We’ve Never Been Here Before: The Zero-Accountability Presidency

It’s roughly the same with all the other absurd appointees. What Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick to run the Department of Defense, is alleged to have to done to that woman in 2017 is repulsive (he denies the charges and says it was consensual). His views are beyond extreme. But if he becomes so toxic that he, like Gaetz, has to withdraw, it won’t be because he believes liberalism must face “utter annihilation,” but because of the sex scandal. On the one hand, that’s good—it would tell us that even Republican senators draw a line on sexual assault. On the other, it means that all Trump has to do is nominate someone else who isn’t charged with sexual misconduct but is cool with the annihilation of liberals, and that nominee will sail through.

We could run through several more of Trump’s nominees in a similar vein. Tulsi Gabbard, his pick for director of national intelligence, may be the most outrageous choice of all. I mean, if you were Germany or France, would you share intel about Russia with her? She may get bounced, but again, she’d likely be replaced by someone just as ferociously loyal to Trump and roughly as reactionary and objectionable, just less histrionically so. Ditto Linda McMahon, a truly nutty choice for education secretary, although she seems likely to get through. Matt Whitaker to NATO? His main qualification is trying to interfere with the Mueller report. Federal Communications Commission chair nominee Brendan Carr wrote the relevant section of Project 2025 and has recently suggested that his FCC will look closely at the broadcast licenses of the major networks, which no administration has done in decades.

And don’t ever forget the most alarming of them all, the man who has faded from the headlines somewhat because his elevation does not require Senate confirmation. Border-czar-to-be Tom Homan has nevertheless been out there talking to right-wing news outlets about doubling the number of ICE agents in sanctuary cities and states: “Sanctuary states said they’re not allowing any detention facilities in their state—fine. Then we’ll arrest them. We’ll fly them out of the state and detain them outside the state, again, away—away from their families, their attorneys. That’s what you want, that’s what you get.”