SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
In the Trump administration, trusted aides are getting rewarded with more work.
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MARCO RUBIO: For me, personally, this is the most meaningful Labor Day of my life as someone with four jobs. And so...
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RUBIO: It's true.
SIMON: That was Secretary of State Marco Rubio at a recent White House Cabinet meeting. Or should we call him National Security Adviser Rubio or archivist of the United States Rubio? NPR senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith joins us. Tam, thanks so much for being with us.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Good to be with you.
SIMON: What is it?
KEITH: All of the above. Rubio is now a triple-hatter because he passed off his fourth job - leading the U.S. Agency for International Development - to Russell Vought, who also heads the Office of Management and Budget and is acting head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In all, I've identified a dozen administration officials wearing more than one hat - their Senate-confirmed job and then other acting or interim positions, sometimes at completely unrelated agencies, like the U.S. trade representative who is now also in charge of an ethics watchdog called the Office of Special Counsel. We also have the treasury secretary serving as IRS commissioner and the transportation secretary serving as NASA administrator, and at least those are related.
SIMON: Can the president do this?
KEITH: Yeah. These interim appointments are totally within the law. Eventually, Trump will need to name permanent replacements, but he has time and, frankly, doesn't appear to be in a hurry. Anna Kelly is a White House spokesperson. She told me having officials wearing more than one hat allows for greater communication and collaboration across the administration. On Rubio in particular, she said having him serve as national security adviser as well as secretary of state allows him to better understand the president's priorities and implement them across the foreign policy apparatus.
Looking back through history, there was only one other person to do these two very big jobs at the same time, and that was Henry Kissinger in the Nixon administration. But really, Trump is an outlier here among presidents. That's what Kathryn Dunn Tenpas told me. She has done a bunch of oral history interviews with officials from past administrations for the Miller Center at the University of Virginia.
KATHRYN DUNN TENPAS: Each of them talk about how the jobs are absolutely overwhelming. And these individuals possessed one job. And the notion that somebody could have multiple jobs in a White House is simply beyond the pale. Just there's not enough time in a day.
SIMON: Tam, can we detect any patterns in who's getting what job and why?
KEITH: In most cases, the jobs opened up because Trump fired somebody. And then rather than elevating a deputy or career person at that agency, Trump picks a Senate-confirmed loyalist as a caretaker. In the case of Russell Vought, the budget director I mentioned before, he definitely has a role in this administration as grim reaper for agencies Trump and Republicans want to get rid of. And that's expressly why he's been put in charge of CFPB and USAID. But in other cases, it really just is about trust and loyalty. Alexander Gray was chief of staff for the National Security Council in the First Trump administration, and he told me he sees this approach flowing from Trump's experience running the Trump organization.
ALEXANDER GRAY: And in a family business like the Trump organization, people wear multiple hats. First term, people wore multiple hats. Now it's, I think, turbocharged this time, but that's his comfort level, is you find people he's comfortable with who he thinks do a great job, and you just keep giving them more responsibility.
KEITH: And that brings me to Richard Grenell. He had a bunch of hats in the first term. This time around, he is wearing three vastly different hats. He's a Californian, so Trump asked him to oversee the federal response to the big wildfires in Southern California. And then a few days after Trump gave him that job, Grenell was on a plane to Venezuela, securing the release of six U.S. citizens. And then a couple of weeks after that, Trump also named him interim director of the Kennedy Center, the performing arts center in Washington, D.C. I truly wouldn't be surprised if Grenell gets a fourth or fifth job.
SIMON: NPR's senior White House correspondent. And is that it, Tam?
KEITH: Just...
SIMON: Is that all you are?
KEITH: Just one job.
SIMON: Tamara Keith, thanks so much.
KEITH: You're welcome.
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