Jul.14

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Some Trump Officials Hold Two or More Jobs

Virtually all top government jobs are full-time jobs. Working part-time is fine for secretaries, maybe, but not for cabinet secretaries. Managing thousands of people and billions of dollars is not something anyone can do in his or her spare time. Nevertheless, Donald Trump has assigned several cabinet secretaries and other high-ranking officials multiple jobs, making them de facto part-timers at all of them. In a sense, this saves money by having one person do the work of two, but the quality of the work is almost certain to reflect that unless the multiple jobs are closely related and the person is exceptionally good at both jobs and a very hard worker.

It has happened before that a government official held multiple jobs. During the Nixon administration, Henry Kissinger was both secretary of state and national security adviser. Both jobs are about managing foreign affairs and Kissinger knew his stuff pretty well. In the current incarnation, that is not always so. Here are the most egregious examples:

• Marco Rubio: As a senator, Rubio was not known for his work ethic. Senators don't have to do a lot if they don't want to. Going to committee meetings is optional. Giving speeches on the floor of the Senate is optional. As long as a senator votes on bills when needed, none of the other senators complain about him (at least not in public). Taking on the job of secretary of state was a big move for Rubio, since that job requires a lot of travel and meetings with foreign heads of state and foreign ministers. Now Trump has saddled the definitely-not-a-workaholic Rubio with three more jobs. He currently is:
  
  
  1. Secretary of State
  2. Acting NSA
  3. Acting U.S.A.I.D. administrator
  4. Acting national archivist
  
  The first two kind of go together. Running U.S.A.I.D. might not be a lot of work after Elon Musk and his DOGEys basically destroyed the organization. However, running the National Archives is a real job. On the other hand, maybe Trump doesn't want anything he is doing preserved for posterity, so having Rubio be a no show might be fine with him. Still, these are a lot of titles for a guy not known to be a go-getter.
  
  
• Jamieson Greer: Next is Greer, who is not a cabinet secretary, but occupies a cabinet-level position, U.S. Trade Representative. With all the action on the tariff front, and Donald Trump's desire to negotiate 200 trade deals with 200 countries (some of which have no people in them, just penguins) the trade representative should be a busy beaver and doesn't need other jobs. Nevertheless he has three hats:
  
  
  1. U.S. Trade Representative
  2. Acting director of the Office of Government Ethics
  3. Acting director of the Office of Special Counsel
  
  Since Trump has no ethics, the second job is easy. If Trump or anyone else asks if something is ethical, Greer can simply say: "Yeah. Sure. Do it." That shouldn't take up much time. One of the main duties of the Office of Special Counsel is to protect whistleblowers. Trump actually opposes that, so Greer gets off easy here as well. All he has to do is negotiate 200 trade deals in the next 2½ weeks. How hard can that be? Besides, Trump has nominated a former podcaster, Paul Ingrassia, for the latter job, so Greer may soon be rid of it.
  
  
• Sean Duffy: The secretary of transportation has to deal with airplanes. Rockets are sort of like airplanes (well, they fly in the air), so why not combine airplanes and rockets? Duffy, a former congressman and reality TV star is now running the Department of Transportation and also NASA. He also has nine children but he has probably outsourced managing them to his wife. His jobs are:
  
  
  1. Secretary of Transportation
  2. Interim NASA administrator
  
  NASA is kind of drifting, what with private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin getting into the space business. Someone at NASA needs to figure out what its mission should be. That is more than a full-time job by itself. These jobs don't combine well and Duffy has no background in any of this material.
  
  
• Russell Vought: As chief architect of Project 2025, which serves as Trump's playbook, Vought has already had a massive impact on the government. As Director of the Office of Management and Budget, he can now carry it out. But in addition, Trump gave him another job:
  
  
  1. Director of OMB
  2. Acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
  
  Trump hates the CFPB and wants it to wither on the vine. Making Vought, who is very busy destroying the government at OMB, acting director of the CFPB ensures that no one is home at the CFPB. That is precisely what Trump wants. Good fit here.
  
  
• Daniel Driscoll: Driscoll, a veteran who served in the Army in Iraq with distinction, was named Secretary of the Army. While this is a big promotion from lieutenant, he at least has some military background, although leading 1 million soldiers is a step up from leading a platoon. As if this weren't enough, Trump also gave him a second job:
  
  
  1. Secretary of the Army
  2. Interim head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms
  
  The second job has nothing to do with the first one and is very controversial, since all three of its areas are individually controversial. Trump has said that the ATF is weaponized against gun owners and Driscoll will be expected to fix this. How did he get his jobs? Well, being a friend of J.D. Vance probably didn't hurt.
  
  
• Richard Grenell: Former ambassador to Germany Grenell is about as Trumpy as they come, so he got the title of "Envoy for Special Missions," meaning Trump can use him wherever he is needed, typically to inject Trumpiness somewhere. For example, Trump sent Grenell to Venezuela to handle a prisoner swap. However, this undercut Marco Rubio (not that Trump cared). Grenell's current portfolio:
  
  
  1. Envoy for special missions
  2. Interim president of the Kennedy Center
  
  After taking over the Kennedy Center in February, in order to purge it of wokeness, Trump installed himself as chairman and Grenell as the president. That has been harder than expected since virtually everyone there hates him and ticket sales have collapsed. Also, the workers have tried to unionize and five Democratic senators held a protest concert there. By now, Grenell is probably begging Trump to send him to some distant Third World country.
  
  
• Todd Blanche: Blanche was Trump's lawyer in the case where Trump was convicted of falsifying business records in New York. Though Blanche lost the case, Trump was still impressed with him, so he appointed Blanche to be Deputy AG. With all the turmoil there and AG Pam Bondi under fire in the matter of Jeffrey Epstein, it is a busy job. But Trump gave him another job, as well:
  
  
  1. Deputy attorney general
  2. Acting Librarian of Congress
  
  Trump thinks the Library of Congress just stores books and he doesn't like books—except those ghostwritten in his name. So he fired the director, even though that person wasn't at the Library in 2021. But the director was Black, and that is grounds for firing in the Trump administration. Blanche probably doesn't have any time to run the library and certainly has no interest.

There are others as well, but these are the most visible ones. (V)