In case you take a step again – make that a number of steps again – it’s simpler to know what Donald Trump is doing.
Why would he intentionally ignite a media firestorm over such controversial nominees as Matt Gaetz and Pete Hegseth, and to a lesser diploma with Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr.?
The quick reply is that the president-elect can’t run once more and needs these nominees to disrupt – and even blow up – the departments they’d be accountable for operating. And in the event that they don’t have the same old credentials, in the event that they’ve by no means run a big group, he doesn’t give a rattling.
However wouldn’t it higher serve his functions to appoint equally disruptive Cupboard members who don’t have the bags of a Matt Gaetz? However would they’ve the unquestioned loyalty?
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President-elect Trump is standing by his nominations of Pete Hegseth and Matt Gaetz to top-ranking Cupboard positions. (Roy Rochlin/Getty Pictures | Aaron Schwartz/NurPhoto by way of Getty Pictures)
Even skeptical members of his interior circle haven’t any alternative however to let Trump be Trump.
If Gaetz have been to change into legal professional common, as an illustration, he might hearth FBI chief Chris Wray slightly than Trump having to be the dangerous man.
The pondering in Trump World is that the Senate gained’t have the ability to reject greater than two of his nominees. So even when Gaetz, who doesn’t seem to have the votes, is rejected, and maybe Hegseth as effectively, everybody else will get by means of, together with Kennedy and Gabbard.
And wouldn’t it’s onerous for the Republican Senate, within the wake of such rejections, to be basically obligated to approve the substitute nominees, given the magnitude of Trump’s victory? Is that this four-dimensional chess?
White Home chief of employees Susie Wiles was on the aircraft, with Gaetz, when Trump supplied the now-former congressman the AG’s job. Whether or not Wiles, who ran a tightly organized marketing campaign, knew about it or not, she had no energy to cease it.
Privately, some Trump advisers are against probably the most radioactive picks, however additionally they know that the boss will get what he desires.
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The incoming Senate majority chief, John Thune, who’s not a Trump fan and was opposed by Trump, is deemed not prone to go together with recess appointments, which might be surrendering the chamber’s constitutional position of advise and consent.
New reporting has sophisticated issues for Gaetz and Hegseth, the embellished Military fight veteran and former Fox weekend host tapped to run the Pentagon.
The Washington Put up scoop about Hegseth’s lawyer saying he paid off a feminine accuser who says he raped her in 2017, as a part of a non-disclosure settlement, would sink a nominee beneath every other president. Hegseth, visibly intoxicated, says the encounter in his resort room was consensual; the 30-year-old lady was on the conservative convention together with her husband and babies.
Speaker Johnson has pushed again towards strain to launch the Ethics Committee’s report on Gaetz. (Stephanie Keith/Bloomberg by way of Getty Pictures)
Within the case of Gaetz, Home Speaker Mike Johnson doesn’t need the ethics committee report launched, because the man has resigned his seat. Does anybody doubt that if this was a Democrat, he would take the alternative stance and denounce the nominee as a pervert?
In any occasion, a lawyer for a number of ladies making accusations of sexual misconduct advised ABC that two of his shoppers say Gaetz paid them for intercourse. And he plans extra interviews.
Legal professional Joel Leppard stated that of their Home ethics testimony, staffers “basically put the Venmo funds on the display and requested about them. And my shoppers repeatedly testified, ‘What was this payment for?’ ‘That was for sex.'” .
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Leppard had previously said that one of his clients had also watched Gaetz have sex with a minor.
John Clune, another lawyer for a woman who contends that Gaetz had sex with a minor then in high school, called the Gaetz nomination “a perverse development in a truly dark series of events.”
And as CNN noted, one of the underage girls says she had sex with Gaetz on an air hockey table, according to her testimony.
Reporting on Gaetz’s alleged past has significantly complicated what was already a longshot nomination for attorney general. (Photo by Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)
One thing is certain: Trump continues to support both nominees. He is not going to back down.
By the way, if Kamala Harris had won the election, I’d be scrutinizing her nominees the identical means. Quite a few pro-Trumpers on-line accused me of Trump Derangement Syndrome for masking probably the most controversial nominees, which is hilarious as a result of the president-elect granted me two interviews in 10 months, one simply a few weeks earlier than the election, and advised me that each have been honest.
In the meantime, Trump’s choice to satisfy with Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, who’ve relentlessly bashed him for the final seven years, was a superb transfer. Each made the request, and Trump was magnanimous sufficient to grant them an viewers at Mar-a-Lago – actually a surprising improvement.
As they defined yesterday on “Morning Joe:”
“We talked about a lot of issues, including abortion, mass deportation, threats of political retribution against political opponents and media outlets. We talked about that a good bit,” Scarborough stated.
“It will come as no surprise to anybody who watches this show, has watched it over the past year or over the past decade, that we didn’t see eye-to-eye on a lot of issues and we told him so.”
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What they did agree on, Brzezinski stated, “was to restart communications.”
She famous that her father, the late Zbigniew Brzezinski, “often spoke with world leaders with whom he and the United States profoundly disagreed. That is a task shared by reporters and commentators alike. We had not spoken to Trump since March of 2020, other than a personal call that Joe made after the attempt on his life in Butler, Pennsylvania.”
Trump was “cheerful and upbeat” and “seemed interested in finding common ground with Democrats on some of the most divisive issues.”
“Morning Joe” co-hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough enraged liberals on social media after assembly with President-elect Donald Trump. (Getty Pictures)
As for the anticipated liberal backlash for assembly with a person they’d described as a fascist, Mika turned it round: “Why wouldn’t we?”
Trump later advised Fox’s Brooke Singman: “Many things were discussed, and I very much appreciated the fact that they wanted to have open communication. In many ways, it’s too bad that it wasn’t done long ago…
“In an effort to Make America Nice Once more, it is vitally necessary, if not very important, to have a free, honest and open media or press.”
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Trump additionally stated of his assembly with the husband-and-wife MSNBC hosts that they “congratulated me on operating a ‘great and flawless campaign, one for the history books,’ which I actually imagine it was, but it surely was additionally a marketing campaign the place I labored lengthy and onerous — maybe longer and more durable than any presidential candidate in historical past.”
“We talked about varied Cupboard members — each introduced and to be introduced. As anticipated, they like some very a lot, however not all. The assembly led to a really optimistic method, and we agreed to talk sooner or later.” And here’s the olive branch: “I anticipate this can happen with others within the media, even these which have been extraordinarily hostile.”
Trump said he has “an obligation to the American public, and to our nation itself, to be open and obtainable to the press.”
“If not handled pretty, nevertheless, that may finish.”
President-elect Trump was quick to pigeon-hole the media into a carrot-and-stick situation – treat him fairly this go-round, otherwise, his openness to press inquiries may meet a swift end. (Jovanny Hernandez/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)
So there you have it, a carrot and a stick.
The denunciations came fast and furious.
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“Byron York – Annals of shamelessness: They name Trump a fascist, and far, way more, after which, simply 22 days after his ‘Nazi-like’ rally, they fly to Florida for an viewers. Afterward, they are saying, ‘We did not see eye-to-eye on a variety of points,’ however they need to ‘restart communications.’ What?”
Steve Cortes – “It’s tough to overstate how dishonest these two are. Mika & Joe scream for months that Trump is a ‘fascist’ who would ‘end democracy.’ Now that he’s elected — and very talked-about — they go to him prefer it’s simply espresso with an opposing social gathering politician???”
I couldn’t disagree more. The meeting, which may not be unrelated to ratings, means they will have some access to their onetime friend and, they say, criticize him when they think he’s wrong.
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Who wants to hear another four years of Trump-bashing, which didn’t work? This way they can report what the next president says and then take a stance. And with Trump vowing to reach out to other hostile outlets, I hope the truce lasts.
Footnote: Trump has named former Congressman Sean Duffy, a co-host of “Backside Line” on FOX Business, as Transportation secretary.
