Jonathan Bernstein, Columnist

Nope. There’s Still No Nominee for Secretary of Defense.

Never has any president before Trump been so negligent about replacing key government officials.

March 12, 2019 at 1:00 PM UTC

Jonathan Bernstein is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering politics. A former professor of political science at the University of Texas at San Antonio, he wrote A Plain Blog About Politics.

Just acting.
Pablo Martinez Monsivais - Pool /Getty Images

Provide news feedback or report an error

Site feedback:

Take our Survey

This article is for subscribers only.

There’s still no nominee for Secretary of Defense. There’s Still No Nominee for Secretary of Defense. There’s Still NO NOMINEE for SECRETARY OF DEFENSE.

Excuse the shouting, but this is one of the worst cases of negligence in governing since, well, I don’t know when. As I wrote a month ago, this is only the third prolonged case in history of using an acting defense secretary, and the first time there’s ever been a vacancy of more than one day without a nominee already named. James Mattis announced his resignation on Dec. 20, and Patrick Shanahan has been filling in since the beginning of the year. Repeating: That’s over two months, compared to the previous record of one day.