Name: Casey Means
Position: Surgeon general nominee
Reason for Leaving: The Trump administration
withdrew Means’ nomination after it stalled in the Senate over concerns about her experience and past comments on vaccines.
Name: John Phelan
Position: Navy secretary
Reason for Leaving: The Pentagon
announced that Phelan was “departing the administration, effective immediately” but did not give a reason for the unexpected departure.
Name: Lori Chavez-DeRemer
Position: Labor secretary
Reason for Leaving: A White House spokesman announced that Chavez-DeRemer would be leaving for a job in the private sector. Her departure came
amid an internal investigation into claims involving her and her top aides.
Name: Todd Lyons
Position: Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting director
Reason for Leaving: Lyons, who played a large role in Trump’s mass deportations agenda,
will step down at the end of May for a job in the private sector.
Name: Pam Bondi
Position: Attorney general
Reason for Leaving: Trump
removed Bondi from the position,
posting on social media that “she will be transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector.” The move came after criticism over the agency’s handling of the Epstein files.
Name: Kristi Noem
Position: DHS secretary
Reason for Leaving: Noem became the first Cabinet member
pushed out of Trump’s second term after he took issue with some of her Congressional testimony.
Name: Susan Monarez
Position: CDC director
Reason for Leaving: The White House announced it
fired Monarez, with a spokesman saying she had “not aligned with the President’s agenda of Making America Healthy Again.”
Name: Drew Snyder
Position: Director and deputy administrator of the Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services (CMCS)
Reason for Leaving: Snyder
reportedly departed the agency in June 2025 due to “personal family matters” that were not related to any policy changes.
Name: Jared Isaacman
Position: NASA administrator nominee
Reason for Leaving: Trump withdrew Isaacman’s nomination “after a thorough review of prior associations,” the president
posted on social media in May 2025. Trump changed his mind about Isaacman, who was a close associate of Musk, after
reportedly finding out he previously donated to Democrats.
Name: Elon Musk
Position: Special government employee
Reason for Leaving: Musk
stepped back from his role helping to lead the Department of Government Efficiency in May 2025, saying his “scheduled time” as a special government employee had come to an end. But Trump left the door open for him, saying, “Elon is really not leaving. He's going to be back and forth, I think – I have a feeling.”
Name: Cameron Hamilton
Position: Acting FEMA director
Reason for Leaving: Hamilton was
fired in May 2025 – a day after he told lawmakers that he did not support the Trump administration’s goal of eliminating his agency.
Name: Carla Hayden
Position: Head of the Library of Congress
Reason for Leaving: Trump on May 8, 2025,
fired Hayden, the first woman and the first African American to be librarian of Congress, as a part of his efforts to revamp the federal government to align with his agenda. Confirmed to a 10-year term in 2016, she served through Trump’s first term only to more recently be targeted by conservative critics as “woke” and “anti-Trump.”
Name: Janette Nesheiwat
Position: Surgeon General nominee
Reason for Leaving: Trump on May 7, 2025, announced he
withdrew former Fox News medical contributor Nesheiwat’s nomination after doubts arose over whether she could gain Senate approval for the role amid questions about her credentials and criticism from the far right about her support for the COVID-19 vaccine.
Name: Mike Waltz
Position: National security adviser
Reason for Leaving: Trump, on May 1, 2025,
announced that he removed his national security adviser after reporting placed Waltz at the center of a scandal in which a journalist was given access to sensitive war plans over a group
Signal chat. Waltz, unlike others Trump has targeted, landed on his feet when he was appointed to serve as ambassador to the United Nations.
Name: Kathleen Sgamma
Position: Bureau of Land Management director nominee
Reason for Leaving: Sgamma in early April 2025
withdrew herself from consideration for the role after a 2021 email she wrote that criticized Trump was publicized.
Name: Elise Stefanik
Position: Ambassador to the United Nations nominee
Reason for Leaving: Trump, on March 27, 2025, announced that he
pulled the nomination to help Republicans maintain their slim majority in the House so they can advance his "America First" agenda.
Name: Dave Weldon
Position: CDC director nominee
Reason for Leaving: The White House, citing a lack of support for the former member of Congress over his skepticism of vaccines,
withdrew Weldon’s nomination shortly before his confirmation hearing in March.
Name: Vivek Ramaswamy
Position: DOGE co-leader
Reason for Leaving: After helping to create the Department of Government Efficiency that he was supposed to co-lead with Musk, Ramaswamy
left the DOGE effort in January 2025 amid
rumors of friction with Musk.
Name: Matt Gaetz
Position: Attorney general nominee
Reason for Leaving: Gaetz, who was previously the subject of a federal sex-trafficking investigation that did not result in charges,
withdrew his nomination in November 2024, saying it “was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance Transition.”
Updated on May 1, 2026: This article has been updated with additional information.
