David Bernhardt had been a top Interior Department official in the Bush administration, watching as policies grinded up the chain over weeks and months before a final OK was signaled from the White House.
When he joined the Trump administration, he expected the same drawn-out process meant to eliminate controversial decisions and any that might embarrass the president.
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So, imagine his surprise when he was called into the Oval Office after President Donald Trump’s first Interior chief, Ryan Zinke, resigned and the president gave him the keys to the department.
“You’re going to be running the ship for a while. Do you have any questions?” Trump asked.
Bernhardt cleared his throat and said, “Who do I report to?”
In a scene similar to many on Trump’s old reality TV show The Apprentice, the president gave Bernhardt a quizzical look and answered, “You report to me.”
In his book about how political appointees can win in Washington, he wrote, “Walking back to Interior’s massive headquarters on C Street, I recognized that the president’s words, if true, meant that my tenure, no matter how short, would be very different from those of the two secretaries I had worked under in the George W. Bush administration.”
Soon, he had his answer. Days later, the government went into a partial shutdown when Trump and congressional Democrats deadlocked on the budget, and Bernhardt came up with a plan to open some parks using unobligated funds.
Knowing it would be controversial, Bernhardt thought it best to get Trump’s blessing. He dialed up the White House and asked for the president. He hesitantly explained to the president’s personal assistant that Trump had said if he ever needed anything, he should call. Then, he added, “Perhaps you could send me to whomever I’m really supposed to talk to about items like this.”
The aide laughed, and in minutes, Trump was on the phone.
Bernhardt told Secrets that Trump first asked why the Interior Department wasn’t already spending the money. Then, when told it would be controversial, Trump offered to take the heat. “Maybe you should say Trump ordered it,” the president said.
“I said, ‘Excuse me?’ He’s like, ‘Look, you’re the new guy. Maybe you ought to say Trump ordered you to do it if there’s going to be heat,” Bernhardt said in an interview.
He told me, “That is the opposite of what the president of the United States ought to be saying, right? He had to be saying, ‘I want as far away from this as possible.’ So, it’s stunning to me.”
Over the following months, Bernhardt wrote in You Report to Me: Accountability for the Failing Administrative State, that happened over and over, leading him to believe that Trump’s style, heralded inside Trump Inc. and displayed on The Apprentice, led to success.
“I bet you I can demonstrate that we were more productive in the four years of the Trump administration than the eight years in the Bush administration,” Bernhardt said.
He also said it helped to build loyalty and confidence that trickled down to all levels of departments headed by secretaries Trump viewed as capable of doing their job and carrying out his presidential agenda.
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He recalled leaving one meeting with Trump, and the president said, “David, you’re running that department. If there’s something that you think you need to do, you really don’t need to call. Do it. You can tell me about it. But you don’t need to wait.”
Bernhardt said, “What person in a management role anywhere in the world doesn’t want to hear that from their boss? You want to be empowered. You want to know they have your back. And you want them to say, ‘Be accomplishing things.’ Now, find me another president in my lifetime who does that. Find me one.”
