Presidents Have a Duty to Care

John Pelissero, is a former Loyola University Chicago provost and interim president, and is the former director of government ethics. Ann Skeet is senior director of leadership ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. Views are their own.

Presidents typically set their administration’s tone early on, something that historians have studied since Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first term. Though much has been written in recent weeks about the hallmarks of the second Trump administration, little has been written about the absence of care—an overarching feature of this presidency’s first months in office.

We can learn what a president cares about by examining how they spend their time, communicate, and set priorities in the early days of their terms. History is instructive and provides insights into the capacity for care that presidents should bring to the office. Care ethics calls for the consideration of relationships, feelings, and concerns of others when deciding a course of action.

Roosevelt set the standard for care in his first term, responding to the national Depression and despair that accompanied it. In 1933, during his first 100 days, he launched the New Deal, working with Congress to pass over 75 laws addressing unemployment, income security, food insecurity, and provided an enormous federal government investment in people and communities.

In 1953, Dwight Eisenhower, recognizing “the importance and magnitude” of the well-being of citizens, advocated that Congress create a new federal department for Health, Education, and Welfare. John F. Kennedy used an executive order to create the Peace Corps, in which Americans could be ambassadors of hope and change for the world’s needs. Lyndon Johnson helped a nation heal after Kennedy’s assassination and began to lay groundwork for the Great Society, in which civil rights, voting rights, and needs of the poor would be prioritized.

Richard Nixon focused on ending the Vietnam War and began several environmental initiatives that would lead to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, demonstrating care for public health and the planet. Following Nixon’s resignation in 1974, Gerald R. Ford sought to put the national nightmare of Watergate behind us, pardoning Nixon to help the country move on.

In his early months, Bill Clinton created a task force examining health care reform and signed the Family and Medical Leave Act, protecting jobs of people who cared for family members during illness. Responding to the Great Recession (2007-09), Barack Obama and a bipartisan Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act during his first 30 days in office in 2009, stimulating the economy and calming the American people whose savings and jobs were negatively impacted. He demonstrated care in signing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, expanding the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and prioritizing reform of health care in this country.

Joe Biden began his presidency by responding to the COVID-19 pandemic with a nearly $2 trillion relief package that demonstrated care for public health, jobs, and the economy. He rejoined the Paris Climate Agreement, prioritizing care for the planet.

Many presidents have used their communications skills to elevate the essence of care, demonstrate their compassion for people, and offer hope during their first months.  FDR’s “fireside chats” were a powerful communication tool to calm people’s fears.

Ronald Reagan, a great communicator, had an “ability to address the public directly,” often raising the hopes of the American people that had been weakened by a prolonged energy crisis and Iran hostage situation. George H.W. Bush communicated a vision for “a thousand points of light” in his inaugural address, recognizing the importance of community organizations and volunteers who do good and help others.

What we are witnessing in the early days of the Trump administration are rapid actions by a president who prioritizes power, retribution, and a chaotic dismantling of the federal government that was created to care for the common good. Among these actions is an uncaring approach on:

• Immigration: The administration has deported hundreds of people without due process, detained students for expressing free speech, and partnered with a Salvadoran dictator to imprison deportees.
• Civil service: Without cause or legal compliance, DOGE and the Office of Personnel Management have fired thousands of federal civil servants, bullied competent employees to resign or retire, and undercut the federal government’s capacity to deliver critical services.
• Tariffs: Constructing a mythical economic emergency to impose tariffs, Trump has destabilized a global trade environment, sunk the stock markets and with them the savings and retirement accounts of millions, and forced consumers to pay higher import taxes on consumer goods.
• Targeting of perceived threats: Despite the absence of evidence or due process, the administration has castigated universities, fired government scientists, rescinded federal grants, and pursued punitive actions against law firms, the media, and former government officials that it perceives as Trump’s enemies.

So much of a president’s ability to lead and demonstrate care is derived from the individual’s character and internalized virtues--such as compassion, the “emotional response to another’s struggles, that involves an authentic desire to help.” It is empathy plus action. Compassion is a critical element of effective, ethical leadership.

Research found that people working in organizations with compassionate leaders were less likely to burn out and had lower absenteeism rates. Compassionate leadership is a predictor of job satisfaction, perceived organizational support, loyalty and trust in the organization, employee retention, improved employee job performance, and better team performance. In short, it matters.

Presidents have a dual leadership role. They lead the executive branch, an organization not unlike others that have been researched. If led by a compassionate leader, one can assume all the aforementioned benefits will accrue to the people working there. And presidents also have a responsibility to the public as it is the public’s interests they should prioritize in their decision making. Public sentiment should rise in response to presidents who combine their ability to empathize with the concerns of the American people and their ability to do something about it.

Confrontational leaders, on the other hand, might also be empathetic, but they "distrust others, have significant in-group bias, and have the need for power." These characteristics predict a “reckless response to stress,” a dangerous recipe for one of the most stressful jobs in the world.

Even when a leader feels justified in his actions, how he executes them tells his followers critical information. Already the narrative has shifted from sending illegal immigrants with criminal records to prisons in foreign countries to sending American citizens with criminal records there as well. Lack of caring can translate into policy decisions at an alarming rate.

President Trump has identified valid motivations for his policy choices. He promised to address illegal immigration and streamline government. He says he wants the war in Ukraine to end so that people stop dying. But his treatment of Ukrainian president Zelenskyy struck many as callous and uncalled for. And his deportation of alleged illegal immigrants to El Salvador was completed without honoring the due process the law affords people in our country. The arbitrary and capricious firing of probationary federal employees has alarmed constituents who fear for a future without the government services they expect in return for their tax payments.

President Trump’s lack of care undermines his goals as his actions come across as overly harsh and seemingly unfair. It is showing in the polls, which indicate his approval rating at the end of 100 days was lower than any president since it was first tracked in the time of Franklin Roosevelt. It would appear that the American people care not only about what motivates a president, but how he acts on those motivations. That means approaching his role with the ethics of care: consideration for relationships and the feelings and concerns of others. The American people deserve no less.