Donald Trump already reportedly on the verge of withdrawing one of his high profile cabinet nominees amid scandal
As soon as Donald Trump started making naively idiotic cabinet nominations, we started hearing about how this was all part of Trump’s secret evil genius master plan. There was a strategy to picking the most inept and poorly vetted people possible, we were told. We’ve heard a thousand takes on this supposed strategy over the past ten days.
But all along it’s been fairly clear that Trump was simply blowing it in politically naive and totally senile fashion. Trump could have quietly gotten any anonymous corrupt minions he wanted through the recess appointment back door if he’d wanted to. Instead Trump picked a Fox News host for Secretary of Defense and an alleged underage sex trafficker for Attorney General. It’s predictably blowing up in his face already.
Trump and his babysitters are reportedly considering withdrawing Pete Hegseth’s nomination for Secretary of Defense, after it turned out Hegseth bought a woman’s silence amid alleged sexual misconduct (Hegseth says he was the victim but paid the woman anyway).
Talk about a screw-up on Trump’s part. He and his people either naively didn’t do any basic vetting of their own nominees, or naively didn’t think they’d need to do any vetting. As a result of this ineptitude, Trump and his people are now stuck with this mess. They’ll either have to suffer the bodyblow of withdrawing their first high profile nominee, or Hegseth will get confirmed and then his scandals will probably get even uglier as these things tend to go.
For all the constant talk we hear about these dumb picks must all be a part of a strategy – it’s to test the Republican Senate, or to lower the bar, or to give cover to other nominees, or whatever the talking heads are saying this time – none of that lines up with the facts. Trump and his people are simply blowing it with the kinds of picks that are leaving Trump look like an idiot and driving his approval rating down.
