Just When You Thought it Couldn't Get Worse...
FOX host for SecDef, Putin apologist to run DNI, Gaetz for DOJ...Oh My!
…Trump appointees were few and far between; those who did show up were shockingly uninformed about the functions of their new workplace. Some even threw away the briefing books that had been prepared for them. — Michael Lewis, 2018
That was then. The risk is still with us as Trump ramps up for a second term.
But this time, rather than wantonly appointing inexperienced and unqualified people to important jobs, he’s appointing quasi-experienced loyalists with a MAGA agenda.
Today alone we got news of three appalling and dangerous appointments.
Fox and Friends weekend host Pete Hegseth nominated for Secretary of Defense
No experience running a large organization, but eight years of bloviating on the FOX propaganda network. Yes, he did serve in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo, that’s something. But Sen. Angus King of Maine, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, was not impressed: “I haven’t seen a lot that impresses me as qualifications for one of the most complicated and important jobs in the country, if not the world. So I’m going to await, as I always do, the hearings and the information. But it’s not a nomination I expected.”
“I wouldn’t let this creep dog-sit for me. Now he’s going to be the Secretary of Defense?”
William Kristol, a longtime neoconservative now involved with the Never-Trump movement, quoted a somewhat blunter assessment in an email he received from a friend in that world: “I wouldn’t let this creep dog-sit for me. Now he’s going to be the Secretary of Defense?”
Putin Apologist and Assad Tool Nominated for DNI
Gabbard, a former Republican who became a Democrat representative from a district in HI before again switching to become a MAGA Republican. She blames NATO and the US for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence, former Democratic lawmaker Tulsi Gabbard, has been accused of amplifying Russian propaganda and would come to the job having never worked in the intelligence world or served on a congressional intelligence committee. —Dan De Luce, NBC News
Today’s Washington Examiner but carried a piece from Tom Rogan stating:
She has blamed NATO and the U.S. for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (again, to the celebration of both Russian and Chinese state media), has repeated Russian propaganda claims that the U.S. has set up secret bioweapons labs in that country, and has argued that the U.S. not Russia is wholly responsible for Putin’s nuclear brinkmanship.
Before that, she expressed sympathy for Bashar al-Assad. In reaction to this nomination The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols1 recalls:
In early 2017, while still a member of Congress, Gabbard met with Assad, saying that peace in Syria was only possible if the international community would have a conversation with him. “Let the Syrian people themselves determine their future, not the United States, not some foreign country,” Gabbard said, after chatting with a man who had stopped the Syrian people from determining their own future by using chemical weapons on them. Two years later, she added that Assad was “not the enemy of the United States, because Syria does not pose a direct threat to the United States,” and that her critics were merely “warmongers.”
…And most egregious of all, Matt Gaetz as Attorney General
The Florida Congressman and loyal Trump super-fan is widely hated in his own party, but is a favorite of Trump for his tenacious defense of Trump and attacks on Trump’s opponents. If confirmed, he would be the tool for Trump’s agenda of bending the Justice Department to his beck and call as Trump tries to exact his “retribution.”
Gaetz had been under FBI investigation — an investigation started under Bill Barr — for sex trafficking. The investigation ended without charges being filed in 2023. Soon after, the House Ethics Committee resumed its investigation of Gaetz for sex trafficking and drug allegations, which it had put on hold at the request of the FBI during its investigation.
Misdirection? Here’s the thing…the Ethics Committee report was just about ready…but with the nomination, Gaetz resigned from Congress…and since he’s no longer in Congress, that report will be buried:
Gaetz's resignation…ends any House ethics investigation. "We only have jurisdiction, meaning the Ethics Committee, as long as a person is a member of Congress," Rep. Michael Guest, the chair of the House Ethics Committee, told reporters earlier in the day. - Reporting from NPR
Gaetz’s confirmation is questionable, even in a Senate with 53 Republicans, most of whom are under Trump’s thumb.
So was this really just a way to throw him a life preserver, giving him an excuse to leave Congress and deep-six an embarrassing if not politically fatal report?
I think so. And I hope someone leaks it to the press.
Tom Nichols is a staff writer at The Atlantic and an author of the Atlantic Daily newsletter. He is a professor emeritus of national-security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College, where he taught for 25 years, and an instructor at the Harvard Extension School. He has served as a legislative aide in the Massachusetts House and the U.S. Senate. He writes about international security, nuclear weapons, Russia, and the challenges to democracy in the United States and around the world—along with occasional contrarian views on popular culture. His books include The Death of Expertise and Our Own Worst Enemy: The Assault From Within on Modern Democracy. He is also a five-time undefeated Jeopardy champion.