Ramesh Ponnuru, Columnist

Trump Fails Two Tests of Judgment and Competence

The Flynn resignation got more attention, but the president's handling of the Elliott Abrams episode was also discouraging.

February 15, 2017 at 6:36 PM UTC

By Ramesh Ponnuru

Ramesh Ponnuru is a former Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is the editor of National Review and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Management 101.
Photographer: Andrew Harrer-Pool/Getty Images

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Michael Flynn’s resignation as national security adviser has rightly received more attention, but it wasn’t even the first personnel snafu in the administration that week. It wasn’t even the first national-security personnel snafu that week. A few days earlier, President Donald Trump had denied Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s request that Elliott Abrams be nominated to be his deputy.

These two stories tell us a few things about how the Trump administration operates.