Cartoon from Joe Adder.
This is going to be an interesting four years.
When he was President the first time, Mr. Trump contented himself with hiring mostly a B team Cabinet and Executive Branch staff. Over time, they became a C and D team as many hires were either driven out or resigned because they either could not stomach Trump's incompetency, would not bend the knee to his most authoritarian impulses, or proved to be, in the 45th President's mind, sufficiently disloyal.
Fast forward to 2024 and a case can be made that the sequel is really going to be worse than the original installment.
Previous articles have already highlighted how Mr. Trump, in prizing loyalty and chaos over competence and experience, has already picked a team headlined by the worst and the dumbest.
Matt Gaetz may be out of the running for Attorney General and not returning to Congress (where Republicans and Democrats openly rejoiced) but the second nominee, Pamela Bondi, is also marked by controversy for her election denialism following the 2020 elections and allegations that she traded in campaign donations for looking the other way in prosecuting the Florida branch of Trump University.
Just today, Mr. Trump announced that he would nominate Kash Patel to replace the F.B.I. Director he hired to replace James Comey, the first F.B.I. Director he fired because of the Russia Investigation.
This is Patel talking on Steve Bannon's show.
And on another show.
Both Bondi and Patel definitely fit in with the blind loyalist, unlawful and disorder flavor of Trump 2.0.
Trump's Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth's sexual predatory revelations keep coming out with the latest being an email from his own mother blasting him for abusing women. Below are some of the excerpts:
"I have tried to keep quiet about your character and behavior, but after listening to the way you made Samantha feel today, I cannot stay silent. And as a woman and your mother I feel I must speak out..
You are an abuser of women — that is the ugly truth and I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around, and uses women for his own power and ego. You are that man (and have been for years) and as your mother, it pains me and embarrasses me to say that, but it is the sad, sad truth...
...I know you think this is one big competition and that we have taken her side… bunk… we are on the side of good and that is not you. (Go ahead and call me self-righteous, I dont’ care)
Don’t you dare run to her and cry foul that we shared with us… that’s what babies do. It’s time for someone (I wish it was a strong man) to stand up to your abusive behavior and call it out, especially against women
We still love you, but we are broken by your behavior and lack of character. I don’t want to write emails like this and never thought I would. If it damages our relationship further, then so be it, but at least I have said my piece..."
Real family values party we have coming into the White House in January.
Hegseth is also not qualified to lead Defense.
The same is true of Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard who is a walking definition of the term security risk with her political attraction to dictators like Vladimir Putin and Bashir Assad (who at the time of this writing is hiding in Russia with his family after fleeing Syria where rebels currently have the upper hand in their drive to take control of the country.)
Then there is vaccine and fluoride denier Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and some of the other health care nominees that Mr. Trump has picked. Beware measles or small pox outbreaks if these guys get their way. Also, Mr. Kennedy made news by admitting he was a heroin addict for 15 years.
There is also Mr. Trump's pick for Education Secretary, Linda McMahon, who despite her lying claims, has no background in education but she has been implicated in a lawsuit accusing her of not interceding when one of her Wrestling Federation staff sexually abused children.
In the non MAGA-world, McMahon would not have been on anyones top 100 for Education Secretary or any other cabinet/executive branch office.
In Trump 2.0, she is part of the norm.
Finally, there is Charles Kushner, Mr. Trump's son in laws father.
This is a man who has spent time in jail for 16 counts of tax evasion, attacking a federal witness, and hiring a prostitute to seduce his brother in law who was a witness against him.
Mr. Trump just nominated him to be the Ambassador to France.
Then of course, there is Mr. Trump himself with his 34 convictions, two impeachments, and findings of sexual assault and business failure.
President Joe Biden was right during the campaign to call Mr. Trump a one man crime wave.
Now he is proving it again with the an Animal House gang of Presidential appointments.
There was no mandate for this and the only ones happy about these picks are certain elements of the media who had probably grown bored with the no drama cabinet and executive branch picks of the Biden/Harris Administration and America's enemies in Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran who are probably thrilled with all the incompetent cretans Mr. Trump has appointed.
Chaos will be in full swing in Washington D.C. the first couple of months of 2025.
Senate Democrats are going to be falling over themselves looking to make headlines questioning these nominees when they appear before their respected Senate committees.
This would be funny if it was not unfortunately real.
Be afraid and stay tuned.
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