That's some victory party Donald Trump has thrown for himself down in Florida. The video from Mar-a-Lago resembles the inter-planetary bar scene in "Star Wars," although none of the great man's Cabinet nominees appear to have tentacles for ears.
But what a collection of sycophants and posers! The joint is crowded with second- and third-stringers eager to do Trump's dirty work. Even the "World's Richest Man" hovers in attendance upon the president-elect, although how long the world's two biggest egotists will be able to abide each other's company remains in doubt.
Not a whole lot longer, I suspect. Too many braggarts spoil the soup.
Let's consider Trump's more egregious Cabinet nominations, shall we? Say you needed a lawyer for one of life's more ticklish transactions. Would you hire attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz to handle your divorce?
Not unless you wanted to end up living in your car while your attorney ran off with your teenaged daughter.
Thankfully, Gaetz has since withdrawn his nomination.
There's an old video clip in circulation in which Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., explained that in the House, Gaetz liked to show videos of the hot young girls he had sex with and "brag about how he would crush ED medicine and chase it with an energy drink so he could go all night."
But he had promised Trump that he'll go over to the Justice Department "and start cuttin' f----n' heads," and so the president-elect has vowed to fight for his nomination. The indignant Oklahoma senator had already come around. "I completely trust President Trump's decision-making on this one," Mullin told one TV anchor.
Of course he does.
Don't tell me it's not a cult.
The Senate confirmation hearings with Gaetz would have been must-see TV. Particularly in view of leaked testimony by a witness who saw the virile lawmaker having sex with a 17-year-old high school girl at his pool, and says he took them both to New York for sexual favors.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, says she's shocked, as she so often is.
Speaking of romance, there's former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a one-time Democrat who goes around parroting Kremlin propaganda to the point where Russian state TV routinely calls her "our girlfriend." Trump has nominated her as director of national intelligence.
Me, I still wonder what Vladimir Putin's got on Trump. Or is it just dictator-envy? Over the weekend, yet another Kremlin critic fell to his death from a fifth-floor window. A clumsy ballet dancer this time. It's always an accident, but everybody gets the message.
But back to Mar-a-Lago. Let's say you had a fever. Would you call Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or a doctor? Trump wants to put this crackpot in charge of Health and Human Services. Did you vote for that? A vaccine skeptic, Kennedy's schemes could bring back measles, mumps and even polio, childhood maladies long eradicated by mandatory vaccination. Kennedy says he'll fire thousands of scientists under the HHS umbrella.
Once again, it's up to the U.S. Senate.
To head the Defense Department, Trump has nominated a second-string Fox News talking head drummed out of the Minnesota National Guard on account of his "white power" tattoos. Pete Hegseth talks a lot about being a "devout Christian," despite having a history of sexual entanglements almost as colorful as Gaetz's. (Or Trump himself, for that matter. But let's not be churlish.)
In his role as part-time weekend anchor on Fox News, Hegseth spends a lot of time bitching about America's "woke" military, weakened by training women for combat roles. Today's Army, he has complained, has been rendered "effeminate." An infantryman in Iraq and Afghanistan, he has never run any organization larger than an Army platoon. (And even then, of course, he had superior officers.) His highest military rank was major.
The Department of Defense budget for 2025 is $833 billion; the DOD has 1.4 million enlisted and 750,000 civilian employees. But sure, give the job to a part-time Fox News anchor.
Back in 2017, while married to his second wife, Hegseth got involved with a Fox News producer. They had a child together. Later that same year, Hegseth had a drunken assignation with a third woman while on the road speaking to a Republican women's group. She went to the police, who filed no charges, although the woman sued. Hegseth paid her hush money, he has said, to save his job.
As I say, he emulates Trump all the way.
Which brings us all the way back around to former South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem — slayer of puppies and Trump's nominee to head the Department of Homeland Security. Given the competition, I expect her nomination to sail through the Senate.
As for Trump himself, I wouldn't nominate him to walk my dog, Aspen.
Gene Lyons is a National Magazine Award winner and co-author of “The Hunting of the President”
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