By Nandita Bose, Jana Winter, Gram Slattery and Andrea Shalal
WASHINGTON, April 4 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump is considering a broader cabinet shake-up in the wake of Attorney General Pam Bondi’s removal this week, as he grows increasingly frustrated with the political fallout from the war with Iran, five people familiar with internal White House discussions said.
Any potential reshuffling could serve as a reset for the White House as it confronts a politically challenging stretch: The five-week-old war has driven up gas prices, dragged down Trump’s approval ratings and intensified anxiety about the consequences for Republicans heading into November’s midterm elections.
Some allies said his televised speech to the nation on Wednesday – which one senior White House official described as an attempt to project a sense of control and confidence about the direction of the war – fell flat, adding to the sense that changes in messaging or personnel were needed.
“A shake-up to show action is not a bad thing, is it?” another White House official said.
Three White House officials and two other sources with knowledge of administration dynamics spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive personnel matters.
The sources did not consistently describe any single cabinet member as certain to lose their job in the near term. But multiple officials are in some degree of danger, they said.
Several of the sources said Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s director of national intelligence, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick are among those potentially on the chopping block, after Trump ousted Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in recent weeks.
Trump has in recent months expressed displeasure with Gabbard, said one senior White House official. Another source with direct knowledge of the matter said Trump had asked allies about their thoughts on potential replacements for his intelligence chief.
Some high-profile Trump allies, meanwhile, are privately pushing for the removal of Lutnick, a close personal friend of the president who has faced renewed scrutiny in recent months for his relationship with late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
New files released earlier in the year revealed that Lutnick had lunch with Epstein on his private island in the Caribbean in 2012. Lutnick has said he “barely had anything to do with” Epstein and that the lunch took place only because he was on a boat near the island.
White House spokesman Davis Ingle said Trump maintained “total confidence” in Gabbard and Lutnick.
“The President has assembled the most talented and impactful Cabinet ever, and they have collectively delivered historic victories on behalf of the American people, from Director Gabbard’s role in ending the Maduro narcoterror regime to Secretary Lutnick’s role securing major trade and investment deals,” Ingle wrote in an email when asked for comment.
A spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence pointed Reuters to a Thursday post by the White House on X in which White House communications director Steve Cheung is quoted as saying Trump has “total confidence” in Gabbard.
The Commerce Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
‘BONDI IS NOT THE LAST ONE’
Trump could ultimately decide, however, not to make any changes to his administration’s senior ranks. Several others close to Trump have said the president is reluctant to overhaul his cabinet too frequently, after recurrent staffing changes during his first term dominated headlines and created the impression of chaos at the White House.
One of the White House officials said to expect a “targeted churn,” rather than a “big, dramatic reset.”
Still, after his disappointing speech on Wednesday, doing nothing could be just as politically dangerous as making a significant change that, for better or for worse, would dominate news headlines, one White House official said.
Trump worked with his speechwriting team and top advisers on this week’s prime-time address, one official said, after aides had urged him for weeks to speak directly to the nation about the U.S. role in Iran.
During the speech, the president declined to lay out an off-ramp for the war, which began on February 28, leaving the impression that the conflict was open-ended. And instead of offering solutions to voters’ economic anxieties, he said the pain would be short-lived and that Tehran was to blame.
“The speech did not accomplish what it was supposed to,” the official said, adding that while Trump’s core supporters still backed him on the war, they are broadly under economic strain.
“Voters tolerate ideological messaging, but they feel fuel prices immediately,” the official said.
Just 36% of Americans approve of Trump’s overall job performance, according to the latest Reuters/Ipsos survey, the lowest figure of his current term. The war with Iran is particularly unpopular, with 60% of respondents disapproving of the U.S.-Israeli decision to start the conflict.
Two of the White House officials said Trump is extremely frustrated with what he perceives to be unfair media coverage of the war in Iran, and he has made clear to his team he wants more positive news accounts. He has not indicated, however, that he is interested in adjusting his own messaging strategy.
Such pressures notwithstanding, multiple cabinet members have shown remarkable staying power despite drawing negative headlines or consternation from the White House over their actions.
Some outside allies, for instance, have pushed for Lutnick’s ouster since April of last year, when he rolled out a set of global tariffs that puzzled allies and experts during “Liberation Day.”
Gabbard, a longtime critic of U.S. military interventions abroad, upset the White House as early as last June, when she released a video criticizing “political elite warmongers” in the lead-up to Trump’s first military action against Iran.
Still, the sources said the possibility of a shake-up had grown decidedly more serious in recent weeks. One senior White House source said Trump wants to make any big changes now, well ahead of the midterms.
“Let’s just say, based on what I have heard, Bondi is not the last one,” another White House official said.
(Reporting by Nandita Bose, Jana Winter, Andrea Shalal and Gram Slattery; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Edmund Klamann)
Comments