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   From: namblamembers88@gop.org   
      
   "When he dies, we will all kill ourselves"   
      
      
   Trump team launches a sweeping loyalty test to shore up its defenses   
      
   Political appointees across the Trump administration are being subjected   
   to unusual interviews to gauge their support for the president.   
      
      
      
      
   In the middle of a devastating pandemic and a searing economic crisis, the   
   White House has an urgent question for its colleagues across the   
   administration: Are you loyal enough to President Donald Trump?   
      
   The White House’s presidential personnel office is conducting one-on-one   
   interviews with health officials and hundreds of other political   
   appointees across federal agencies, an exercise some of the subjects have   
   called “loyalty tests” to root out threats of leaks and other potentially   
   subversive acts just months before the presidential election, according to   
   interviews with 15 current and former senior administration officials.   
      
   The interviews are being arranged with officials across a wide range of   
   departments including Health and Human Services, Defense, Treasury, Labor   
   and Commerce and include the top tier of Trump aides: Senate-confirmed   
   appointees. Officials are expected to detail their career goals and   
   thoughts on current policies, said more than a dozen people across the   
   administration with knowledge of the meetings.   
   POLITICO Dispatch: July 16   
      
   Last year, POLITICO reported that a top Trump administration health   
   official was using tax dollars to hire GOP consultants to boost her image.   
   Now, an inspector general report confirms the story.   
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   White House officials have said the interviews are a necessary exercise to   
   determine who would be willing to serve in a second term if President   
   Donald Trump is reelected. But officials summoned for the interviews say   
   the exercise is distracting from numerous policy priorities, like working   
   to fight the pandemic, revitalizing the economy or overhauling regulation,   
   and instead reflect the White House’s conviction that a “deep state” is   
   working to undermine the president.   
      
   It’s “an exercise in ferreting out people who are perceived as not Trump   
   enough,” said one person briefed on the meetings.   
      
   “If they’re spending time trying to hunt down leakers, that’s time they’re   
   taking away from advancing an agenda,” said a former senior administration   
   official who’s spoken with officials undergoing the interviews. “And   
   that’s irresponsible.”   
      
   The interview process, along with White House chief of staff Mark   
   Meadows’ ongoing hunt for leakers, shows how the White House — less than   
   four months before the presidential election — remains consumed by loyalty   
   and optics despite urgent policy problems such as a raging coronavirus   
   pandemic, nationwide worries about reopening schools and historically high   
   unemployment. This week’s White House drama over Anthony Fauci, the   
   nation’s top infectious-disease doctor, highlighted the persistent   
   internal concern about whether government officials are in line with   
   Trump’s preferred policy approaches — such as the president’s desire to   
   downplay the latest coronavirus surges.   
      
   The reinterviewing exercise is being led by Johnny McEntee, a 30-year-old   
   who's been a Trump aide since the 2016 campaign and was installed earlier   
   this year as chief of the White House personnel office and is responsible   
   for filling thousands or jobs across the federal agencies.   
      
   The interviews can take the form of general questions, such as an   
   appointee’s career goals, but can also veer into territory meant to test a   
   person’s perceived loyalty, like asking for the appointee's thoughts on   
   the U.S. relationship with China or probing questions about why an   
   appointee was chosen for his or her current job. Interviewers have also   
   asked people to give examples of ways they are supporting the   
   administration.   
      
   “It just seems like you could be a rocket scientist, but all they care   
   about is whether you are MAGA,” said one senior administration official   
   familiar with the interview process. “It is fair to do something to   
   prepare to fill jobs in a second term, but right now, it is hard to know   
   what the metrics are with this personnel office for being successful.   
   There is no set criteria for what makes a good political appointee.”   
      
   McEntee, a former body man for Trump, did not respond to a request for   
   comment. A White House official who defended the process said it’s part of   
   the personnel office’s preparations for a second term, including gauging   
   the officials’ postelection plans.   
      
   The head of the presidential personnel office under President Barack Obama   
   called the interviews unusual. “I could definitely see that kind of   
   questioning being uncomfortable and creating unease among political   
   appointees,” said Rudy Mehrbani, who also vetted appointees while in the   
   White House counsel’s office under Obama. “If you are working in one   
   subject area like Peace Corps or USAID, that does not mean you are signing   
   on to the administration’s position on funding for reproductive rights.”   
      
   Political appointees at the Defense Department, including a top layer of   
   officials — undersecretaries — are going through reinterviews with the   
   White House personnel office this month, according to a current Defense   
   official and two former officials. During the interviews, the   
   representatives from the personnel office are forcing senior leaders to   
   answer questions about their loyalty to the president with an eye toward   
   keeping their jobs in a second Trump term, the people said.   
      
   Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman countered that the interviews with the   
   White House personnel office were set up by the Defense department “so   
   that our political appointees could discuss second-term opportunities at   
   the department and throughout the administration.“   
      
   In other areas of the government, the personnel tests come at a moment   
   when Trump appointees are already struggling to manage portfolios that   
   have ballooned during the pandemic. For instance, HHS staff have now spent   
   more than five months juggling the round-the-clock response to the   
   coronavirus while handling other ongoing policy goals, like the   
   president’s focus on securing lower drug prices before the election — a   
   balancing act that officials described as exhausting even before facing de   
   facto loyalty tests.   
      
   Five political appointees in disparate roles across HHS said they’d either   
   scheduled their meetings with the personnel office or were awaiting an   
   appointment.   
      
      
      
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