Milbank: Nepotism, cronyism keep President Trump afloat

Because he has been hiring too few people related by blood, marriage or friendship, he has wound up with unreliable “professionals.” A study by Kathryn Dunn Tenpas of the Brookings Institution found that first-year turnover of senior administration officials was 34 percent, much higher than under any president in nearly 40 years.

The obvious solution: more use of the friends-and-family plan. A family-based system may not work for immigration, but it works for staffing a presidency. I have this from an independent authority: Eric Trump. He said last year that nepotism is “a beautiful thing.”

And it is working beautifully. Beyond the formal roles in the White House for Ivanka Trump and husband Jared Kushner (responsible for everything from Middle East peace to reinventing government), and the informal roles played by Donald Jr. and Eric (responsible for antagonizing the special counsel), Trump’s friends-and-family plan has served him brilliantly. Members include:

Dan Scavino, Trump’s onetime golf caddie, now White House director of social media.

Hope Hicks, a former model who helped with Ivanka’s fashion line, the White House communications director until she resigned this week.

Keith Schiller, Trump’s former bodyguard, first head of Oval Office operations and now a $15,000-a-month security consultant to the Republican National Committee.

Linda McMahon, professional wrestling magnate and Trump friend, now Small Business Administration chief.

Robin Bernstein, Trump friend and a founding member of Mar-a-Lago, named to be ambassador to the Dominican Republic.

And many, many more.

What friends are for

I can state unequivocally that every one of these hires has been excellent. Trump will be even more successful when he makes the following personnel changes:

His hairstylist, experienced in complex structures, will run the Army Corps of Engineers; his personal driver will run the Transportation Department; and Trump Organization chief legal officer Alan Garten, fresh from the company’s fight for control of the Trump International Hotel Panama, will replace the hapless Rex Tillerson as secretary of state.

Melania Trump’s florist will run the Agriculture Department, and her parents will oversee the Citizenship and Immigration Services.

And Anthony Scaramucci will make his triumphant return, replacing as press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who inexplicably softened Trump’s boast Monday that he would have charged, unarmed, into a Florida high school to stop the Feb. 14 mass shooting. She said Trump meant “he would be a leader.”

The Mooch would have asserted unequivocally that Trump not only would have overpowered the shooter but also would have stormed the beaches of Normandy, fasted with Gandhi, marched with King, gone to prison with Mandela, saved more Jews than Schindler and burned at the stake with Joan of Arc.

That’s what friends are for.