President Trump appeared to criticize members of his Cabinet on Monday, telling a crowd in Miami he was displeased with some of his appointees to the executive branch.
The comment came as Trump praised Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, both of whom accompanied him to a roundtable on taxes and business leadership in the predominantly Cuban neighborhood of Hialeah.
“Not all of my choices were good, but they were great ones,” the president said, referring to Acosta and Mnuchin in the latter part of his comment.
Trump pursued a major shakeup of his Cabinet last month, when he fired both Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin. He also replaced White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster with Bush administration veteran John Bolton, and called up CNBC contributor Larry Kudlow to take over as chairman of the National Economic Council.
White House officials have faced mounting questions in recent weeks about the conduct of Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, whose lavish spending on first-class flights, staff salary hikes and security detail put Trump in a difficult position.
The EPA chief, whose deregulatory agenda Trump has often praised, is currently being investigated by House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C.
