The Trump Presidency Is Going Great

Trump has decided that the best person to run America’s national security apparatus is Jay Clayton — yes, the corporate lawyer / former SEC chair whose main experience with "threats" involves hostile takeovers and securities fraud. The Senate Intelligence Committee now gets to pretend this is a normal nomination and not an attempt to turn national security into yet another Trump-branded legal defense team with security clearances.

Instead of a career intelligence professional, the White House is pushing a guy whose primary qualification appears to be knowing which oligarchs have which shell companies. In a functioning democracy, that might raise questions about conflicts of interest, capture of the security state by corporate power, and whether the director of national security should maybe know something about, say, national security. In Trump’s America, it’s just Tuesday.

The hearing will feature solemn speeches about "bipartisanship" and "the gravity of the role" from the same senators who rubber-stamped turning DHS into a campaign prop and CIA into a revenge fantasy factory. If history is any guide, they’ll clutch some pearls, ask a few sternly worded questions for B-roll, then hand the keys to the intel community to a man whose career goal has been keeping powerful people out of jail, not protecting the country from them.

Kari Lake, the Arizona election-denier who keeps losing races but never concedes them, is being promoted to US ambassador to Jamaica after overseeing the slow-motion demolition of Voice of America. After using an executive order as a pink-slip machine to fire hundreds at VOA and gut US-funded independent journalism, she’s now being rewarded with a diplomatic beach posting. In Trump World, sabotaging a 1942-founded global news service is just another line on the résumé.

The White House insists Lake knows Jamaica "very well" and she promises to "advance America's interests abroad", which, judging by her track record, means exporting the cutting-edge American innovation of never accepting election results. The woman who sued to overturn her own gubernatorial loss and got sued for defamation over her fraud fantasies is now the face of US diplomacy in a Black-majority democracy. What could possibly go wrong.

Meanwhile, Trump has re-nominated Cameron Hamilton to run FEMA, the same guy he booted a year ago for defending the agency when the administration floated shutting it down. FEMA is currently staggering out of a 75-day DHS shutdown and a mass staff exodus, so naturally the plan is to reinstall the one person who mildly resisted its execution. The Trump administration continues its governing philosophy: break institutions, punish anyone who tries to save them, and promote the people who light the matches.

Trump has decided that the best person to be “the nation’s doctor” is Nicole Saphier — a radiologist, former Fox News medical contributor, and current seller of herbal “focus” and “calm” drops on Amazon. So yes, the administration is now speed‑running the journey from Surgeon General to Goop, but make it MAGA. He introduced her on Truth Social as a “STAR physician” and an “INCREDIBLE COMMUNICATOR,” which is Trumpese for "goes on TV and says what I like."

This is Trump’s third swing at the job, after Janette Nesheiwat’s nomination imploded over credential questions and Casey Means got kneecapped by Republican senators who suddenly rediscovered the concept of “standards.” GOP health committee members are now purring that Saphier is “extremely strong on some of the core base issues” — translation: reliably anti-abortion, fluent in MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) branding, and very good at targeting “suburban moms” as a demographic, not as patients. Policy? Evidence? Independence? Don’t worry, she’s got a podcast.

The Senate HELP Committee, chaired by Dr. Bill Cassidy, will again pretend this is a sober vetting of a serious public health leader, while everyone knows the actual job description is "friendly to the base, loyal to Trump, and marketable on cable." The supposed guardian of public health is now a carefully curated fusion of Fox hits, culture‑war bona fides, and side‑hustle supplements. America, your new prescription is here — and you can get it with free two‑day shipping.

Trump has appointed Australian-born MAGA thirstposter Nick Adams as “special presidential envoy for tourism, exceptionalism and American values,” because apparently the State Department wasn’t embarrassing enough on its own. The Senate quietly punted on making this guy ambassador to Malaysia after his Islamophobic and pro-Israel-at-all-costs posts sparked protests in Kuala Lumpur, so naturally Trump just created a bespoke envoy role and stapled him to it. Who needs Senate confirmation when you’ve got vibes and a Sharpie?

Adams is best known for LARPing as a cartoon “alpha male” on X: bragging that he goes to Hooters, eats rare steaks, lifts heavy, reads the Bible nightly, and is “pursued by copious amounts of women” – the kind of thing a 13-year-old writes on Reddit before getting grounded. He also boasted about getting a waitress fired for a “Free Palestine” pin, then quietly deleted the post once it clashed with his new cosplay as America’s tourism and values ambassador. Now this guy, whose entire brand is performative grievance and dubious anecdotes, is being sent out to embody “American exceptionalism” for the country’s 250th anniversary.

The White House insists Adams will “showcase and advance America’s excellence across the world stage,” which is a poetic way of saying the administration has outsourced soft power to a manosphere influencer whose main diplomatic experience is harassing waitstaff online. Instead of professionals who understand foreign cultures, Trump is elevating a guy whose earlier comments already ignited backlash in a Muslim-majority nation he was supposed to represent us to. Perfect metaphor for Trump’s America: weaponize bigotry, call it patriotism, slap a title on it, and pretend the rest of the world isn’t watching this clown show in horrified fascination.

Trump’s latest gift to American diplomacy, Jeremy Carl of Claremont Institute fame, has withdrawn his nomination for assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs after Republican senators discovered—through the grueling, high-tech process of watching a clip on X—that he’d been workshopping white identity takes and making "insensitive" remarks about Jews and Israel. When even Sen. John Curtis decides you’re not the guy to represent America at the U.N., that’s less a red flag and more a ten-story klaxon.

During his confirmation hearing, Carl helpfully explained that he’s worried about the loss of “majority common American culture” due to mass immigration, but insisted he’s not a white nationalist, just a guy talking about white culture being erased and posting through it. Sen. Chris Murphy responded by calling him a “legit white nationalist,” which, fun twist, turned out to be a career-limiting diagnosis for a State Department job that involves not sounding like a Telegram channel in front of other countries.

Carl blamed his exit on a lack of unanimous Republican support on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, bravely withdrawing so that Trump and Secretary Rubio wouldn’t have to “waste valuable time and energy” trying to sell his nomination. He then praised the administration for not picking from the usual ‘business as usual’ nominees—which is true, if by “business as usual” you mean “people who don’t show up to their hearing with a public record of white identity discourse and anti-Israel hot takes.”

The position he was supposed to fill: implementing U.S. policy at the United Nations and other multilateral bodies. Instead, the administration will have to go back to the drawing board and find another ideologue who can talk about "culture" loudly enough for the base, but not so loudly that GOP senators have to pretend they’ve never heard of him.

In a stroke of melodramatic incompetence, Trump unveils an executive order aimed at shuttering the Education Department he pretends to loathe—while simultaneously recognizing he lacks the legal power to do so. It’s a masterclass in hypocrisy, all the while expecting Education Secretary McMahon to work her magic on a department whose very existence is enshrined in law. Meanwhile, staff cuts loom, programs die, and education funding hangs in the balance—when will America wake up to this farce masquerading as governance?

In a spectacular display of political gymnastics, ICE's new record-breaking arrest numbers are more like a magician's sleight of hand—full of smoke and mirrors. Kristi Noem takes the stage claiming a 627% increase, while in reality, she's cooking the books by comparing total arrests to a mere sliver of last year’s data. Welcome to the bizarre world where 'public safety' is just a catchy slogan, and real accountability is as lost as the immigrants they claim to want to protect. All this while the actual pace of deportations stalls, and we're left questioning whether this administration cares about safety or just the optics of chaos.

Trump just put **conspiracy-peddling podcaster Dan Bongino** in charge of FBI operations—because apparently **actual law enforcement experience** is for suckers. Bongino, best known for **losing multiple elections and “owning the libs” online**, now gets to run an agency he’s spent years attacking. Meanwhile, his boss, Kash Patel, has also **never worked for the FBI**, but who needs qualifications when you’ve got **blind loyalty to Trump?**

The FBI is now under new management—MAGA management. The Senate narrowly confirmed Kash Patel as FBI director, installing a Trump loyalist with a history of attacking the bureau and pushing right-wing conspiracy theories. Patel, a former Trump aide with zero experience leading a law enforcement agency, now commands 30,000 employees and has sweeping surveillance powers. His confirmation was the tightest in FBI history, with even a couple of Republicans breaking ranks over concerns that Patel might—just maybe—politicize the bureau. Meanwhile, AG Pam Bondi is already hyping him up, warning “they better look out,” without specifying who “they” are. Subtle.

Trump’s Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth just fumbled his first international trip, telling European leaders that Ukraine should abandon hopes of reclaiming its pre-2014 borders—a statement so off-base that even Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker called it a “rookie mistake”. Hegseth quickly tried to walk back his comments, but the damage was done. European allies are rattled, and even Republican senators are openly questioning his competence, with Wicker comparing his speech to something “Tucker Carlson could have written”—which is never a compliment. Meanwhile, Trump is privately engaging Putin while his diplomats hint that Europe won’t have a say in whatever peace deal the U.S. brokers, leaving Ukraine’s future up for negotiation behind closed doors. Senate Democrats are calling it a humiliating surrender to Putin, while GOP senators scramble to reassure allies that the U.S. hasn’t fully sold out Kyiv—yet.

In a plot twist that could make a soap opera blush, the Senate has confirmed Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—the black sheep of America's Camelot and a vocal vaccine skeptic—as Secretary of Health and Human Services under President Donald Trump. The 52-48 vote saw Republican stalwart Mitch McConnell break ranks, perhaps recalling his own tango with polio, to oppose the nomination. Kennedy, who once championed the "Make America Healthy Again" movement, now wields authority over a $1.7 trillion health empire, including the CDC, FDA, and NIH. His confirmation has sent shockwaves through the medical community, with experts likening his appointment to "putting a flat earther in charge of NASA." As Kennedy takes the helm, public health officials brace for a new era where science and skepticism share the same office.

Kash Patel, Trump’s nominee for FBI Director, received $25,000 from a Russian-born filmmaker who pushed Kremlin propaganda and once got funding from a Putin-backed cultural initiative. Patel, who starred in a conspiracy-laden docuseries aired on Tucker Carlson’s network, was paid by Global Tree Pictures, a company run by Igor Lopatonok—the same guy behind pro-Russia projects and a proposal to stop U.S. aid to Ukraine that was sent to Putin’s office. If confirmed, Patel would be in charge of defending the U.S. from Russian espionage—while cashing checks from Putin’s media allies. But don’t worry, Senate Republicans say this is all just a "smear campaign."