Trump has filled his Cabinet with ‘head-nodders’ who are just there to smile and carry out his whims

Por Joe Sommerlad — – World RSS Feed

President Donald Trump likened to ‘a very strong monarch’ surrounded by ‘weak barons’ in new report, a characterization the White House has rejected

Joe Sommerlad Monday 28 September 2026 17:15 BST

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President Donald Trump’s Cabinet is composed of “head-nodders,” “true believers” and “yes people” who are often tasked, at a whim, with fixing problems outside of their area of expertise, according to a report.

A lengthy Politico profile of the president, focusing on his relationship with his secretaries, quotes a senior administration official as saying of his dominant leadership style: “Everyone becomes a head-nodder. There’s a huge emphasis to basically steer where he’s gonna go. It turns most of the Cabinet into yes people.

“Everybody wants to keep their job, and those who haven’t had a pre-existing relationship with the president don’t have the ability to tell him the truth.”

Trump’s White House is characterized as a place “where the job description is whatever the president says it is that day, and a secretary’s role can expand or veer with his latest fixation.”

The outlet explains that it spoke to as many members of the current Cabinet as possible and quotes Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin as saying: “If you bring a problem up to the president, and it’s not exactly in your lane, and it’s really not in anybody else’s lane, but there’s a problem, you will inherit that problem.

President Donald Trump likes to keep his secretaries on their toes, notably putting Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in a tight spot by promising voters $5,000 checks earlier this month ( Getty )

“Because the president will listen to you, get your opinion, and he’ll say, ‘Well, go fix it.’”

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick being tasked with “fixing” the Kennedy Center debacle, despite the faltering Washington, D.C., performing arts venue having little to do with his department, is offered as an example.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent being caught out by the president’s midterms convention promise of $5,000 checks for voters and Mullin being overruled by Trump on ICE traffic stops are cited as evidence of his secretaries being blindsided by some of their boss’s decision-making.

Trump’s first presidency from 2017 to 2021 is compared to a corporation, whereas his second is “structured like a family business,” in which, “a small cast of trusted characters… are always at hand, ready to be put on whatever project comes up.”

Another unnamed senior administration official comments: “What you have is a very strong centralized authority figure, and everybody is trying to stay in his good graces and keep him happy from a personality perspective.

“Trump is a very strong monarch, and when you have a strong monarch and weak barons, they’ve got to constantly go to the king for the ability to do anything.”

White House spokesperson Davis Ingle rejected the idea that the president behaves like a king, telling Politico: “President Trump is working tirelessly on behalf of the American people to fulfill his commonsense America First agenda that nearly 80 million people elected him for.”

The president has been accused of presiding over a team of ‘head-nodders’ and ‘yes people,’ who are expected to respond to his whims and ‘steer where he’s gonna go’ ( AFP/Getty )

The Independent has also reached out to the White House for comment.

The profile elsewhere characterizes Trump as someone invested in the success of his team and prepared to back them – but disinclined to defend those who become ensnared in personal scandal or threaten to embarrass him, charting the differing experiences of such figures as Education Secretary Linda McMahon, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

It also notes the president’s total control, pointing out that all media appearances were scrapped on February 28, the day he launched his Operation Epic Fury airstrikes on Iran, preventing even Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth from speaking publicly for several days so that all official messaging came via his Truth Social platform and nowhere else.

More disconcertingly, it notes Trump’s use of his “bulls*** detector” to catch people out, deliberately asking them testing questions, sometimes while already knowing the answer himself, in order to gauge their performance.

One person close to the White House is quoted as saying: “The president likes watching people squirm a little. Or to put it differently: Who’s a player and who’s furniture?”