleased he was able to work with the State Department and get Otto home as soon as he could, Spicer said. But I think, when you realize what happened, the president believes, had it happened sooner, potentially there might have been additional medical resources that could have been provided.

Hes obviously saddened by this entire situation, and just would have hoped that it could have been resolved earlier, Spicer translated.

Previous day, upon learning Warmbier had died, Trump said at a photo op: Its a disgrace what happened to Otto. Its a total disgrace what happened to Otto.

It should never, ever be allowed to happen, Trump continued. And frankly, if he were brought home sooner, I think the results would have been a lot different. He should have been brought home that day.

Spicer appeared to confirm reports hes leaving as White House Press Secretary. Asked about those reports, Spicer joked he is right here, so you can keep taking your selfies.

Its no secret weve had a couple vacancies, including communications director, Spicer said, and havec interviewed potential people who may be of service to the Trump White House, noting they are always looking for ways to do a better job articulating the presidents message and his agenda. When we have announcements of a personal nature, I will let you know.

Original post:
Sean Spicer: No Chance Yet To Ask Donald Trump About Russia Election Tampering - Deadline