The Donald Trump Cabinet Tracker
Updated on March 28 at 7:11 p.m. ET
Another member of President Trump’s original Cabinet is out.
In a tweet Wednesday evening, the president announced he was replacing Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin with Ronny Jackson, the White House physician who in January declared Trump to be in “excellent” health. Shulkin’s ouster came after weeks of speculation about his tenuous job status, and it represents the fourth major Cabinet change in less than a year.
Earlier this month, Trump removed Rex Tillerson as secretary of state and nominated CIA Director Mike Pompeo to replace him. To head the CIA, the president nominated Gina Haspel, who would be the first woman to lead the agency if she is confirmed by the Senate.
While Shulkin’s departure was not a surprise, his replacement is. Several other names had been floated for the VA post, including a conservative weekend host of “Fox and Friends,” Pete Hegseth. In essence, Trump is replacing one Obama holdover with another. Shulkin, who was confirmed by the Senate in a unanimous vote, had run the VA’s health program during Obama’s final years in office.
Jackson is an active-duty Navy admiral who treated President Barack Obama and drew praise from his White House aides. He evidently impressed the president with his bravura performance before the White House press corps in January, when he pronounced the president to be in “excellent” health and described in detail his annual physical examination. Jackson will have to be confirmed by the Senate, and his lack of management experience could be a source of questioning. Trump named Robert Wilkie, an under secretary of defense, to serve as acting VA secretary until Jackson is confirmed.
Shulkin was a favorite of Trump’s early in his presidency, as he helped win approval of some of the only bipartisan bills of the last year. At one event last June, Trump even joked that Shulkin would never have to hear his signature catch phrase from “The Apprentice”: “You’re fired.” But Shulkin’s star dimmed as conservatives fought with him over a more aggressive move to privatize VA health care, and he was criticized by an inspector general’s report that faulted him for a summer trip he took to Europe on the taxpayer’s dime.
The latest shift means that five members of Trump’s original Cabinet—which wasn’t fully confirmed by the Senate until just shy of his 100th day in office—will either be gone or in new senior-level jobs for the bulk of the second year of the president’s term.
Last summer, Trump made Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly his chief of staff and replaced him with Kirstjen Nielsen, who didn’t win Senate approval until December. And in January, the Senate confirmed Alex Azar to become secretary of health and human services, four
