Economist Paul Krugman at FIDES 2023 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on September 25, 2023 (A.PAES/Shutterstock.com)
During Donald Trump's first presidency — which started on January 20, 2017 and ended when Democrat Joe Biden was sworn in as president four years later — he clashed with a long list of traditional non-MAGA conservatives he appointed, including a secretary of state (Rex Tillerson), a White House chief of staff (retired U.S. Marine Corps Gen. John F. Kelly), a national security adviser (John Bolton), and two U.S. attorneys general (Bill Barr and Jeff Sessions). But since returning to the White House a year ago, Trump has made a point of surrounding himself with MAGA loyalists who, unlike Tillerson or Bolton, won't push back against his policies.
In a scathing column posted on his Substack page on January 20, 2026 — the one-year anniversary of his second presidency — liberal economist Paul Krugman laments that Trump is now "surrounded by…. sycophants who tell him whatever he wants to hear and indulge his every whim, no matter how destructive." And those "sycophants," according to Krugman, are encouraging a variety of terrible ideas — from encouraging a military invasion of Greenland to condoning the fatal shooting of unarmed motorist Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis.
Trump is angrily railing against European leaders who oppose his push to make Greenland part of the United States. And a rambling letter to Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store, Krugman argues, shows that Trump "is suffering a real detachment from reality."
"What is incontrovertible is that he's deeply unwell and rapidly getting sicker," Krugman warns. "In fact, Trump is so deeply unwell that it's time to stop blaming him for all the terrible things he's doing. He is what he is. Responsibility for the catastrophe overtaking America now rests with his enablers — people who have to know that he's a sick man but continue to support his depredations. Some of these enablers are monsters themselves. For example, Stephen Miller, Trump's immigration czar and the architect of his violent ethnic cleansing policies, is clearly a fanatic who is using Trump to achieve his own fascist goals."
The former New York Times columnist continues, "However, many of Trump's enablers aren't fanatics, just amoral opportunists. Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary, clearly understands how destructive Trump's actions are, evidenced by the fact that he has at times tried to tone them down. But for some inexplicable reason, Bessent has decided to sell his soul to Trump."
Others in the Trump Administration, Krugman laments, "are such utter narcissists that they're willing to destroy this country in return for the limelight and perks."
"In that camp, we can find (Defense Secretary) Pete Hegseth with his Pentagon makeup studio, who is purging the finest officers in the military; (Homeland Security Secretary) Kristi Noem with her Barbie-in-a-10-gallon-hat act, who positively gushes while calling a murdered mother a terrorist; and (FBI Director) Kash Patel, who thinks it's fine to fly on an FBI jet to watch his girlfriend sing while overseeing the debasement and corruption of the FBI," Krugman argues. "And what can we say about the cowardly Republicans in Congress, who are still sustaining Trump even though many of them — perhaps most of them — are privately appalled by his behavior? It would take just eight of these people — four Republican senators and four Republican House members — to switch sides and caucus with the Democrats to end GOP control of Congress and eliminate much of Trump's power."
Krugman adds, "But taking such a step would mean risking Trump's wrath by standing up and acting like patriots, rather than knuckling down and averting their eyes as Trump descends into madness. How did a great, sophisticated nation, one of the world's longest-standing republics, end up so fragile that it can be undone by one man's dementia?"
Paul Krugman's full Substack column is available at this link.