After Donald Trump narrowly won the 2024 presidential election and began choosing nominees, it was obvious that the second Trump Administration would be much different from his first. Trump clashed with a long list of traditional conservatives he appointed during his first presidency, from Rex Tillerson (secretary of state) to John Bolton (national security advisor) to Jeff Sessions (U.S. attorney general). But the second time, he avoided such clashes by putting together an administration dominated by far-right ultra-MAGA loyalists.
During a conversation published in the New York Times' opinion section on April 23, columnists Bret Stephens and Frank Bruni examined the many controversies surrounding Trump's appointees. Bruni stressed that Trump got exactly the type of administration he wanted — and now, his presidency is suffering badly because of it.
Bruni told Stephens, "I have come to realize that normal language is inadequate and precedents are irrelevant when it comes to appraising Trump's Cabinet and other senior administration officials. Trump didn't just hire incompetent people. He didn't just hire lickspittles. He visited some perverse preserve of the morally degenerate — some superstore of grifters and goons — and said, 'I'll take the worst of the worst. A baker's dozen, please!' And on this score, the self-proclaimed master dealer got exactly the goods he wanted."
Facing allegations of having an affair with a subordinate and drinking on the job,
Trump's labor secretary, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, resigned on April 20. Chavez-DeRemer's resignation comes after the firings of former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and ex-U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Stephens said of Chavez-DeRemer, "Text messages reviewed by The Times 'suggested that the secretary was drinking during the workday.' Her husband, Shawn DeRemer, was 'barred from the department's headquarters, after female staff members accused him of making unwanted sexual advances, including filing a police report.' With a résumé like this, Frank, she could be our next secretary of homeland security. Or war!"
When Stephens jokingly remarked that a reality show could be called "Real Housewives of the Trump Cabinet," Bruni responded, "The ingredients are all there! Gilded locations. Flamboyant pettiness. Booze. An exorbitant hair and makeup budget. But I do have a question: Are we spotlighting actual spouses — Kristi Noem's, Lori Chavez-DeRemer's, Melania — or are Pete Hegseth, Kash Patel and JD Vance the overexcitable divas in this project? Because this could go either way…. In the Trump Administration, you're not really denying an allegation unless you threaten litigation and attach some cartoonish financial figure to it."
Stephens noted that filling an administration with incompetents is characteristic of authoritarians.
The Times columnist told Bruni, "An Egyptian friend of mine, in the years when Hosni Mubarak was dictator, once explained to me that the key to running a long-term autocracy is always to take care that your immediate subordinates are even dumber and more corrupt than you are. That way, they're too stupid to obstruct or overthrow you, and too compromised to be anything but slavishly loyal. At the time he told me this, which was in 2009 or so, I didn't expect it would describe American government to a ‘T’ in just a few years' time."