AMA Thursday
Churn on, Thune in, Scott out
Good morning, readers.
The new Trump administration is coming into focus quickly now, and really, with a trifecta in Washington, this will be a Trump political establishment.
What we’ve seen so far helps clarify Trump’s coming term, or at least how he imagines it: Where it will be absurd and chaotic, where he sees himself most directly involved, and where Congress (really, Senate Republicans) see themselves most torn between Trump loyalism and fear of public backlash.
In my head I break it down like so:
The boring, domestic departments;
The deportation machine;
The departments that can oppress Trump’s enemies directly.
His first nominees were of the former category, and while they’re all marked by embarrassing obeisance to Trump, they’re not that weird for a Republican:
Marco Rubio for secretary of state;
Lee Zeldin for EPA administrator;
Elise Stefanik for U.N. ambassador;
Kristi Noem for Homeland Security secretary (I’ll return to her).
I would not expect any of these people to do good works in their new jobs, but absent real surprises I do expect them all to be confirmed. Then there’s the deportation machine. Appointing a red state governor to run DHS isn’t nuts, but Noem’s quite clearly going to be a figurehead, at least as pertains to DHS’s immigration remit. The fascistic ideologues who want to encamp and expel immigrants will be in the White House, much closer to Trump.
Stephen Miller as deputy chief of staff for policy.
Tom Homan as “border czar”—that is, a senior adviser to the president.
In some cases, Trump’s cabinet picks might not have much of an appetite to wreck. Setting aside his extreme hawkishness, you can imagine Rubio trying to run the State Department in a quasi-professional manner—no antagonizing the staff, no driving career officials into retirement out of spite, etc.—without the White House getting too up in his business. But not Noem. She says “yes, boss; right away boss” or she’s out.
Then there’s the non-immigration security services:
Fox News weekend host Pete Hegseth (not kidding!) for defense secretary;
Child sex trafficking suspect Matt Gaetz (not kidding!) for attorney general;
Authoritarian fan girl Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence.
These are loyalists and fanatics, and in at least Gaetz’s and Gabbard’s cases, terribly compromised people. The fact that Trump wants to give them these jobs comes almost as comic relief to me, insofar as it helps settle the question of whether this second term will be a well-oiled crackdown machine or another clown show. It’ll be at least somewhere in between. But imagining these people actually getting these jobs is disturbing. And though I suspect Senate Republicans will have real misgivings about supporting any of these nominees, I suspect they won’t deny Trump all three.
And for the one or two that can’t clear Senate confirmation, Trump imagines a workaround. His first preference was for a Republican majority leader who would simply adjourn the Senate for a couple weeks at a time and let Trump install his cabinet and sub-cabinet officials with recess appointments. That guy, Florida Senator Rick Scott, came in third in a three-man, secret-ballot election among Senate Republicans, which could be indicative of the fact that Scott is widely disliked, or that Senate Republicans have some desire to maintain a check on Trump, or a bit of both.
Instead, Trump got saddled with South Dakota Senator John Thune, who has promised a more normal advice-and-consent process. MAGA is thus reportedly toying with the idea—one I’ve written about before—that Trump should use his Constitutional power to call Congress into emergency session, and then adjourn both chambers indefinitely if the House and Senate don’t agree on an adjournment schedule amongst themselves.
Can he do this? I think the answer is yes, but only with the complicity of Speaker Mike Johnson and the House GOP, who’d have to essentially steamroll his Senate GOP legislative partners, and their constitutional prerogatives. It’s something to watch for down the line, and while I expect Trump to over time stack all of these positions with loyalists (via pliant senators, recess appointments, and resumed abuse of federal vacancies law) I’m not certain it’ll be super smooth sailing.
Once the roles are filled, expect a familiar combination of disarray and appalling corruption.
I’ll get the member live chat going this afternoon and take questions in the comments section before that. So if you’re wondering about Elon Musk, and Vivek Ramaswamy, and what happens to Chris Wray, or whatever else, you know where to ask!
If you aren’t yet a member, I hope you’ll take this opportunity to join.
UPDATE: Let’s chat?
