Trump administration vacancies pose risk to national security during Iran escalation, experts say

Speaking from the White House this week amid stoked tensions with Iran, President Trump was flanked by nearly a dozen men involved in our nation’s defense — a move meant to convey U.S. military might.

“Our great American forces are prepared for anything,” Trump said.

But three years into President Trump’s first term in the White House, and a week after a targeted airstrike that killed Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad, hundreds of positions in the administration remain empty or filled with temporary personnel — including at least 88 jobs within the Defense Department, State Department and Department of Homeland Security, according to a database from The Washington Post and the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service.

Read the full story and more in The Washington Post.