Trump cabinet, part II (it got much worse)

"Are you shittin' me?" Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) told reporters today upon learning that his sex pest colleague, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), is Trump's pick for Attorney General.

Yesterday, I laughed a little too hard about Trump picking Marco “Drymouth” Rubio for Secretary of State. I didn’t realize that if I just waited 24 hours, Trump’s proposed cabinet would get exponentially more ridiculous, to the point where Rubio looks pretty great by comparison. So here’s part 2 of my rundown, including scumbag Matt Gaetz for Attorney General, conspiracy theorist Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence, billionaire edgelord Elon Musk for a made-up department of cost-cutting, and TV presenter Pete Hegseth in charge of the Pentagon (?!).

Matt Gaetz for AG

Multiple Republican senators today were reportedly stunned to learn that their most despised House colleague, a heavily botoxed and unhinged coke-head from Florida who’s accused of sex trafficking minors, is Trump’s pick to lead the Justice Department. Gaetz is currently under House investigation for the following activities, per a June press release on the Ethics Committee’s website:

On April 9, 2021, the Committee announced it had initiated a review into allegations that Representative Matt Gaetz may have engaged in sexual misconduct and/or illicit drug use, shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, misused state identification records, converted campaign funds to personal use, and/or accepted a bribe, improper gratuity, or impermissible gift, in violation of House Rules, laws, or other standards of conduct.  The Committee deferred its consideration of the matter in response to a request from the Department of Justice (DOJ).  In May 2023, the Committee reauthorized its investigation after DOJ withdrew its deferral request. 

I have had the unfortunate pleasure of writing about Gaetz a lot over the years, including this Jezebel blog about his 2022 comments saying women who support abortion rights are too ugly to need them. “Why is it that the women with the least likelihood of getting pregnant are the ones most worried about having abortions?” he told a room full of teenage students in Tampa, Florida. “Nobody wants to impregnate you if you look like a thumb.” Charming.

Even Gaetz’ own Republican colleagues can’t stand him, to the point where they repeatedly throw him under the bus on national television:

So why would Trump make such an overtly awful pick, who may not even be able to get the votes he needs for confirmation in the Senate? The thing is, men like Gaetz with long, shady criminal histories and tons of skeletons in the closet are quite easy to blackmail and control. And Trump, who’s been convicted of 34 felonies, needs to put someone in charge of the DOJ who is fully under his thumb.

It would only take four Republican “no” votes in the Senate to tank Gaetz’ confirmation, after a public hearing that would surely be embarrassing for everyone. Of course, Trump has a plan to jam Gaetz through anyway: Shut down the House and Senate for a few days and make Gaetz a “recess appointment,” which would circumvent the need for a Senate confirmation process at all. He would need House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.)’s help to use the constitutional loophole that way, and it’s unclear just how much of a hardcore loyalist Johnson is at this point, but here’s Johnson’s office number if you want to share your thoughts with him on that: (202) 225-2777.

At any rate, it’s pretty wild that a man who paid to have sex with a 17-year-old is Trump’s pick for AG, considering that Q-Anon Republicans have been accusing Democrats of being a party full of pedophiles for years. I’ll give our heavily botoxed boy the last word here on that:

Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence

The former Democrat-turned-MAGA surrogate from Hawaii, who’s infamous for spreading conspiracy theories on behalf of Russia and cozying up to Putin and Assad, would be in charge of 18 different spy agencies. I’m just going to leave that there and move on.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy for the “Department of Government Efficiency"

Trump made up a new department of cost-cutting to give Musk and Ramaswamy something to do in his administration, though it’s unclear how Musk plans to cut costs while also receiving billions of dollars in government contracts for his own companies. Elon’s been saying that we’ll all have to endure “temporary hardship” after Trump is elected so that we as a country can “live within our means,” by which he means economic suffering for everyone but himself.

Hilariously, Trump already appears to be pretty annoyed with Elon “overstaying his welcome” at Mar-a-Lago and pretending to run shit, when we all know that there’s no world in which two malignant narcissist billionaires decide to just hold hands and share power over the country together. (My former colleague Ashley Feinberg called this inevitable falling out on election day.) Per NBC:

And finally…

Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense

Who is Pete Hegseth? Great question; I had to look him up as well. He’s a slick-looking (in a ‘50s “your body, my choice” kind of way) Fox News host, author and veteran who strongly believes that women should be banned from fighting in the military. Here’s a video him almost killing someone with an axe on live TV.

I’ll be keeping you posted on all these…situations.