that varied businesses they had and however many people they employed, the organization was small. it does seem like it was a very top down, from the personality of donald trump. one of the things that dan s piece points out that i think is unique about the trump white house is he has ditched the model that presidents have used really since carter, which is a very strong chief of staff and nobody few people on the same level as that chief of staff and not a super top heavy white house. trump is very top heavy. he has about six people who have close to the same authority as the chief of star. that creates the factions. each one of the people has a little bit of a power center. back in the 70s, ford tried this model. carter tried this model.
the trump administration is halfway through its 11th week with a good chunk behind it. a messy transition led to a chaotic presidency. the paper has been tracking more than 500 administration positions that require confirmation. 21 nominees have been confirmed and 20 others nominated. the upshot of the article is that the trump administration is anything but a finally tuned machine. the white house does not see it that way. they point to executive action on the keystone pipeline, defense spending and improving consumer confidence. more now from dan balls who wrote the piece on the trump translation. you hear sean spicer to what he argues is a productive first 11
it s unfortunate. it suggests a credence to conspiracy theories being lent by the president of the united states. i would echo what my washington post colleague, dan balls wrote earlier this week. he s the most respected journalist in washington and he wrote, paraphrasing, that the plausible explanations for president trump giving credence to this theory are either that he wants to encourage distrust in our system or he wants to lay a predicate for potential future voter suppression laws or he simply is someone who is willing to, without evidence, engage in speculation about voter fraud. perhaps it s more about this quinnipiac poll. they put out this poll and president trump s approval rating right now is 36%. you ve got to believe that this voter fraud thing, julian, is part of the reason the approval ratings are so abysmal.
overseas. but what james clapper was saying is this was one of the most aggressive campaigns that he has ever seen, and he also described multiple motivations which is a very key part of this, john, because the president-elect thinks that what the intelligence community is doing is undermining his election. that s not what james clapper is trying to do, as you heard from him. he s saying, we can t tell what caused people to pull the numbers on november 8th, but we do know what the motivation was of the russians. evan perez, phil mattingly on capitol hill, thank you. a fascinating conversation to continue. with me cnn s nia-malika 00erson, dan balls of the washington post, matt visor and walt cook. this is an issue that s been with us some time. the fact mccain wanted to have this on the third day of the new congress. usually congress comes in, they swear themselves in say hello and disappear or go off to do business we don t much care
ghou . welcome back to the lead. sticking with politics. in 31 days donald trump will be sworn in as our nation s 45th president. dan balls, chief correspondent for the washington post joins me. heidi pr heidi prez bla and anna from politico. thank you for being here. this is former house speaker newt gingrich talking to diane rehm about possible ethics concerns donald trump may face in the white house. in the case of the president, he has broad ability to organize the white house the way he wants to. he has frankly also the power of the pardon. it s a totally open power, he could simply say, look, i want them to be my advisers. i pardon them if anybody finds them to have behaved against the rules, period. technically under the constitution he has that level of authority.