A purge of senior officials suggests growing panic within the highest echelons of Donald Trump’s administration as the President’s approval ratings continue to sink.
Trump sacked his attorney general, Pam Bondi, on Thursday after months of growing discontent with her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein issue that has been so damaging to his presidency.
That came just weeks after he removed his unpopular Homeland Security secretary, Kristi Noem, from her post following widespread backlash over deployment of immigration agents to US cities and the killing of American citizens.
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Then overnight, Trump’s Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, asked the US army chief of staff General Randy George, a nominee of Joe Biden, to step down.
The sackings come at a time when Trump is under mounting political pressures at home and abroad thanks to his unpopular and spiralling war in Iran, rising oil prices and growing inflation, and sinking approval ratings.
Trump’s approval ratings have hit their lowest point since his return to the White House, with a Reuters/Ipsos poll last month finding that just 36 per cent of Americans have a positive view of his performance.
Trump is painfully aware that his party faces an uphill battle in midterm elections this November, with several Republican-held Senate seats expected to be flipped to the Democrats as a result of growing dissatisfaction with the President.
The President, far-right, was with then US army chief Gen Randy George, third-left, at Dover air base last month as the remains of six US soldiers were brought back from the Middle East (Photo: Roberto Schmidt/Getty)
Panic in the Trump administration
The sacking of senior and loyal cabinet secretaries like Bondi and Noem reflects growing panic within the administration over the increasing displeasure of the American public, and Trump’s attempts to shift the blame for his unpopular policies.
Dr Mark Shanahan, a politics expert at the University of Surrey, told The i Paper: “There are distinct signs of panic in the Trump administration and as per the pattern of his first term, when the going gets tough, other people pay the price.
“In his own mind, the President is never wrong. It’s always the fault of other people.”
Bondi’s legacy as attorney general is likely to be dominated by her much-criticised handling of the Epstein files. After months of refusing to release unpublished documents related to investigations into Epstein, the deceased paedophile financier, her Department of Justice was forced by the Senate into releasing millions of documents.
Bondi and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth last November. There are reports Hegseth may soon be shown the door too over the poor handling of the Iran war (Photo: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP)
The files have increasingly weighed down the administration over their alleged reputational risk to Trump himself. The President is mentioned thousands of times in the files and associated with Epstein in the 1990s and early 2000s.
During his second campaign for the presidency, Trump called for the release of the Epstein files, only for his administration to U-turn and refuse to release them after he came to power. He has never been accused of wrongdoing in relation to Epstein, so his unexplained resistance to publishing the files in full has only added more fuel to calls to release them.
Bondi was seen as a Trump loyalist within the administration. Her acting replacement, deputy attorney general Todd Blanche, has denied that her dismissal was linked to the Epstein files.
Noem, meanwhile, was once considered a contender to be Trump’s running mate in the 2024 election. As Homeland Security secretary, she became the face of the controversial Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids, which saw sustained backlash after the killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.
The heavy-handed ICE operations in Minneapolis prompted the relationship between the White House and many congressional Republicans to fracture – with many lawmakers openly criticising the agency as well as Noem and the Trump administration’s bullish defence of the killings.
Louis Bromfield of the University of Swansea told The i Paper: “The firings of Noem and Bondi speak to the reality that many inside the Trump administration need to accept, and that is that no amount of debasing oneself or grovelling to the President is going to keep you in a job.”
He added: “He [Trump] is surrounded by sycophants, some of the worst, opportunist climbers around. As a result, he’s pulling into his cabinet people who are just not well-equipped to handle their remits.”
Noem testifies before the House Judiciary Committee. She faced backlash following controversial anti-migrant raids in Minneapolis that led to the deaths of two US citizens (Photo: Heather Diehl/Getty)
Trump’s unpopular war
The political landscape is only worsening for Trump after the US-Israel attack on Iran at the end of February.
Trump was elected on a pledge to end US involvement in foreign wars – but has since ramped up interventions in 2026, prompting much of the American public along with a growing number of isolationist Maga base, as well as elected Republicans and conservative pundits, to disapprove his war in Iran.
Maga Republicans have long remained fiercely loyal to Trump, regardless of his actions in office. But Dr Shanahan added: “We may see an opening chasm between the White House and congressional Republicans.”
He said: “Trump isn’t on the ballot in November and never has to run for office again, while a third of senators and the whole House of Representatives are up for re-election.
“Trump’s polling is cratering and the only way many Republicans can hope for re-election is to distance themselves from the White House.”
Some Republican lawmakers are publicly speaking out against some of the President’s more extreme statements about the war. Senators Mitch McConnell and Thom Tillis condemned Trump’s threats to withdraw the US from Nato.
Meanwhile Hegseth’s ousting of the US army chief has prompted suggestions of cracks within the administration over Trump’s handling of the war.
Since returning to the White House, Trump and his Secretary of War have fired military personnel appointed by the Biden administration or those who they do not believe to adhere to their “anti-woke, anti-diversity” vision.
Chairman joint chiefs, Gen Charles Brown, was pushed out shortly after the President’s return to the White House.
Dr Shanahan said: “Hegseth may look good on TV and fit Trump’s vision of a warrior, but he has no experience of running a major department and, seemingly, no aptitude for it.
“Trump and Hegseth wanted the pyrotechnics of the first weekend of the war, but then expected it to be over: a hopelessly naive assessment.
“They won’t take the blame for driving the US into an ever-deepening endless war, so the actual experts pay the price.”
Damage to the Kuwait-flagged al-Salmi crude oil tanker following a reported strike on 31 March as Iran targets shipping in the region following the US-Israeli war on Tehran (Photo: Kuwait petroleum corporation/Reuters)
Growing economic pain
Meanwhile, with the war now grinding on into its second month, and no sign of Tehran reopening the Strait of Hormuz, the escalating global fuel crisis is set to worsen dramatically.
Oil has already leapt to over $100 a barrel, with observers afraid it could hit $200 and prompt recessions across the world. In the US, consumers will end up paying far more at pumps.
The cost of living crisis caused by post-pandemic inflation was a critical factor in Democrats’ loss to Trump in the 2024 election. Many Americans backed Trump on his promise to improve affordability, but the Iran war now risks sending inflation spiraling once again.
“We saw with Biden that voters turn on you when their life gets harder economically,” Bromfield said. “The Iran war has pushed gas back up to and above in places to the Covid years. If Republicans get decimated worst than expected in the midterms, the invincible veneer that Trump has somehow cultivated might start to lose its shine.”
If the war continues to worsen US citizens’ quality of life by driving up food and fuel prices, voters are likely to express their anger at Trump in the midterms.
The entire House of Representatives and one third of Senate seats will be up for election – and the Democrats are fiercely pushing to flip the House and take critical Senate seats including North Carolina, Maine, Ohio and Texas.