Trump’s 'sense of inevitability' revealed as 'a mirage': conservative journalist

U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks on artificial intelligence at the Winning the AI Race Summit in Washington D.C., U.S., July 23, 2025. REUTERS Kent Nishimura

Bulwark White House correspondent Andrew Egger said President Donald Trump’s perceived strength right now is just a thin veneer.

Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel this week joked about Trump’s quick recovery from right-wing podcaster Charlie Kirk's assassination, and Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr reacted by advising his employers to “find ways to take action on Kimmel.” Egger said Kimmel’s corporate employers “bent the knee, announcing the host was suspended indefinitely.”

It’s not the first time American media’s millionaire owners have capitulated to Trump, said Egger, who previously covered politics for The Dispatch and The Weekly Standard, but it doesn’t have to be like this.

“Every surrender Trump notches makes him push harder for the next. And it’s clearly paving the way for more surrenders to come. But this sense of inevitability is a mirage,” wrote Egger. “Trump’s ability to actually wield retaliatory power is nowhere near as massive as his ability to threaten it. And those who have actually fought back have tended to discover they are not nearly as resourceless as Trump wants them to believe.”

Take Trump’s attempt to remove Fed governor, Lisa Cook, “on a ridiculous pretext involving mortgage applications on properties she owns,” said Egger. “As in Kimmelgate, Trump has relied on a loyal functionary wielding a formerly nonpartisan executive-branch post as a political weapon. In Kimmel’s case, that’s been Carr at the FCC; in Cook’s, it’s been Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte.”

But Cook “fought back, suing to keep her job while arguing Trump lacked the statutory authority to fire her. And here’s the thing: So far, she’s winning,” said Egger. “And while Cook has been winning in court, the political case against her has been becoming a real headache for the White House. Reporting keeps coming out suggesting Cook may not actually be guilty of the mortgage-paperwork crimes of which Trump and co. have accused her. But you know who just might have committed similar transgressions? Bill Pulte’s own parents, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.”

If Cook had rolled over and given up, Egger said she would have added to the snowball effect of one more person contributing to the permission structure for others to do the same.

“Whatever her ultimate fate … others should take note. The emperor has fewer clothes than you might think,” Egger said.

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