A few updates:
NBC News is reporting that ten current and former Fox News employees have expressed concern about Pete Hegseth’s drinking:
NBC is also reporting that as many as six GOP Senators are uncomfortable supporting Hegseth’s confirmation:
And, finally, Trump’s pick to head up the DEA, Chad Chronister (a Florida sheriff) has withdrawn his name from consideration.
The Chronister withdrawal is actually unfortunate, if you read the news articles about him.
Trump’s choice of Chronister had received backlash from the MAGA corner of the Republican Party, some of whom took to social media to lambast the sheriff.
Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky criticized Trump’s selection in a post on X on Sunday, saying the sheriff “should be disqualified” over his enforcement of Covid-19 protocols.
Trump’s pick of Chronister for the DEA job drew backlash from conservatives, who raised concerns over his actions during the Covid-19 pandemic and him saying that his office “does not engage in federal immigration enforcement activities”.
In March 2020, Chronister arrested the pastor of a megachurch who held services with hundreds of people and violated a safer-at-home order in place aimed at limiting the spread of the coronavirus.
“Shame on this pastor, their legal staff and the leaders of this staff for forcing us to do our job. That’s not what we wanted to do during a declared state of emergency,” Chronister said at the time. “We are hopeful that this will be a wake-up call.”
So he just wasn’t enough of a crackpot.
Well, that’s different.
Indeed. One wonders why he was picked in the first place.
Possibly due in part to Chronister’s father-in-law, Eddie DeBartolo Jr., the former owner of the San Francisco 49ers, who received a pardon from Trump in 2020, over his involvement in a gambling scandal. DeBartolo has been a Trump supporter.
That makes sense, especially if the “vetting” went no further than “Florida sheriff? Okay, then!”
The NBC article indicates that Chronister was backed by DeSantis and a number of other Florida Republican leaders, but I guess the element who was angry about churches being forced to close during the 2020 COVID lockdown has a long memory.
Speaking of Ron DeFuhrer, Trump is reportedly mulling him as a replacement for Hegseth.
The good news for Florida Democrats is that there may be no Republican politicians left in Florida by the time Trump gets finished staffing his Administration.
His sliver of basic decency and social responsibility is the kind of thing that an FBI background check may have uncovered.
And yet …
So it looks like Don Jr. and Eric won’t be as involved in the Trump White House this time around except to recommend people for high positions, which is a big minus (because there will be fewer clowns in the circus and therefore things will be less “entertaining”). No pluses are evident.
Not much of a surprise. Trump has always worried about his kids being losers, and the fact that they didn’t win the election for him in 2020 proves they are losers. He was stuck with them during 2020-2024, but now that he’s the president again, he’s got enough bootlickers-to-be fawning over him for spots in the government that he doesn’t need these losers anymore.
As a Florida resident I have to say that sounds delightful, but unlikely: local politics here is full of white-supremacist, pro-autocracy types. Staffing vacated offices will be no problem.
What a point of pride for Trump! --his will be known as the Florida Man Presidency.
At this point the legion of Trump lap dogs in Washington would support Curly, Larry or Moe if they could rise up and become a part of Trump’s cabinet soon . Weren’t they celebrities , too ? There is a foursome to behold! What could go wrong?
According to this theory, the appointees Trump will really fight for are RFK Jr and Gabbard, because they expand his base:
Crazy. Can it be true that Trump puts the woman from the not really Hindu cult ahead of Christian Republicans?
And isn’t RFK pro-choice? That’s not going to endear him to the religious right.
Well, he did arrest a clergy person and we all know laws don’t apply to them. At least not Christian clergy. They get their instructions directly from god. Or so they say.
why would he care about expanding his base at this point? I think he’s rather solidify the hard core MAGAs. No one joining him now from expansion of the base can be trusted when the shit hits the fan
I think the idea is to unite all loony CT-loving iconoclasts under one banner. While he’s getting their support to tear down the current system he can let them hold whatever individual fantasies they want about what its going to be replaced with.
He may be thinking of the 2028 election. Taking him literally, he wants a third term, constitution be damned. Taking him seriously, he wants a MAGA successor like JD Vance or Lara Trump.
For MAGA to have legs, it needs to appeal to the median voter. In this cycle, that worked, as illustrated by this October polling factoid:
Trump needs to keep it that way with respect to the 2028 contenders, whomever they may be. Being able to say MAGA is almost bipartisan will help, and with RFK Jr and Tulsi on his side, that helps.
As for his base, they are locked in.