President Trump’s nominations lagging after 200 days in office

WASHINGTON (UPI) — President Donald Trump is lagging behind his predecessors on filling positions in his administration as he reached 200 days in office Monday.

Trump has nominated 277 people for key posts in his administration with 124 confirmed and eight withdrawn, according to CNN’s tracker.

The Partnership for Public Service noted 577 executive branch positions as particularly essential — and Trump has only successfully filled about a fifth of them. In all, there are 4,000 positions across government that are not civil service jobs but are political appointments. A total of 1,200 of those require Senate confirmation.

At the same point in their terms, President Barack Obama had 433 nominations and 310 confirmations, President George W. Bush had nominated 414 and had 294 confirmed, and President Bill Cilnton had 345 nominations and 252 confirmed.

Expressed as percentages, it’s 45 percent for Trump, compared with 72 percent for Obama, 71 percent for Bush and 73 percent for Clinton.

The Senate has taken longer to confirm Trump’s picks — 54 compared with 41 for Obama 35 for Bush and 30 for Clinton.

“While the pace of nominations for political appointees has picked up in recent weeks, critical leadership positions remain vacant at almost every agency and department,” Partnership for Public Service President Max Stier said. “The president must prioritize getting his full team in place. Doing so will strengthen his ability to run the government, achieve his priorities and deal effectively with the inevitable crises that will take place in our complicated and dangerous world.”

The Trump administration has blamed the Democrats — the minority party in the Senate — for stalling techniques by requiring procedural steps for all nominees

On July 11, Trump posted on Twitter: “The Senate Democrats have only confirmed 48 of 197 presidential nominees. They can’t win so all they do is slow things down & obstruct!”

But some nominees have been slow in getting paperwork turned in.

And Senate confirmation is halted while it is August recess.

Trump is also away from the White House for 17 days during renovations. The president said he is working at his golf resort in Bedminister, N.J.

On Monday, he posted on Twitter: “The fact is the Fake News Russian collusion story, record Stock Market, border security, military strength, jobs, Supreme Court pick, economic enthusiasm, deregulation & so much more have driven the Trump base even closer together. Will never change!”

In the latest Quinnipiac University survey released Wednesday, 33 percent of Americans approved of the job that Trump is doing, the lowest of his presidency.

But Trump described his low rating in surveys as “Phone Fake News polling” in a post on Twitter and bragged about the crowd sizes at recent campaign-style rallies.

Trump said most news media is not concentrating on the positive news.

Last week, Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. debuted a program on Facebook to deliver “real news.” His daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, presented the first edition and former CNN commentator Kayleigh McEnany hosted an episode Sunday. The videos are shot at Trump Tower in New York.

House Republicans also have launched a new website called Did You Knowthat slams the media for focusing on “chaos” instead of Trump’s productive first 200 days.

“House Republicans aren’t distracted by the newest countdown clock on cable news or partisan sniping in Washington, D.C.,” the website reads. “You don’t care about those things. You care about finding a good job, taking care of your family and achieving the American Dream, and so do we.”

Written by UPI Writer Allen Cone