Why Trump’s effort to transform the federal government (mostly) failed January 13 Most of the Trump administration's government reform initiatives fell dead on arrival, revealing the narrow path to successful federal change. (Thomas Bounias) President Donald Trump entered the presidency intending to set in motion sweeping governmental change under the promise to “drain the swamp” of Washington. In June 2018, his administration released a comprehensive plan to overhaul the way the federal government operates and innovates. But at the end of Trump’s term as president, few of those initiatives have seen little, if any, progress, and the incoming Biden administration looks poised to overturn many of the management reform efforts that were made.