Trump taps a Cabinet of multi-taskers to slash the federal government
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Leading a federal agency is an around-the-clock, full-time job, but several top Trump administration officials have picked up side hustles: leading other federal agencies at the same time.
Why it matters: At least four officials have juggled leadership posts at multiple agencies or organizations at once. Several of those have also been targeted for deep budget and staffing cuts at the direction of the White House and its Department of Government Efficiency.
- The trend serves as another example of how Trump 2.0 has re-shuffled the federal bureaucracy.
State of play: While it's not rare for acting officials to fill posts during the Senate confirmation process, Trump's approach has broken with past precedent, said Jenny Mattingley, the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service's vice president of government affairs.
- "Dual-hatting," as she calls it, does sometimes occur in presidential administrations, Mattingley told Axios.
Yes, but: "Particularly at the beginning of an administration, you have acting officials who are in that agency — not across multiple heads of agencies," she said.
- "Being triple-hatted makes it really hard to get in and actually see the nuts and bolts" of what an agency does, Mattingley said.
- Trump's nominees have moved "fairly quickly" through the Senate, underlining the fact that the setup "appears to be more of an intentional choice," she added.
Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, National Archivist and head of USAID
Marco Rubio is balancing three different posts:
- He was easily confirmed as the Secretary of State, a role that's seen him travel across Latin America, engage in talks over ending the Russia-Ukraine war and navigate a fragile Middle East ceasefire.
- At the same time, he also took on the title of acting director of the U.S. Agency for International Development. That change coincided with the dramatic DOGE-led dissection of the humanitarian aid organization. Rubio said at the time that the administration had "no choice but to bring this thing under control."
- While traversing the globe, Rubio is also serving as the acting archivist of the National Archives and Records Administration, an independent agency Trump has long disliked after it alerted to the Justice Department of his alleged mishandling of classified documents. Trump fired the previous head archivist this month.
- Trump did, however, appoint Jim Byron, the the president and CEO of the Richard Nixon Foundation, to handle the "day-to-day" needs at the National Archives.
One stunning stat: Based on historical staffing levels, that would mean Rubio is overseeing a combined 90,000 employees across three agencies before factoring in DOGE's mass layoffs.
Kash Patel, running the FBI and ATF
FBI Director Kash Patel, who was narrowly confirmed by the Senate in late February, is to many experts and critics a controversial pick for the main job he was nominated to do.
- But he was also tapped to lead another federal law enforcement agency: He sworn in Monday as the acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Associated Press reported.
- The White House, in a fact sheet on Trump's executive order directing a review of second amendment infringements, argued the Biden administration had "weaponized" the ATF through regulations.
- That means Patel would concurrently be overseeing the 5,000-plus-person ATF workforce and the 38,000 people who work for the FBI.
- It's unclear what the administration plans to do with the agency after the unprecedented move of placing the FBI director at its helm.
Russ Vought, Trump's budget chief and consumer protection head
Russ Vought, Trump's budget chief, is leading several of the White House's key initiatives chipping away at the federal government.
- In doing so, he also reportedly took over as acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the financial watchdog that the White House railed against as a "woke, weaponized arm of the bureaucracy."
- Trump fired former CFPB leader Rohit Chopra, cutting short his term that was not supposed to end until next year.
- As acting director, Vought issued directives earlier this month freezing much of the agency's work — though the administration said in a court filing Monday that there "will continue to be a CFPB."
Zoom out: Trump earlier this month nominated Jonathan McKernan to take the reins from Vought, so his tenure at the agency may be short-lived.
- McKernan is set to testify Thursday before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs.
- Counting Chopra, McKernan —if confirmed — would be the fourth person in the post since Trump took office: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was first designated as acting CFPB director before Vought filled the slot.
- CFPB's website, which on its homepage displays an error code, still has Bessent listed as acting director.
Go deeper: Behind the Curtain: Trump's boundary-busting provocations
