When Washington Calls for Firings, Biden Usually Says No

In crisis after crisis over the past three years, President Biden has resisted pressure to fire members of his administration. The president rejected calls for the ouster of national security advisers following the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. He has declined to push out cabinet secretaries or senior aides in response to the rise in migrants illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, or revamp his political campaign amid poor polling.

When it looked like his agenda was stalled on Capitol Hill early in his term, Biden made no major personnel changes, and he has declined to remove Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra despite frustration from inside and outside the administration about his performance.

In the most recent example of Biden’s hesitance to dole out pink slips, the president isn’t considering firing Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin after the Pentagon chief hid his medical situation from the White House.

“The president has full confidence in the secretary," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Tuesday after the Pentagon disclosed Austin had been treated for prostate cancer. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Biden plans to keep Austin in his role for the rest of his term.

Though Austin could still choose to resign without prompting from Biden, Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder has said Austin intends to remain in his position.

The lack of transparency around Austin’s medical issues—the defense secretary didn’t inform the White House both times he was hospitalized and transferred authority to run the Pentagon to his deputy—has prompted some Republicans, including Rep. Elise Stefanik (R., N.Y.), and Trump, to demand his resignation. On Tuesday, four House Republican lawmakers who are former military pilots criticized Austin for a “serious lapse in judgment" and called on him to resign or be dismissed. Other elected Republicans, along with many Democrats, have said he should remain in his post or that it was too early to determine whether he should step down.

The minimal turnover in the top ranks of Biden’s team is a sharp departure from the Trump administration. The then-president, whose celebrity status was cemented during a reality-television show in which he delivered the catch phrase “you’re fired," pushed out a raft of senior officials across the government—from White House chiefs of staff to cabinet secretaries. The pace of personnel change was so rapid that it alarmed veterans of Washington, who worried that the lack of consistency would slow crucial government operations.

Biden, on the other hand, is loath to give in to pressure campaigns to replace members of his team. People close to him said the president is dismissive of such efforts, seeing them as fleeting and nakedly political. Biden and his senior advisers also believe that social media sometimes amplifies online outrage in a way that doesn’t reflect the views of most voters, and the president often reminds his staff to take the long view instead of being hyper-reactive.

“President Biden has delivered historic results for the American people—like unprecedented job creation, rebuilding our alliances, and empowering Medicare to negotiate lower drug costs—because he leads based on values, he makes informed, long-term strategies, and he creates a healthy managerial culture," White House spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement.

The president faced perhaps the most significant pressure to fire senior members of his administration during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, which was completed in the summer of 2021 after weeks of disarray and a suicide-bomb attack that killed 13 U.S. service members and roughly 170 Afghan civilians.

“President Biden needs to fire his national security adviser and several other senior leaders who oversaw the botched execution of our withdrawal from Afghanistan," Brett Bruen, a former diplomat and Obama White House official, wrote in an op-ed at the time. Many Republicans said the same.

The president’s advisers say Biden’s decision to ignore his critics in Washington has sometimes paid off. Lawmakers, including some Democrats, grumbled about then-White House chief of staff Ron Klain when Biden’s education, climate and healthcare package seemed doomed. But Democrats later passed a slimmed down version of the plan, and Biden signed it into law with his chief of staff looking on. Klain stepped down voluntarily last year.

Over a decadeslong career in Washington, Biden has assembled a tightknit group of advisers who are loyal to and protective of him. The president returns that loyalty, according to his aides. But he also claims to hold staff to high standards. Upon taking office, Biden told administration officials that he would fire them on the spot if they disrespected their colleagues.

“He is not reluctant to fire people. You do not rise to a high level if you’re reluctant to fire people. If he finds someone who he thinks should go, then they’ll go," said former Sen. Ted Kaufman, who has known Biden for decades. But he added that Biden “wouldn’t have been able to attain the positions he’s been able to attain if he blew back and forth like the napkins at Washington’s cocktail parties."

The minimal turnover is unusual. Only one member of Biden’s cabinet has stepped down since the start of the administration: Labor Secretary Marty Walsh.

That is the least turnover of any presidency going back to at least Ronald Reagan, according to data collected by Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, a senior fellow at Brookings who studies personnel changes in the government. For other senior level positions, Biden’s turnover is on par with past presidents such as Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

Tenpas has identified only two resignations under pressure among the most senior advisers in the executive office of the president. In February 2021, TJ Ducklo stepped down as a White House spokesman after making threatening remarks to a reporter. He joined Biden’s re-election campaign last year.

Eric Lander, Biden’s top science adviser, resigned in February 2022 after an internal White House investigation found that he demeaned staff in violation of the administration’s workplace-behavior rules.

Biden has also pushed out lower-level holdovers from the Trump administration who declined to resign.

“This is a low-drama White House in terms of staffing," Tenpas said, describing the turnover during the Trump administration as “off the charts."

Write to Andrew Restuccia at andrew.restuccia@wsj.com