THE FREE PRESS[1] today ran a story on billionaire pilot, entrepreneur and former nominee of President Trump to head NASA, Jared Issacman. His nomination was scotched after five months of his appointment in May 2025, after a ‘thorough. review of prior associations.” The issue seemed to have been one of prior conations by Issacman companies to Democrats (as well as to Republicans).
It is evident that this President values loyalty (narrowly defined in personal terms) even to the exclusion of competence. Many observers have noted this in other Trump nominees to his cabinet. Our view of this error is totally unlikely to change Trump’s criteria, and we observe similar characteristics in nominations during previous Administrations. The second Trump term, however, is more fastidious in its exercise of the personal loyalty attribute of the candidate. Without total personal loyalty, a potential nominee, however qualified, will not be nominated. The Issacman case illustrates that vetting is fundamentally focused on a personal loyalty test. Such a test comes with a severe downside, particularly if it results in far less competent and qualified nominees.
Loyalty Oaths and frequent ‘hiring and firing” issues over loyalty have a beleaguered history in Washington. Much of it traces back to the worst excesses of the McCarthy era. Much American expertise on China in the 1940’s was lost in the 1950’s over McCarthy’s antics. Understanding China in that era should have been critical—as the MacArthur mistake in driving to the Yalu in1950 illustrated. China directly entered North Korea in response to MacArthur’s northward thrust. Many Marines were lost as a result of his disregard of State Department warnings of such a risk. MacArthur’s brilliant pacific career was ended over President Truman’s firing.
Firing an unsuccessful General is not unique, and all difficult military campaigns from the Civil War through Viet Nam, Iraq and Afghanistan have illustrated when competence can become a political issue. It is in fact from military history, and its appointments and dismissals that we learn the disadvantage of using personal loyalty as a significant differentiator on appointments. It happens in all areas of governance, but military campaigns quickly reveal that all military commanders are not created equal!
Given the complexity of so many aspects of Governance in an age of a huge acceleration in the speed of communications plus huge expenditures in all the sciences, the problem of “looking down the silos” has become literally beyond the scope of “Generalist” political leaders. The modern age underscores the importance both absolutely and relatively of competence and expertise in Presidential advisors.
A political leader that vets strictly through personal loyalty is invariably making a second-best choice. It will penalize the leader—exactly at the time there is a crisis in that Silo. It will undermine the State—and ultimately endanger its Citizens. They are the real losers in such an appointments and dismissals derby. We know the many cases of refusal to serve, precisely because the advisor’s credibility is measured by personal loyalty.
[1] The Free Press, Thursday 7.10.2025 (by Gabe Kaminskiy).