Is a Trump cabinet reshuffle imminent?

The White House whisperers are at it again. Look out, they say, for a big changeover in the president's cabinet after the midterm elections. The names being suggested are hardly surprising. Jim Mattis, the redoubtable but somewhat beleaguered defence secretary who has always dismissed such talk and soldiers on, Jeff Sessions, the poe-faced attorney general who has been nearly sacked half a dozen times, Kirstjen Nielsen, homeland security secretary who has been losing Trump's support for some time because of the perceived failure of her department to stop the flow of immigrants into the US, commerce secretary Wilbur Ross, Ryan Zynke, interior secretary, and maybe John Kelly, chief of staff. Trump has his eye right now on the midterms but as soon as they are over he will be surrounding himself with a new team to ensure victory in the 2020 presidential election. Trump has claimed that there are queues of people waiting to join his administration, so I guess there will be no shortage of candidates to fill these appointments. But the White House will no doubt do its best to play down the latest rumours because the last thing the president wants is an image of more chaos and confusion when he is desperate to ensure the Republican Party comes out on top in both the Senate and House of Representatives. If Mattis genuinely wants to stay on until 2020 at the Pentagon, then an early departure next month will be sign as a highly disruptive sacking. Being a retired four-star general he will go quietly, no doubt thanking the president for honouring him with the job for 22 months. But for the Pentagon it will be a serious blow. Mattis is popular and regarded as a tough and effective defence secretary. There is also trouble ahead because the Pentagon looks like having its budget reduced in 2020, from its 2019 budget of $716 billion to $700 billion. It will need a potent defence secretary to turn that around and persuade the White House to push for a bigger slice of the federal budget. Trump has boasted that he is building a bigger and better military, but an actual cut of $16 billion in 2020 will inevitably lead to a reduction in key programmes. Perhaps even the much-vaunted hypersonic weapons programme could be put back, allowing Russia and China to advance further ahead in this highly competitive technological race. There is no obvious instant replacement for Mattis. Trump would be wise to hang on to him. Sessions probably has no support and looks doomed, and Kirstjen Nielsen likewise, although she has her former boss at Homeland Security in the White House - John Kelly. She was his chief of staff at Homeland Security and he remains chief of staff in the White House, although his departure has been rumoured almost as many times as Mattis's and Session's. If Kelly survives, perhaps Nielsen will too. But that will depend totally on Trump's mood after the midterms. If the House majority falls to the Democrats, Trump is going to be very very angry and no one's job will be safe.