What did Donald Trump do today?
He tapped Senior Advisor to the President Ivanka Trump to announce a "skills-based hiring" program.
Today, Trump signed an executive order directing certain technical changes to how the federal government assesses potential employees. The press release for it called this a shift to "skills-based hiring."
The order was publicly announced by his daughter, Ivanka Trump, Senior Advisor to the President.
The order was publicly announced by his daughter, Ivanka Trump, Senior Advisor to the President.
Today, President @realDonaldTrump will sign an executive order to transform the federal hiring process—and replace one-size-fits-all, degree-based hiring with skills-based hiring.— The White House (@WhiteHouse) June 26, 2020
More from @IvankaTrump: pic.twitter.com/W8xhiyCRBy
Ivanka Trump had no public policy experience and no relevant skills before taking her senior leadership position in her father's administration. In fact, other than a brief stint as a model, she had no work experience whatsoever unrelated to her father's businesses or money. (In fairness, except for the modeling part, the same was true of Donald Trump himself for most of his life.) She was unable to get a security clearance, an absolutely essential "skill" for a senior White House advisor, until Trump rewrote the rules to give her one.
By all accounts, Ivanka Trump's real function in the White House, to the extent that she plays one, is as a sort of amateur therapist. She's one of the few people—including other Trump family members—who is usually exempt from his temper tantrums, and she's said to be a calming influence on him.
Who cares?
- Nepotism is the exact opposite of "skills-based hiring."