To Pay Off His Election Debts, Trump Seems Prepared to Destroy the United States
Kimberly Strassel is struggling with cognitive dissonance. She’s trying to convince Republicans to reject the nomination of RJK Jr, whom she believes Trump named to head Health and Human Services only as electoral payback.
Welcome to the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. nomination, one of the more counterproductive Washington charades in recent history. Donald Trump has, in payback for late-stage election support, nominated a man for the vital cabinet position (health and human services) whom he once labeled a “Democrat Plant” and a bigger threat to the country than Joe Biden. Now meet the Republican senators, activists and influencers who are so clueless—and so blindly eager to salute the leader—that they can’t see the opportunity to save Mr. Trump from a deal he would never have made in other circumstances.
[snip]
It seems not to have occurred to Senate Republicans—who ought to have learned a little bit about Mr. Trump by now—that he needs a rescue here. No insider believes this is a heartfelt pick. Even political naïfs understand what happened: This agreement was entirely transactional. Mr. Trump saw an opportunity to gain RFK’s endorsement. The price was a promise of a big post. The president-elect is holding true to that deal as a businessman, so he won’t dare whisper misgivings for fear of leaks.
Instead Senate Republicans are playing monkey-see-monkey-do to an extent that even Mr. Trump must be exasperated. Nearly every GOP senator looks at Mr. Kennedy with wincing concern—knowing the havoc the anticapitalist big-government regulator can and will wreak on a Trump agenda. Yet no one steps up to save the president. If Joe Biden chose Hulk Hogan to be Treasury secretary, does anyone think Democrats would have let him step into that trap? But so desperate right now are Republicans to nod along that they are abdicating the real job of advice and consent—and protection.
Murdoch’s top columnist believes Trump needs to be saved from himself.
It comes with no small discomfort to admit that my approach to Trump’s nominations is not much different than [gulp] Strassel’s. I think Democrats, rather than fostering polarization by attacking Trump’s nominees as the partisan hacks they are, should instead frame the question in terms of the damage they’ll do to the US, the damage Republican Senators will own if they confirm them.
How hard can it be, after all, to convince Republicans that they don’t want to be responsible for letting Bobby Kennedy get rid of childhood vaccinations, revoking approval for the polio vaccine entirely, with the resultant death and destruction that’ll directly cause in their own states (as it did already in Samoa)?
How hard can it be, after all, to convince Republicans that the same billionaires who bankrupted Silicon Valley Bank then promptly begged for and got bailed out, shouldn’t be recommending the elimination of the FDIC?
That is, I think Democrats would be best served by laying out that if the Republicans approve these charlatans, they cannot claim they were not warned. They own the destruction Trump is embracing. If Trump gets his way on all these picks, it will be more destructive to the United States than dropping a nuke on NYC. And Republican Senators have a choice to sanction that … or try to prevent it.
All that said, in her valiant struggle to make sense of why the man she has blindly defended for years might take steps that will foreseeably do grave damage to harm the US, Strassel may simplify things somewhat when she imagines this is just about electoral payback.
For starters, much of the criticism Trump launched against RFK during the campaign was kayfabe, an attempt to appear to be on opposite sides as him, in a ploy to harm the Democratic ticket. That “charade,” as Strassel calls this, was about stealing Democratic votes, not feigned approval for RFK now.
Plus, Donald Trump is famous for reneging on his debts, whether personal or financial, and he would happily do so with RFK if he saw an advantage in it. Hell he has already reneged on the offer to Bill McGinley to be White House Counsel and given the job instead to David Warrington. While Elon Musk likely has a great deal of leverage over Trump for the foreseeable future, it’s hard to see how RFK could enforce any deal they made, if indeed they had one.
On the contrary, at least according to Trump whisperer Marc Caputo (citing Roger Stone, who has long been a professional Kennedy conspirator), Trump has affirmative reasons he wants RFK and … Tulsi Gabbard.
But the most critical fights for the president-elect, at least in regard to his immediate political legacy, center around Tulsi Gabbard and Robert Kennedy Jr., former Democrats tapped to head the nation’s sprawling intelligence and health bureaucracies, respectively.
Gabbard’s and Kennedy’s nominations, like Hegseth’s and Patel’s, have met resistance in pockets of the Senate. But Trump allies view the stakes differently. Confirming Gabbard and Kennedy is seen as an opportunity for the president-elect to cement his legacy of broadening the Republican coalition to include disaffected Democrats and independents. They note that the two are considered Blue MAGA rock stars among the Trump faithful. They’re both loved by the new influential podcasters whom Trump courted this election and give Trump the chance to burnish his anti-establishment bona fides.
“The appointments of RFK and Tulsi Gabbard represent a realignment in American politics that you saw in the election,” said Roger Stone, a longtime Trump friend and adviser. “He understands the historical significance of that realignment.”
For that reason, there is an expectation in Trump world that the president-elect will expend more of his political capital on Gabbard and Kennedy than on any of the other nominees. And that he could go apoplectic if their prospects begin to dim.
“Frankly, Pete [Hegseth] might not make it,” said one Trump adviser. “We’ll see. I’m not sure if the boss is willing to fight for that because there are people in our own camp who aren’t sure it’s worth it. But Kash [Patel] should get confirmed. And if they try to touch Tulsi and Kennedy, then it’s war.”
Added a second adviser: “If Tulsi or Bobby face real trouble, that’s when Trump will really start to fight. They represent the challenging of the status quo of the bureaucracy. That’s what MAGA is about.”
Now, Caputo is incredibly well-sourced in the vicinity of people like Stone, but he can be credulous.
And I’m not sure I believe that his sources believe what Bobby and Tulsi give you is some magical realignment among actual Democrats, who long ago dissociated from these nuts.
But I don’t doubt that the rat-fucker wing of Trump’s advisory team believes that Bobby and Tulsi do accomplish something. The question is whether some really smart politicos believe it’ll be a good thing to kill children and give dictators America’s secrets and let the richest men in the world destroy America’s banking system and the dollar exchange — whether they believe this will win lasting approval from America’s great disaffected masses. It might well! It certainly will expand the pool of disaffected Americans, and with it, increase the market for a strong man to respond to it all.
Or whether there’s some reason Trump is tempting Republican Senators to defy his plans to do great damage to the United States. Perhaps he intends to dare them to start defying him in bulk.
Or perhaps the rat-fucker wing of Trump’s entourage simply has an unknown reason they want to destroy America. Maybe Trump has other election debts — debts he’d get in more trouble for ignoring — that make him amenable to dropping policy bomb after policy bomb on America’s children.
But that’s sort of the point. You’ve got Kimberly Strassel up in arms because Trump is going to the mat for a conspiracist with a Democratic name who’ll get children killed. But it’s more likely to do with the policy bombs that RFK will help Trump drop than the specific conversations that led Bobby Jr to drop out of the race.
Excellent analysis, as always. Thank you.
The idea that either RFK Jr or Gabbard could assist in a historic political realignment* is preposterous.
That Caputo is willing to carry this water for his source(s) says more about Caputo than about the reasons
Trump is nominating them. The simpler, more plausible explanation is that they hold similar conspiratorial
views about the Deep State and Deep Bio-Medicine and, having no constituencies or power bases of their own,
will do as they are told.
* The head shots of the incoming GOP House Committee chairs tells us that the realignment might be a ways off:
https://bsky.app/profile/nycsouthpaw.bsky.social/post/3ld76klvq6k2k
Why, they’re all white and male! That’s a realignment… of sorts…
Are you suggesting Tulsi Gabbard is male?
“I think Democrats, rather than fostering polarization by attacking Trump’s nominees as the partisan hacks they are, should instead frame the question in terms of the damage they’ll do to the US, ….”
Absolutely. Before the election, it was “not the odds, but the stakes” that the media should have but did not pursue. Now, it is not the promises, but the consequences. Focus on the likely and actual consequences based on research and practice. For example, based on plentiful evidence, remind America what the real consequences of more tax cuts for the rich will be.
I think the FDIC thing is about putting regulatory functions more directly under the control of political appointees (e.g., the Treasury) so they can be weaponized. Trump only needs to cause one bank run that he refuses to bail out for all the banks to fall in line and carry out his agenda to reward his allies and punish the people he wants to punish. I could see RFK, Jr. playing golf with Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and complaining that vaccine research is still getting privately funded; the next day the banks get a call. All kinds of synergies of corruption open up when you turn regulatory bodies into thugs.
Do we know that Trump has election debts? He raised a lot of money, and is raising even more for transition and inaugural.
Billionaires don’t drop a hundred million or more on an election campaign without expecting a lot of somethings in return. And they don’t arrange them after their guy wins.
FWIW, there is the Tim Mellon connection between Bobby Jr. and Donald, too.
Right: Proof it was just kayfabe, like the common donors with Cornell West.
Trump is pretty clearly distancing himself from things, in his very Trumpy way: “We’re going to have a big discussion! It’s going to be the best and the biggest discussion ever!” Is what he’s saying. If he thought we should do it, that’s not what he would be saying.
The “fun” part of this is that this is exactly a bog-standard politician thing to do, and yet here is fearless truth-teller Trump doing it.
Trump doesn’t mean “we” will have a discussion about anything. As you say, it’s a script, intended to distance himself from known likely outcomes.
Yup. That’s the same use of “we” as Tonto’s in Oscar Brown Jr.’s great 1974 song, “The Lone Ranger”
https //www.youtube.com/watch?v=HS287kNQhtQ
…Ahem… Lenny Bruce.
They’re really planning to destroy the country: RFKjr’s lawyer, Alex Siri, wants to stop using vaccines until they’ve done “double blind tests” with the control group getting saline injections. Polio vaccine is high on that list! (And ethics be damned!)
The Hypocrite Oath in practice.
Every barn needs a lightning rod. Trump seems intent on having a Cabinet full of them.
The multiple knock-on effects of each of these moves would be extensive and devastating. Eliminating one major vaccine, for example, such as polio, would ultimately isolate the country and its regions, and cut domestic and international travel, cooperation, and assistance. Imagine the resulting pariah status, the social distancing, the burden on education and religion, and on an overstretched medical system, paid for by the likes of UHC. And that’s just for starters.
It would be like a gigantic DDoS attack on an entire society. It’s madness, but what’s the method? Chaos and destruction? Diseases are notorious for disregarding status and wealth.
“Diseases are notorious for disregarding status and wealth.”
cf “The Masque of the Red Death”
Aside from reasons being to repay debts or drop policy bombs, I also think these big name, high level appointments are a way to…
1. Allow Trump to further distance himself and the Republican party away from “RINOS” and their policies. RFK and Tulsi are like Trump and not really Republican or Democrat. But it’s certain they aren’t RINOS and won’t oppose him.
2. Allow Trump to pass blame if these big name appointments fail. RFK ran for prez and Trump can pin any blame on an unhealthy America on him.
I’m not clear what incentive Trump would have to “destroy” America or eliminate vaccines. Vengeance only? How does killing vaccines afford him vengeance? I tend to agree that a lot of this isn’t so much about repaying debt, but about a narcissist wanting others to view how he sees his reflection in the pond. And if Trump’s voters approve of these appointments and policy bombs, it’ll put more pressure on Republican office holders and “RINOS” to support more of Trump’s decisions and policy. Trump wants to slowly push his Republican dissenters out, and increased pressure from independents may be the play here.
I also think Trump may just not care about these appointments as much as we do. He largely ran to avoid legal accountability and, his desire for power and to “win”. Now that he won, why rock the boat of his voters or go against his promises for RFK or Tulsi to hold high level positions if there’s no incentive for him to not give them the positions? Although, if they go against him or if there are incentives for Trump to fire them, he’ll do so in a heartbeat.
But now, he may not really care.
It is a grift to get paid bribes by the pharmaceutical industry. Nothing more and nothing less.
Yeah, then it is all about about greed and debt repayment.
To clarify the reason for Trump appointing RFK to avoid blame, Trump choosing the wrong people has been a major criticism of his supporters. If his base wants him to appoint RFK, which they mostly do, he can pin any blame for inaction or failure on not only RFK, but supporters as well. “Hey, you wanted him, you got him. But don’t blame me if his policy bombs bring back Polio”.
Of the four obviously unqualified, I can see Trump only going to the mats for Hegseth. Trump wants “his generals” more than anything else. RFK is merely about trolling unless somehow RFK has a recorded quid-pro-quo, which I have trouble believing. Generals willing to give orders against US citizens are the keys to using the military as domestic enforcers, clearing a “Deep State” of people willing to resist or slow-walk massively-authoritarian changes, and any potential “make-up consolation term” or other efforts to prevent a reversion to democratic norms.
Quick question for Marcy:
Was Christopher Wray’s resignation clever or cowardly?
Digby says cowardly, but I’ve seen others say he is cleverly doing something to bollocks some plans of Trump.
What do you say?
Lithwick calls Wray’s resignation, “a textbook example of…obeying in advance.”
Stern lays out the ways Wray’s resignation could allow Trump to abuse the Federal Vacancies Reform Act and delay or avoid Senate confirmation for years.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/12/trump-cabinet-christopher-wray-resignation-cost.html
I think Stern doesn’t understand Wray, how Wray stayed as long as he did. He put his head down and offered some stability, while sacrificing individuals and principles. It was probably the wrong decision. Had he fought in 2018, it would have been easier than now, but he did not.
That doesn’t mean I’m sure he was obeying in advance. I’m really agnostic.
But I’m not sure it matters.
And here’s a cite for Digby’s article in Salon, wherein she concludes,
https://www.salon.com/2024/12/13/christopher-wrays-cowardly-exit-whats-left-when-the-fbi-director-acquiesces-to-in-advance/
James Fallows agrees with her, here.
https://fallows.substack.com/p/obeying-in-advance-the-christopher
Most of Trump’s nominees so far are “obviously unqualified.”
Trump might go to the mats for Hegseth, more likely for Patel, but it’s also possible he’ll consider discarding him, and use the hoopla to hide something else.
Wray “obeyed in advance” rather than force Trump to deploy some lame excuse because he’s too undisciplined for much else.
I’m up in air about Patel vs. Hegseth. Hegseth is a virulent white/Christian nationalist, who is probably a little…curious about certain social movements from the 1930s but Patel wants personal revenge. The question is whether enough others at the FBI “obey in advance” to make Patel redundant.
As to “…frame the question in terms of the damage they’ll do to the US, the damage Republican Senators will own if they confirm them,” a couple weeks ago I pretty much hid the same point in a late-night, way too long, and pretty muddled comment around the Advice & Consent process. It was one of the last comments in a string that had long played itself out—I’m surprised Rayne let it through but, hey, it was even later for her. I’m sure almost no one saw it (thankfully), so I hope you’ll indulge me with the half-as-long (280 words), copy-edited version.
__________
Let’s conduct an exercise to place all Trump Advice & Consent-required Article I nominees into a sycophant Tranche (finance term for a rated class of bonds in a bundled security), ranked by strength of argument against Senate consent:
Tranche 1: Anti-Qualified. Specific disqualification for presenting an unacceptable risk of exceptionally severe damage to strategic U.S. national interests/security, either by breaking their department’s capabilities or using agency powers to attack those considered the president’s enemies. Tranche 1 consists at least of AG Matt Gaetz (moot); SECDEF Pete Hegseth; DNI Tulsi Gabbard; HHS Sec Robert Kennedy Jr.; FBI Director Kash Patel.
Tranche 2: Unqualified. Total lack of experience, knowledge and abilities needed to direct a primary, statutorily-defined federal mission. The largest tranche, examples include Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy; Navy Secretary John Phelan; NATO Ambassador Matthew Whitaker.
Tranche 3: Minimal Qualifications. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem; Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins; Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer.
Tranche 4: Traditional Qualifications. The smallest tranche, examples include Secretary of State Marco Rubio; AG Pam Bondi; Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.
So, after hearings to determine each nominee’s qualifying, unqualifying, anti-qualifying, and overall risk factors, the Senate—including R’s wanting to preserve our constitutional republic, representative democracy, a working government, and global leadership—should vote to:
1. Deny Article II consent to Traunch 1, (as a single but temporally-separated-multipart decision).
2. Deny consent of specific high-risk-to-U.S.-interests Traunch 2 members, but likely approve some.
3. Likely approve most of Traunch 3.
4. Approve Traunch 4.
I hope some R Senators will realize the largest part of all the pain inflicted already happened with the Gaetz withdrawal. Each additional rejection will cause a smaller amount of additional pain, and stacking rejections will reduce that even further.