What the past week also reveals about the Trump team's utter incompetence

Robert Reich
30 March
U.S. President Donald Trump waves to supporters as he departs his golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., March 29, 2025.

The past week has been another horror show, and I share your anxiety and sleeplessness.

But the past week also reveals the utter incompetence of Trump and his regime.

Even TheWall Street Journal criticized Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for trying to dismiss “Signalgate” as a hoax, calls Trump negotiator Steve Witkoff “out of his depth in dealing with world crises,” and condemns the administration for thinking “it can bully its way through anything by shouting Fake News.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) instructs the administration to “own it and fix it.”

During the ensuing uproar, Witkoff goes off the deep end, telling Tucker Carlson that Vladimir Putin is “straight up” and not a “bad guy,” claiming he’s “100 percent” certain Russia “doesn’t want to overrun Europe,” and embracing Russia’s claim that people in the seized Ukrainian territory “want to be under Russian rule.”

Now that Trump has demanded that Greenland surrender to America, Greenlanders are so adamant they don’t want JD Vance and his wife to visit that the second couple end up visiting only a frigid U.S. military base there.

Meanwhile, just as measles is spreading and avian flu threatens, Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services cuts 20,000 jobs and dramatically scales back the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The White House cancels funding for studies of antiviral drugs and vaccines to fight future pandemics, as well as grants to track infectious diseases. It hires a man who promotes the false claim that immunization causes autism to do a study on the topic. And the Food and Drug Administration’s top vaccine official resigns under pressure, calling Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s stance on vaccines irresponsible and dangerous. “This man doesn’t care about the truth,” says the official. “He cares about what is making him followers.”

Elon continues to attack Social Security, with phone wait times growing even longer.

The stock market continues its meltdown.

Amid the turmoil, Trump expresses his wish at a Women’s History Month event to “be known as the fertilization president.” He complains that a portrait of him in the Colorado state capitol is “purposefully distorted.” He attacks a law firm because it once employed a lawyer who worked on a Justice Department probe of Trump during his first term. He’s imposing sweeping “reciprocal tariffs” that he says will substitute for income taxes. He attacks the “absolutely terrible” work of Fox News White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich because she asked on air about the propriety of Trump hosting a Tesla marketing event at the White House. He orders proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections — a power the Constitution assigns to the states and Congress. He launches a barrage of orders against California and issues a new cryptocurrency coin to further enrich himself and his family.

Just this week.

It would all be comic if not so tragic.

Is it any wonder that the special election in Florida’s 6th Congressional District is now trending blue, with Republican Randy Fine’s former lead over Democrat Josh Weildisappearing — despite the heavy GOP tilt of the district?

Or that Trump is so afraid of losing his House majority that he pulled Elise Stefanik back from her plumb United Nations ambassadorial job so she’d remain in Congress?

I don’t want to minimize the cruelty or pain being inflicted by Trump and his cronies, but this week has also revealed a foolishness — a mindless obtuseness — in Trump and this regime that defies belief.

These people know zilch about governing, which is both laughable and terrifying.

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Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

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