'Putin couldn’t ask for more': Why 'America’s enemies' are celebrating Trump’s incoming administration

Attorney George Conway, a Never Trump conservative who supported Vice President Kamala Harris in the United States' 2024 election, has been a scathing critic of the far-right MAGA Republicans who President-elect Donald Trump has been picking for his incoming second administration. And he predicted, during a late November interview with The Bulwark's Sarah Longwell, that most GOP senators will be too "spineless" to reject Trump's most "appalling" nominees.

Journalist A.B. Stoddard isn't optimistic either.

In an article published by The Bulwark on December 10, Stoddard warns that Republican senators will be under tremendous pressure to confirm Trump's worst nominees — and "America's enemies" will be applauding their confirmations.

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"Affairs. Addiction. Secrets. Conspiracies. Compulsions," Stoddard laments. "From Trump's point of view, a cabinet composed of people with such baggage is a cabinet that will remain loyal to him. But from the point of view of America's enemies, this is like Christmas morning. Nominees with personal troubles and scandals are nominees who can be compromised."

Stoddard continues, "America's enemies knew that another Trump term would feature additional foreign financial conflicts for the Trump family, more nepotism, and an explosion of grifting as the president-elect and many of his allies hawk merch from perfume to pills…. No matter how MAGA markets them, these nominees are not 'outsiders' who are going to disrupt the status quo — they are people who are ill-suited to their posts and whose priorities threaten our security, our values, and what is left of our national unity."

Stoddard points to former Fox News host Pete Hegseth, Trump's nominee for defense secretary, as a prime example of a Trump nominee who is "both unqualified and unfit."

"He is a blackmail magnet — a reckless man controlled by urges, from adultery to alcohol," Stoddard argues. "And Donald Trump wants him anyway. The choice of Hegseth, and the fight to force him on the Senate, epitomizes how the next Trump presidency will differ from the first. No longer are there even passing nods to substance or credentials in the battle for raw power…. The 44-year-old's career has been marked by allegations of sexual misconduct, financial mismanagement, and intoxication."

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Stoddard adds that other Trump nominees who, if confirmed, would be a gift to "America's enemies" include former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (Trump's pick for national intelligence director), Kash Patel (Trump's nominee for FBI director) and anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (the anti-vaxxer Trump has picked to head the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services). Gabbard is so sympathetic to Russian President Vladimir Putin that pro-Kremlin media have dubbed her "Russia's girlfriend."

"Competence, experience, and integrity are no longer requirements for positions of the highest authority and responsibility in the U.S. government," Stoddard warns. "Trump's nominees are a threat to our national security and the rule of law. They will weaken, isolate, and divide us. Putin couldn't have asked for more."

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A.B. Stoddard's full article for The Bulwark is available at this link.