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Another Trump Nominee Bites the Dust

One down, heaven only knows how many more to go. Many of Donald Trump's nominations have outraged a lot of people, certainly Democrats and the media (with the exception of the right-wing bubble). Republicans have generally been quiet in public but behind the scenes, stuff is going on. None of the Republican senators want Trump's worst nominees to go down in a floor vote. They want them out of there before the vote. That happened with Matt Gaetz and may happen with others (see also below).

The latest nominee to "voluntarily" withdraw is Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister, nominated by Trump to lead the Drug Enforcement Agency. As a sheriff, Chronister is already in law enforcement and has undoubtedly dealt with drug pushers already, so at first glance he is a plausible nominee. He has worked in the sheriff's office for 32 years so no one can claim he is a newbie, like some of Trump's other picks. So, what happened?

First, there was some friendly fire. When Florida was under lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic, Florida law forbade many kinds of public gatherings. One of them was church services. One pastor, Rodney Howard-Browne, was ordered by God to hold his church services anyway and felt that God's law trumped Florida's law so he held services. Chronister felt that Florida law trumped God's law and arrested the pastor. That didn't sit well in some right-wing circles. In particular, Chronister was strongly opposed by Reps. Chip Roy (R-TX) and Thomas Massie (R-KY). Chronister was also trashed on eX-Twitter. One person tweeted: "No Covid nazis allowed anywhere in the administration. Automatic disqualification." Not a great start when your own team is not exactly cheering.

Second, the DEA director is not like being sheriff of all 3,100 counties combined. It is a different job. A lot of it is about going after very sophisticated international drug cartels, especially those in Mexico. Chronister knows nothing about that kind of work and catching a drug kingpin in Mexico or Colombia is not at all like arresting a low-end drug dealer in Florida. Trump probably had no idea what DEA actually does when picking Chronister, sort of like Rick Perry having no idea of what the secretary of energy does for a living. Quite a few people (including some senators) thought Chronister wasn't up to a job they consider important.

Third, maybe it is relevant, maybe not, but as the Hunter Biden case shows, sometimes people confuse the sins of the sons with the sins of the fathers. Doesn't the Bible say something about that? The staff theologian was out shopping for Christmas tree decorations and a tacky sweater for the winter solstice party, so we couldn't check. Anyway, Chronister's son, George Chronister, got into a knife fight with another man in 2017 and stabbed him in the face and in the lung and left him to die in a parking lot. He got caught and was sentenced to 22 months in state prison. He could have gotten 15 years. Did the sheriff play a role here? We don't know. Fathers helping out their sons who have committed a crime is not considered cool right now, but this was in 2018. When young Chronister got out, he made a rap video entitled "Slash Yo Face," celebrating his deeds. Some folks think this did not reflect well on Dad.

So, Chronister is gone with the wind. Another nominee who is in trouble is Tulsi Gabbard. She has been less in the spotlight than Matt Gaetz, RFK Jr., Kash Patel, and Pete Hegseth, but some senators see her as the most endangered nominee of all. Patel could arrest and harass a lot of innocent people, but he couldn't put the entire country in grave danger. Giving someone who might be a Russian asset access to all of America's most top-secret intelligence information, could. Her experience and especially her trustworthiness are central here. Some people on the Hill genuinely think she is compromised. One said: "Like, it's not hyperbole." In her favor, though, is that she hasn't been involved in any sex scandals. You should look at the bright side sometimes. (V)

The Vultures Are Circling

Pete Hegseth is in deep trouble. So much that he rates a separate item. This item is being written late Wednesday afternoon and if Hegseth fails to make it to 8 a.m. Thursday, which is a real possibility, we can then easily delete it without affecting the rest of the blog. First strike: He has never run anything bigger than two small veterans groups and was fired from both. Second strike: His own mother told him that he is a despicable person. Third strike: He paid off a woman who went to a hospital with bruises claiming he raped her. Fourth strike: A recent article said he abused not only women but also alcohol. Fifth strike: His crusade for traditional family values is littered with his many affairs and divorces. Five strikes? You thought three and you're out? No, in bowling, you can have up to 12 strikes.

The news just keeps coming. That is why vetting the candidates before even announcing the nomination is so important. The news about his being fired from the veterans groups, his mother's e-mail, the alleged sexual assault and resulting hush money payment, and alcohol abuse are "old" news already. Yesterday the story about his private life broke. In high school he was a big jock who dated a homecoming queen candidate. He later married her. A true power couple. He then became a culture warrior for the traditional family. You know, the kind where the husband has affairs with multiple women and gaslights his wife about them. It took her 3 years to figure out she needed to file for divorce. But by then, he was already hanging out with his new squeeze, while married to wife #1. Then after divorce #1, he married the squeeze. But he quickly got bored with her and fathered a child with his Fox News producer while still married to #2. Oh, and that is when the affair that led to the hush money happened. Wife #2 couldn't hack that, she also filed for divorce. Now you see what Mom was getting at? If you ever need a good source on conservative Christian family values, Pete's the guy to ask. He has years of practical experience in the field.

Senators can read the newspaper and those who can't have aides who can. They can also watch TV. One report was headlined: "Trump's pick for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, is in peril in the Senate." The chyron reads: "Hegseth's Drinking Raised Concerns at Fox."

It's exactly as described; a screen capture from a local news broadcast

The story said that six Republican senators are not comfortable supporting him. Presumably the other 47 are scared witless. It is a pity you can't short politicians the way you can short stocks. There would be money to be made here if you could.

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), who is a veteran and on the Senate Armed Services Committee, explained that she planned to grill him about alcohol abuse, mistreatment of women, and financial mismanagement. She said: "We're just going to have a really frank and thorough conversation." English translation: "Donald, get his a** out of here so we don't have to embarrass you by voting him down." And many Republican senators will take their cues from Ernst given her background in military affairs and general no-nonsense approach to things.

The next phase in these soap operas involves the accused fighting back. Yesterday, Hegseth tweeted: "I'm doing this for the warfighters, not the warmongers. The Left is afraid of disrupters and change agents. They are afraid of @realDonaldTrump—and me. So they smear w/ fake, anonymous sources & BS stories. They don't want truth. Our warriors never back down & neither will I." Note to Pete if you are reading this: Joni Ernst is a Republican. She is famous for castrating hogs. Watch your back. And other body parts.

As of this morning (thankfully), the fat lady hasn't started singing. But Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is already auditioning for the job. La la la. Trump hates his guts, but DeSantis has the big advantage that he is a mainstream Republican and can get confirmed very easily, maybe even with a few Democratic votes. When some senator asks, "The secretary has to manage 3 million people, can you do that?" he will respond: "Well, I am already managing 23 million Floridians." Then when the senator asks: "Can you manage a budget of $800 billion?" he will say: "Well, I manage a state whose GDP is $1.6 trillion, so no problem."

From DeSantis' point of view, being secretary of defense gives him something to do after he leaves office in Jan. 2027. It also gives him crucial foreign policy experience that will help in the 2028 primaries, especially if Trump ignores his veep and doesn't give J.D. Vance any foreign policy work to do. Also, Trump likes it when his underlings fight with each other, and setting up DeSantis to fight with Vance would be something he would enjoy.

DeSantis has plenty of experience managing a large bureaucracy. Also, he has plenty of defense experience. He was a lieutenant commander in the Navy's Judge Advocate General's Corps, worked at Guantanamo, then at the Naval Special Warfare Command. He deployed to Iraq in 2007 for a year and is now in the Navy Reserve. He is smart (although his political judgment is weak) and works hard. Given his military experience as a commissioned officer in the Navy and his experience as governor of a very large state, the Pentagon brass would probably respect him. He also served three terms in the House, so he knows something about how Congress works.

One downside of DeSantis in the Cabinet is that he and Trump hate each other and he might try to sabotage Trump in various ways if he thought he could do it without getting his fingerprints on it. But Trump thinks he is smarter than everyone else and "knows" he could easily outsmart an ambitious guy who went to Yale and Harvard Law School. Another downside is that DeSantis would bring much of his campaign staff with him and give them cushy jobs so they could secretly work on his 2028 campaign.

If Hegseth is forced out (by which we mean Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-SD, tells Trump that the votes are not there and it's not even close), and Trump's personal animosity to DeSantis gets the better of him, another option is Ernst. She was a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve and served in Kuwait during the Iraq war. Her confirmation hearing would be one of the Capitol's greatest love stories ever and she might well be confirmed 100-0. (V)

Patel Is an Antivaxxer

Monday we had a long item on Kash Patel—you know, all the stuff about how his total lack of knowledge about the FBI he would lead if confirmed and how he will mercilessly go after Trump's enemies. Turns out there is more. Seems there is always more. Yesterday it came out that he is an antivaxxer and a grifter. We should have guessed. Sorry. We apologize.

On posts to Donald Trump's boutique social media site, he hawked "supplements" that help people "detox" from the COVID vaccine. In one post, he wrote: "Mrna detox, reverse the vaxx n get healthy." In another, he wrote: "Spike the Vax, order this homerun kit to rid your body of the harms of the vax." (V) objects to this insult to the VAX, a much-beloved early 32-bit minicomputer.

Unlike the VAX, which was very good at what it did, there is zero evidence that the snake oil Patel was pitching does any good at all. His company, Warrior Essentials, claims the product removes toxins from cells, restores circulatory health, and restores DNA stability. After all, who would want to walk around with unstable DNA? It couldn't be more bogus if he tried. Besides, there are no supplements that have been found to reduce the vaccine's (generally mild) side effects.

The one thing that worries us is this (well, OK, there is more than one thing, but we went through that on Monday): Who's the target audience here? The kind of marks who might give their hard-earned cash to Kash probably refused the vaccine in the first place. People who took the vaccine are probably not looking to undo its effects. We don't see the market here, but who are we to argue with someone whose first name means "money"? (V)

Trump May Shake Up the Press Room

Donald Trump is thinking about shaking up the White House press briefing room. This is the room where the press secretary, soon to be the 27-year-old Karoline Leavitt, talks to the media every day and answers questions. The room is officially the James Brady Briefing Room. Traditionally, the first row goes to reporters from ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, CNN, the AP and Reuters. These are all heavyweights. In the second row are reporters from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, NPR, CBS News Radio, Bloomberg, and some other major outlets.

This is the old way. Trump is thinking about a new way. He wants to open it up to new media, which are more important in his view. Folks like Joe Rogan. After all, he has a bigger audience than any newspaper in the country. Don Jr. said: "If The New York Times has lied, they've been averse to everything, they're functioning as the marketing arm to the Democrat Party... why not open it up to people who have larger viewerships, stronger followings?"

The White House Correspondents Association, led by Politico's Eugene Daniels, is looking into how they should respond to an updated seating chart. One correspondent said: "What they may discover, though, is friendly coverage can quickly turn into: 'Why aren't you keeping your promises?' coverage."

Trump could be serious about this. Remember, one of the top things on any authoritarian's to-do list is muzzle the press. In 2018, Trump yanked the credential of CNN's Jim Acosta, whose coverage he didn't like. He continues to ridicule CNN and sued CBS last month. He has also threatened having the FCC crack down on broadcast networks that are "unfair" to him.

On the other hand, Julie Mason, a long-time White House correspondent, said: "If they think they're going to end White House reporting by throwing everyone out or clearing out the first three rows, good luck, because that's not how that works." (V)

Thune Plans Major Bills in Trump's First 30 Days

John Thune is a man with a plan. He wants to get two bills through Congress within the first 30 days of Trump v2.0. The first will focus on the border, defense, and energy. It would try to bypass the filibuster by using the budget reconciliation process. But such bills have to be primarily about the budget. Appropriating $50 billion to deepen the Rio Grande and string razor wire from Texas to the Pacific Ocean would certainly pass. Changing the nation's immigration laws is not a budget item.

The second bill will cut taxes and other items. It might not be able to use the reconciliation process, depending on what is in it. Clearly Thune would prefer to use reconciliation, but this means avoiding items that are only tangentially related to the budget. The process of inspecting the bill to see if it is clean enough is formally called giving it a "Byrd bath," after the late senator Robert Byrd, who devised it. There are six criteria for rejecting a provision of a reconciliation bill, as follows:

  1. It does not have a budgetary effect.
  2. It has a budgetary effect, but the effect is not what the budget resolution called for.
  3. It's outside the jurisdiction of the committee recommending it.
  4. It does have a budget effect, but a "merely incidental" effect.
  5. It increases the deficit beyond year 10.
  6. It's about Social Security.

If any provision fails the Byrd bath, it either has to be removed or it has to use the regular order, which means it can be filibustered.

But the reconciliation process does require a majority in both chambers of Congress. The Senate is probably not a problem since the Republican majority there will be 53-47. The real problem is the House, where the initial majority will probably be 217-215, depending on the timing of a couple of resignations (which might depend on how fast the Senate can confirm those nominees). For the Freedom Caucus, this is the moment to strike. If it wants a more draconian budget, this is when its power is at its peak. But if all its demands are put into the budget bill, it might have trouble passing the Senate. The speaker, whoever that may be, will be in for a rough time. Also, Thune, who is an experienced lawmaker, will be challenged to the max. (V)

Supreme Court Will Decide a Major Transgender Case

George W. Bush was wrong. He wasn't the decider. Congress isn't the decider. Whenever there is a tough public policy decision to be made, John Roberts & Co. are the deciders. It's always like that these days.

True to form, yesterday the Supreme Court held oral hearings on another contentious case. It is about a Tennessee law that bans gender-affirming care for minors. Supporters of this care want the Supreme Court to strike down the Tennessee law saying that it harms trans kids. Supporters of the law say it protects impressionable children from irreversible genital mutilation, arguing that it should be up to elected legislatures, not the courts, to make laws about health care.

The discussions were wide ranging, covering how other nations deal with the issue, the Supreme Court precedent that prevents employers from firing workers merely because they are trans, and the role of parental rights. From a legal point of view, the issue is whether laws preventing discrimination based on sex are at play here. Those laws generally were intended to prevent men from getting some advantage over women or vice versa. They certainly didn't deal with hormone therapy or surgery on minors. What makes it hard to oppose the Tennessee law based on sex discrimination is that the Tennessee law bans turning boys into girls and girls into boys equally. Supporters of the law say that it clearly does not favor one sex over the other, which is what the court cases about sex discrimination are about.

The case was brought by three families and a doctor. The law prohibits doctors from prescribing puberty-delaying medication, hormone therapy, or surgery to treat what the law calls "purported discomfort or distress from a discordance between the minor's sex and asserted identity."

The case is nominally about whether the doctor may prescribe treatments that the families want but is prevented from doing so by the law. But it could affect many other situations, such as bathroom usage, who can be on which sports team, whether Medicaid and Medicare can pay for gender-affirming care, and much more.

It is always hard to judge how the justices will vote based on oral hearings, even ones as long as 2½ hours, like yesterday's. Sometimes the justices like to play devil's advocate, just to see how the lawyers will respond. However, one hint is that Chief Justice John Roberts said: "The Constitution leaves that question to the people's representatives, rather than to nine people, none of whom is a doctor." That sounds like a vote to keep the law, but maybe not.

One justice who didn't say anything during the hearings is Neil Gorsuch. Maybe he hasn't made up his mind yet. If so, he might end up being the deciding vote. (V)

AOC Is Making Her Move

Yesterday, we mentioned that House Democrats are looking to replace some of their elderly leaders with younger ones. Case study 1 is the House Judiciary Committee. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) was set to challenge Rep. Jerry Nadler for the ranking member position on the House Judiciary Committee. Yesterday Nadler saw that the votes weren't there and dropped out of the race. Raskin will be the new ranking member of Judiciary. This change will set off a chain reaction.

First, Raskin will leave the top minority party slot on the powerful House Oversight Committee, which has the power to oversee just about everything. Then a contest will be set up to replace him.

The jousting for that slot will be a real test of how well the old system of seniority holds. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is interested in the job, even though she is not next in line in terms of seniority. But if the Democrats want to remake themselves as a party that speaks to young people, she is #1 on the list, especially as she just became the first person to get a million followers on Bluesky. Also, she has proven that she is extremely good at questioning witnesses at hearings. If she runs for and gets the job, she will be the most powerful 35-year-old in Congress in quite a while, maybe in a century or more.

Of course, the old order is not going to give up without a fight. Reps. Gerald Connolly (D-VA), Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) and Ro Khanna (D-CA) all outrank her and are all potentially interested in the job as well. So far, the only one of the three who has formally announced a bid is Connolly, the most senior of the trio.

Judiciary and Oversight are not the only committees where younger members want generational change. Rep. David Scott (D-GA), who is 79 and has health issues, is the top Democrat on the Agriculture Committee. He is going to be challenged by Reps. Angie Craig (DFL-MN) and Jim Costa (D-CA). Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), who is 76, has announced he will not run for the ranking member position on the Natural Resources Committee. Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA) is expected to run for the job. All in all, Democrats are starting to shake up the seniority system. (V)

McConnell Is Losing It

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is a master tactician. He has run the Senate Republican conference adroitly for 18 years, the longest leader of either party in U.S. Senate history. He knows how the game is played extremely well. The only recent leader of either party even in his league is Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

But Tuesday, he blew it. He said the quiet part out loud. As a brilliant tactician, you don't do that kind of stuff. You just make a mental note of things for future use and move on. Everybody knows that judges are partisan and their personal political views often color their decisions nowadays. If that weren't the case—and back in the 19th century it wasn't—why are judicial nominations so controversial now, especially for the Supreme Court? But you are supposed to pretend that judges are guided entirely by the facts, the law, and the Constitution. Then everyone will smile politely and be happy.

So what did McConnell do that violated the protocol so grossly? U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley of the Southern District of Ohio, a Bill Clinton appointee, had previously announced that he was going to take senior status. This means technically staying on the court, getting full salary, but handling only a few cases. It also opens up a vacancy for the president to fill. Marbley, who is Black, is also 70, a reasonable age at which to semi-retire. After the election, he said he had changed his mind and would stay on.

Similarly, a U.S. district court judge in the Western District of North Carolina, Max Cogburn (73), who is white and a Barack Obama appointee, also said he would take senior status and then after the election changed his mind. Clearly both judges were expecting Kamala Harris to win and then appoint their replacements. When she lost, they decided they didn't want Donald Trump to replace them, so they bit their tongues and decided to stay around for 4 more years. Is this what real patriotism looks like? After all, they put what they perceive as the best interests of the country ahead of their personal desires to have more time with their friends and families. Isn't that what patriotism is? Country first?

Now back to McConnell. On the floor of the Senate, McConnell condemned both judges for their change of heart. He said: "They rolled the dice that a Democrat could replace them, and now that he won't, they're changing their plans to keep a Republican from doing it. It's a brazen admission." Omigod. Politics plays a role in matters judicial and it matters who nominates judges. How can that be? What a disgusting thing.

In case you have forgotten, when Justice Antonin Scalia suddenly died on Feb. 13, 2016, Barack Obama quickly nominated Merrick Garland, a moderate judge, to replace him. McConnell (the same McConnell who was disgusted by judges timing their retirements with a thought about who would replace them) refused to have the Senate vote to confirm or reject Garland. He said that in 9 months, the people should decide who gets to make the nomination. But when Ruth Bader Ginsburg suddenly died on Sept. 18, 2020, then-president Donald Trump took all of 8 days to nominate Amy Coney Barrett. The Senate immediately took up the nomination and on Oct. 26, 2020—just 8 days before the election—the Senate confirmed Barrett on a straight party-line vote 52-48, except for the nay vote of Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME). Barrett was the first justice to be confirmed without a single vote from the minority party since 1870. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called it "the most illegitimate process I have ever witnessed in the Senate."

So McConnell held up an Obama nomination for 9 months but rammed through a Trump nomination 8 days before the election and now he is whining that two district judges decided to stay on because they want a Democrat to replace them. Someone who knows how the game is played as well as McConnell should have kept quiet, sighed, and said to himself: "Who cares about a couple of district judges in hillbilly country? We won the big one." But he said it out loud on the floor of the Senate. He's 82 and losing it. (V)

Sen. George Helmy [sic] Will Retire on Sunday

Yup. Sen George Helmy (D-NJ) will retire on Sunday. The famous Sen. Helmy, who authored the Helmy Act and cosponsored dozens of bills that became law. Don't remember him? Well, OK. There is no Helmy Act and the only bill he sponsored that has become law was one to rename the facilities at the Paterson Great Falls National Historical Park to honor a former congressman. Helmy is the first Coptic American in Congress, though. That is an achievement that will live forever.

Don't judge the poor senator too harshly. He was sworn in only on Sept. 9 and will resign on Dec. 8, a senatorship of only 91 days. Was his tenure the shortest ever? Not by a country mile an inch. Louis Wyman was senator for 3 days in 1974, Homer Miller was senator for 8 days in 1871, Alva Lumpkin was senator for 10 days in 1941, Wilton Hall was senator for 44 days in 1944, Rebecca Felton was senator for 50 days in 1922, Thomas Storke was senator for 55 days in 1938, Dean Barkley was senator for 59 days in 2003, John Moses was senator for 59 days in 1945, and George Jones was senator for 73 days in 1807. But Helmy follows them in the glorious tradition of gaming the system. Almost all of these were placeholders appointed when somebody else resigned or died, except the duly elected Lumpkin and Moses, who died in office shortly after being sworn in.

Helmy was appointed when former senator Bob Menendez resigned from the Senate after being convicted on 16 corruption charges. At that point, Menendez' situation was untenable. Running for reelection in 2026 would have been a pointless and embarrassing exercise and if he had refused to resign, he probably would have been expelled from the Senate, so he threw in the towel on Aug. 20.

At that point, Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ) had a problem. He, and everyone else in New Jersey, knew that Rep. Andy Kim (D-NJ) would be the new senator, but it would be unseemly to appoint him before the election. That would make the election seem like a farce and might actually cause enough people to vote for the Republican to cause Kim to lose. So Murphy did the wise thing and appointed his chief of staff, Helmy, to make sure the Democrats kept their narrow margin. Helmy did what was expected of a new senator (namely, respecting his elders), and will leave with his head held high. He is only 45 and might well run for public office in New Jersey some time in the future.

The reason for his early departure, instead of just filling out the term until Jan. 3, is to let Kim be sworn on Dec. 9, thus giving him more seniority than the other new senators elected in November. Seniority means a lot in the Senate and Kim will have more seniority than the new Republican senators from Indiana, Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Utah, and West Virginia, as well as the Democrats from Arizona, California, Delaware, Maryland, and Michigan. Twelve new senators is a large freshman class, and Kim will be ahead of all of them for as long as he is in the Senate. Kim is 42, so he could serve for 40 years or more. Helmy is a team player and that could come in handy some day. (V)

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas, Day 3: Gifts for Joe Biden

We did not have time to put this together yesterday; we'll have a dual Christmas for J.D. Vance and Mike Johnson tomorrow to finish the week. For now, however, a half-dozen Christmas presents for Joe Biden:

If you have suggestions for Vance or Johnson, there's still time. Also, if you have ideas for what we should do with this space next week, let us know. We have something planned, but it's entirely possible we'll like a reader's idea better. (Z)


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