Biden looks to career leaders to restore confidence and morale in government agencies

President elect Joe bidenJoe Biden Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturns GOP bid to stop electoral certification Biden looks to career leaders to restore confidence and morale in government agencies Biden’s transition adds new members to task force on coronavirus PLUSChoices for ministerial posts will face a dual challenge when he takes office: implementing policy and restoring public morale and confidence after four years under the Trump administration.

President TrumpDonald John Trump Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturns GOP offer to stop electoral certification Biden looks to career leaders to restore confidence and morale in government agencies Sunday Sneak Peek: U.S. health officials stand by prepare for the rise of COVID-19 after the holidays PLUS arrived in Washington, DC, four years ago with a promise to “drain the swamp.” And if he failed to root out special interests, he succeeded in driving out a number of career officials or reducing their influence.

Trump has routinely undermined career managers and political experts during his tenure, and Biden’s transition team – made up of career managers and policy experts – warned it would take time to find out to what extent Trump had tried to “dig” the federal government.

“We are fully open to the need to restore confidence in government and institutions and what is communicated to the American people,” Transition Councilor Jen Psaki said Wednesday.

Psaki was specifically referring to health agencies after Trump has spent the past eight months contradicting his own public health officials about a deadly pandemic and excluding the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from the response.

But while the pandemic has highlighted the need to restore confidence in the CDC, the same issues could apply to several other departments.

Former Secretary of State Rex TillersonRex Wayne Tillerson Biden Turns To Career Managers To Restore Confidence, Morale In Government Agencies Biden State Department Choices Are A Diplomatic Slam Dunk President Trump: Knowing Him Is ‘No’ ‘ MORE gutted the State Department and imposed a hiring freeze. His successor, Mike PompeoMichael (Mike) Richard PompeoBiden looks to career leaders to restore confidence, morale in government agencies Biden faces challenges, opportunities in Middle East O’Brien on 2024 speaks: ‘There are all kinds of speculation out there ” MORE, has often been embroiled in controversies, which further deflated the diplomatic corps.

The Trump administration transformed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), a sprawling agency tasked with cybersecurity oversight, counterterrorism, and immigration enforcement, into a department that focused primarily on restricting immigration and leaving several high-level positions vacant. Career managers within DHS have seen agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection turned into arms of the Trump administration to enforce crackdown on legal and illegal immigration.

While public mistrust of some of these agencies predated Trump, trust has eroded over the past four years, often along political lines.

A Pew Research poll released earlier this year showed the ICE had a 46% favorability rate, although 77% of Republicans approve of the agency, compared to just 28% of Democrats.

A Kaiser Family Foundation poll released in September showed that public confidence in the CDC had fallen by about 16 percentage points since April, even as a majority of Americans still gave the agency high marks. .

Biden’s solution appears to be to bring in cabinet candidates with extensive government experience who former colleagues say will command respect if confirmed.

The president-elect has appointed Alejandro Mayorkas to lead DHS. If confirmed, he would be the first immigrant to run the agency. Mayorkas was Deputy Secretary of DHS during the Obama administration and headed the US Citizenship and Immigration Services Agency.

Biden also announced that Antony Blinken, who worked alongside the former vice president for decades, would be his choice for secretary of state.

“Tony knows the building well and he knows the people who work there, and he knows how to get things done,” said Tom Shannon, who briefly served as acting secretary of state in the Trump administration.

“Due to its relationship with [Biden] and the National Security Advisor, he’ll put the State Department at the forefront of all foreign policy matters, and that’s a great morale boost, ”Shannon added.

Brett Bruen, who was director of global engagement under the Obama administration, said the State Department in particular will have to both fill leadership positions left vacant under the Trump administration and encourage a new wave of officials capable of progress.

“I think it’s going to be a very delicate process to regain confidence and restore confidence,” said Bruen.

The CDC has long been considered one of the world’s leading health agencies. But his reputation took a hit during the pandemic as directions became politicized, Trump undermined director Robert Redfield on the importance of mask use, and top scientists in the department were nearly sidelined as the coronavirus ravaged the country.

“Nationally, we’ve seen an erosion of trust in probably the world’s leading public health agency,” said Richard Besser, who led the CDC in 2009. “You’ll want someone in that role who understands applied public health. the global, national, state level who does public health work, as opposed to someone who has been primarily an academic researcher. “

Biden has yet to name his choice to lead the Department of Health and Human Services or the CDC. The suitors include people already on its coronavirus advisory group and the New Mexico government. Michelle Lujan GrishamMichelle Lynn Lujan GrishamBiden Turns To Career Managers To Restore Confidence And Morale In Government Agencies Hillicon Valley: YouTube Suspends OANN Under Pressure From Lawmaker | Dems polls Facebook and Twitter on Georgia flow | FCC Reaffirms ZTE’s National Security Risk Netflix Pledges $ 1 Billion for Production Spending, Expands New Mexico Studio READ MORE (D), who was previously state health secretary, has also been appointed to head HHS.

“They will need to put CDC back in the role of lead communicator on public health issues so that the public can interface through the media and reestablish what had been a strong relationship of trust,” Besser added.