A majority of Americans do not believe President Trump has staffed his administration with the “best people,” according to a poll taken just days after ex-White House official Omarosa Manigault Newman kicked off her book tour by releasing secret recordings from her time inside the Trump campaign and the West Wing.
Only 30 percent of respondents in a new Monmouth University survey said Trump has fulfilled his oft-repeated campaign promise to hire “the best people” more than a year and a half into his first term, versus 58 percent who said he has not. Among self-identified Republicans, a combined 29 percent said the president has totally failed to stack his administration with well-qualified individuals or has shown mixed results.
Negative feelings about administration officials appeared to extend to their overall job performance as well, as 42 percent of voters indicated they are not at all confident in White House advisers’ and employees’ handling of their positions. The Trump administration has experienced record turnover at the Cabinet level and with senior White House officials, and is expected to see a handful of additional departures following the midterm elections this fall.
[Related: Here are the notable Trump aides who have left the administration]
“Some observers who were lukewarm about the prospect of a Trump presidency believed that a decent set of advisers would keep him on an even keel. However, fully four in ten Americans have no confidence in the people currently advising the President of the United States,” Monmouth University polling director Patrick Murray said in a statement.
The poll follows a whirlwind media tour by Manigault Newman, whose new book “Unhinged” contains several negative claims about the president and his staff, taken from her observations during her time in the West Wing. The former reality TV villain-turned-communications director for the White House Office of the Public Liaison was fired by chief of staff John Kelly last December for severe ethical violations. Manigault Newman has released four audio recordings of conversations she had with senior White House officials or campaign advisers, and she is rumored to have as many as 200 more.
Fifty-four percent of respondents said the president displayed poor judgment when he decided to offer Manigault Newman a plush White House job, including 45 percent of Republicans who agreed the move was a mistake. Asked how she compares to other Trump hires, Americans were evenly split on whether Manigault Newman was “typical or not typical” among those offered jobs in the Trump administration.
The survey of 805 U.S. adults was conducted between Aug. 15-19. Results contain a margin of error plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
