Barely 15 months after his inauguration, the president has had to deal with unexpected departures of his own appointees, from the star cuts project to the hard core of the Department of Justice. These ruptures reveal the internal tensions of a Government where personal loyalty collides with the demand for immediate results.
First cracks in the team
One of the first relevant departures was that of Vivek Ramaswamy, who did not take the position for which he had been announced as co-director of DOGE with Elon Musk. His departure occurred at the beginning of his term, and the official explanation was his intention to run for elected office, although in practice it meant his withdrawal from the flagship spending-cutting project promoted by Trump.
Ramaswamy, one of the most identifiable faces of the Republican environment aligned with Trump, thus left one of the most visible positions of the new team vacant without being able to consolidate itself as an operational part of the Administration.
The case of FEMA
One of the clearest dismissals was that of Cameron Hamilton, who served as acting director of FEMA, the federal emergency agency. Trump removed him in May 2025 after Hamilton publicly argued before Congress that the agency should be maintained and not dismantled.
The dismissal was interpreted as a direct response to that discrepancy. Some outlets reported that his departure was already underway before his public clash with the White House, reinforcing the idea that Trump did not tolerate an open defense of an agency whose role he had questioned since the campaign.
The fracture over Iran
In March 2026 there was another significant departure: the resignation of Joe Kent, director of the US National Counterterrorism Center also appointed during Trump’s term. Kent left office due to disagreement with the Administration’s position on the war with Iran, in one of the first high-level casualties directly linked to that conflict.
His resignation showed that even among the positions appointed by the president, cracks could emerge when the foreign strategy clashed with the convictions or political reading of some of those responsible.
The pressure on Bondi
The most delicate case, due to its institutional weight, is that of Pam Bondi. Sources such as Reuters affirm that Trump has considered dismissing her as attorney general due to his frustration with the management of the Department of Justice, especially for her actions in the files linked to Jeffrey Epstein and for what he considered a lack of forcefulness towards his political adversaries.
Bondi, former Florida attorney general and one of Trump’s most trusted jurists, had been a central figure in the new administration. Reuters reported that the president was preparing to leave and that Todd Blanche would replace him as acting attorney general. The move, if fully confirmed, symbolizes the level of demand that Trump imposes on even his most loyal collaborators.
A government of fidelity under pressure
These cases show a much more limited pattern: Trump has punished officials in his political orbit or appointed by him when they have disagreed with his line or when they have stopped fitting into his priorities. This is not about the initial mass purge, but about a second level of internal tensions in which obedience, effectiveness and ideological compatibility weigh.
