Wow. Trump must not have known. Even Trump had to see just how awful such an appointment would look in the Senate.
I don't think he did know. By all accounts, he did it impulsively without input from his soon-to-be chief of staff. Four more years of him doing and the people around him undoing. Oh, boy.
Trump seems to think that stupid appointments don't make him look bad. He seems to think that even though it reflects badly on his appointees, it doesn't hurt his reputation. There's no other explanation I can see as to way he didn't want to see FBI investigations into his potential appointments.
I think he did know, which is why he didn't want the FBI background checks. It was openly known that Eddie Munster was sleeping with 17 year olds. I heard about this years ago. I don't think Trump knew about Pete Hegseth, but he doesn't care. He's a rapist, himself.
Of course he knows, but he himself is a rapist, alleged pedo, and good friend of Jeffery Epstein. The party of law and order and protecting the children doesnt actually care about those things.
In a speech in Arizona today, Gaetz suggested he might run for Rubio's seat in 2026. He may have been joking, but usually abusers who act like they're joking are instead quite serious.
Lara Trump vs. Matt Gaetz would, if nothing else, be an entertaining couple of episodes in the next season of America.
Trump has deployed a technique called "flooding the zone." In football, it's sending many (if not all) of your eligible receivers into one part of the field (zone), hoping the defense can't cover them all. Trump has nominated so many awful candidates so soon that the Senate will not get rid of all of them. Just like in the movie Fail Safe (or Dr Strangelove) some are bound to get through. But can't the Senate just pick them off one-by-one? No. They might be able to dump a couple (like Gaetz) by telling the Trump team that there's no way they're going to confirm them. And they might even vote one or two down during the confirmation process. But they have to be careful about going after all the unqualified nominees because Trump supporters will accuse them of being "anti-Trump." And that's still a bad thing. Personally, I think Hesgeth will get clipped before his confirmation hearing. (And Trump will probably post him to a position not subject to confirmation.) But that's it. I expect all the rest--McMahon, Gabbard, RFK Jr, Oz, and the worst set of ambassadors ever imagined--will get through. It's normal for the incoming president to get the people he wants. That's what made the John Tower rejection so notable. Yes, most of Trump's nominees would make Harriet Miers look like John Marshall. But that's who America voted for, and that's what America will get.
