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Jared Kushner

Kushner's Mideast Misconduct Compared With Reagan's 'Iran-Contra' Scandal

President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is accused of being in a scandal one commentator compared to the Iran-contra scandal which marred President Ronald Reagan's administration.

Describing the recent book Princes and Thieves by investigative journalist Matthew Cole, The New York Times' Fintan O’Toole reported on Monday that "if Cole’s claims are accurate, Kushner’s political and financial relationship with the U.A.E.’s president, Mohammed bin Zayed (widely known as M.B.Z.), constitutes what must surely be the worst case of U.S. foreign policy being conducted outside the law and democratic oversight since the Iran-contra scandal during the Reagan administration in the 1980s."

O’Toole continued, "In that affair, government officials secretly sold arms to Iran and used the proceeds to fund — against the explicit orders of Congress — a violent right-wing insurgency in Nicaragua. What Cole alleges is, if anything, more consequential: that Kushner worked with the U.A.E. to shape U.S. policy across the Middle East and that, in the course of this work, he was given access to bank accounts containing roughly $2 billion."

He then emphasized that none of the allegations made by Cole have been proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

"Cole’s most significant sources remain anonymous," O'Toole wrote. "Recurring attributions in his notes include “a confidential source with direct knowledge” and “author interview with source who attended the meeting.” It is equally important to acknowledge that Kushner declined to be interviewed for Cole’s book. His lawyer described Cole’s allegations as “crazy, false and defamatory” and last week threatened legal action against Vanity Fair, which published an excerpt from the book."

O'Toole added, "To Cole’s credit, he recognizes that, even after five years of digging, “much remains unknown about Kushner’s relationships and agreements with the leaders of Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and, especially, the United Arab Emirates.” What we have, then, is an incomplete and contested account of those dealings."

Kushner has also been faulted for his unorthodox style of communicating as a diplomat, which some experts argue lacks any appreciation for the craft of sensitive international negotiations.

"In the waning hours before the U.S. went to war with Iran, this February, Jared Kushner held a meeting with Iranian negotiators in Geneva — one last chance to avoid a conflict that would plunge the region into chaos and shock the world economy," reported reporter Derek Filkins in September. "Afterward, Kushner dismissed his counterparts as unworthy of his time. 'Lots of tricks,' he told reporters. 'They're basically playing games with us all over the place, and it's very, very slippery.'"

Filkins added, "Kushner, the boyish-looking son-in-law of Donald Trump, has been given an extraordinary brief in recent years. Along with Steve Witkoff, the president's special envoy, he has been charged with ending wars in Gaza, Ukraine, and just about anywhere else they might break out. Kushner, who is 45, has little regard for the craft of diplomacy."

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet

Innovator In Grift: 'Trump Is The Picasso Of Corruption'

Innovator In Grift: 'Trump Is The Picasso Of Corruption'

Trayon White, a member of the city council in the District of Columbia, just walked away from a hung jury in a bribery trial. The facts were kind of wild. Though White admitted to accepting $35,000 in cash from a city contractor (who turned out to be an FBI informant), and the prosecution presented evidence that he tucked white envelopes full of bills totaling between $5,000 and $15,000 into his jacket pocket on several occasions, the jury was deadlocked. Whatever. Juries are unpredictable.

The point is, this run-of-the-mill public corruption case got prosecuted in a D.C. courtroom when, just a few blocks away, the president of the United States is accepting bribes and favors that dwarf anything White could even dream of.

Journalists love expressions like "the most corrupt since Watergate" or the "worst official corruption since Teapot Dome." The trouble with those formulations is that they suggest that Watergate and Teapot Dome are the standards against which wrongdoing should be judged. If what we're seeing now is only the "worst since," then it means it isn't quite to that level. The truth is that nothing — no scandal, no graft in American history — comes remotely close to the level of corruption the Trump administration is perpetrating.

Every single day brings news of some flagrant conflict of interest, bribe, emolument, kickback, fraud or theft. Most of it involves Trump himself and his family. But just as a fish rots from the head, Trump's example has contaminated his administration. A glance at this week's papers reveals that former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, before she left office, finalized a government purchase of several aging Boeing jets from one of her campaign donors, paying way above market value. There's another ongoing probe of a Noem hire who was reportedly paid $19,000 a week.

When she wasn't busy slandering Renee Good as a "domestic terrorist" or posing in front of men locked up in El Salvador's CECOT megaprison, Noem was reportedly awarding no-bid contracts to cronies for a $220 million ad campaign that featured her on horseback at Mount Rushmore, among other things. Contracts totaling $143 million were allegedly given to an entity that was incorporated only 11 days before the solicitation.

The role of Corey Lewandowski seems totally on the up and up: He was, in effect, Noem's deputy, yet took no salary for nearly two years' work during a time when he was widely believed to be her romantic partner. A number of executives complained to the White House that they were being asked to funnel funds to Lewandowski's entities.

Everywhere you look, the pay-for-play nature of this government surfaces like herpes. The Campaign Legal Center keeps a running roster of donors who've received valuable posts, pardons, tariff waivers, regulatory relief or contracts from the White House. It runs to more than 40 pages of small print.

Nothing is untainted. Donald Trump Jr.'s wedding party in the Bahamas? You might suppose that the Trump family, after extracting $2.7 billion in wealth since the paterfamilias's reelection in 2024, could afford the weekend party at a private island. But no, it was bankrolled by a Russian oligarch with close ties to Vladimir Putin. The bride, Bettina Trump, was offended that small-minded people might object, explaining that Umar Kremlev is a "dear friend" who hosted the party as a gift "for which we were and remain incredibly grateful." As Sen. John Curtis (R-UT) put it: "A toaster is a wedding gift. A private-island party paid for by a Putin-connected oligarch is something else."

If someone, even a "dear friend," shells out several hundred thousand dollars to celebrate your wedding, is there any doubt in anyone's mind that he will want something in return? Is there any doubt that this is not a gift, but a bribe or a "stay sold" measure? Of course not. But beyond that, imagine being fine with accepting such gifts indirectly from a war criminal. Apples/trees. (Trump Jr. has since said he will reimburse Kremlev.)

Nothing the Trump administration does can be taken at face value. Just as judges can no longer expect Department of Justice lawyers to be telling the truth and acting in good faith (the "presumption of regularity" is moribund), citizens can no longer take it for granted that the government is acting in the public interest and not aiming to line the pockets of the Trump family and friends. Let's take three examples: kidnapping Nicolas Maduro and trying him, pursuing an aggressive deportation regime, and negotiating to end the war in Ukraine.

The Maduro capture, which convinced Trump that he could easily topple the Iranian regime the following month, was in no sense an effort to improve the lives of the Venezuelan people. It was plunder. Recall that Trump's criticism of Operation Iraqi Freedom was that we failed to "take the oil." No surprise, then, that taking Venezuela's oil was foremost on his mind after the Maduro snatch-and-grab. Trump's White House boasts that "In the biggest oil deal in world history, President Donald J. Trump has secured U.S. majority control of more than 65 billion barrels of proven oil reserves in Venezuela."

Some of Trump's personal and political allies are swooping in to take advantage of the Venezuela opportunities. Meanwhile, the funds from the sale of this oil have supposedly been moved to an account in Qatar, but the administration has not shared a detailed breakdown of these funds with Congress or the public. Trump has claimed that the oil windfall has paid for the Venezuelan military operation "many, many, many times over" but there has been zero transparency about how much oil has been sold, where the proceeds are and how they've been spent.

Doubtless the Trump administration is sincere in its demonization of immigrants and indifference to the suffering of those it wrongly rounds up, detains and deports (sometimes to third countries with which the immigrants have no ties, including countries with appalling human rights records). But if there's also a way to pay off big donors while enjoying all this human suffering and injustice, all the better.

The GEO Group and CoreCivic, two firms that operate private prisons and detention centers, donated $2.8 million to Trump's reelection effort and inauguration. Since then, GEO has been awarded more than $1 billion in ICE contracts. CoreCivic sold two facilities to ICE for $1.5 billion. Perhaps it was a coincidence.

"So, $1.5 billion just for the facilities," former senior ICE official remarked to CalMatters. "And how many migrants are ever going to come in and out of there who are national security and public safety threats? The people that we actually do need to keep off the streets."

Remember the attempted shakedown of Volodymyr Zelensky in 2025, when Trump and Vice President JD Vance teamed up to bully him in the Oval Office and Trump demanded access to Ukraine's rare-earth minerals? That spirit persists. According to New York Times reporting this week, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who are notionally negotiating to end the Russia/Ukraine war, have "expanded" their talks to include a multibillion-dollar oil deal that would benefit "Middle Eastern business executives with ties to" — guess who? Kushner and Witkoff.

While "there is no indication that Mr. Kushner and Mr. Witkoff themselves stand to profit," the Times writes with considerable understatement that it is "a striking intermingling of personal business ties with geopolitics."

The Trump sons are doing well, too. Companies in which Eric and Donald Jr. have invested have been awarded $3.2 billion in direct government business and secured another $3.1 billion in future contract options, according to a Washington Post analysis.

The list of corrupt, tainted transactions is virtually endless. On April 30, the tobacco company Reynolds American donated $5 million through a subsidiary to MAGA Inc. Executives were then invited to lunch at one of Trump's clubs. They complained about an FDA regulation of vaping cigarettes. Trump made a call then and there to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and, voila, the regulation was changed a few days later.

Other than the $Trump memecoin, the most direct pathway for dollars to Trump's pocket has been the scheme to sell early access to Truth Social posts. For $100,000 a month, Trump will sell you his often market-relevant posts a few seconds before everyone else sees them. The funds would go directly to Trump Media, which Trump owns.

Attempting to defend this corrupt arrangement in a federal court on Wednesday, a Department of Justice lawyer compared it to Franklin Roosevelt's "fireside chats." The judge immediately interrupted him: "Well, President Roosevelt didn't charge money for his fireside chats, did he?"

As Brendan Ballou, the lawyer representing media organizations who are suing to stop Trump's Truth Social grift, put it, "In some ways, Trump is the Picasso of corruption. He comes up with schemes that just wouldn't occur to you or me, and the Truth Social one is an example of that."

The MAGA intellectuals — and yes, there are some — imagine that they are keeping the United States from decline by supporting Trump. They say things like "Import the Third World, become the Third World." But it is Trump's record-shattering corruption that is rushing us toward Third World status. Trayon White at least faced a jury. Trump's only reckoning can come from the ballot box, and while that may be encouraging, it's not nearly proportional to the destruction he is wreaking.

Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the "Beg to Differ" podcast. Her new book, Hard Right: The GOP's Drift Toward Extremism, is available now.

Reprinted with permission from Creators




Remember the attempted shakedown of Volodymyr Zelensky in 2025, when Trump and Vice President JD Vance teamed up to bully him in the Oval Office and Trump demanded access to Ukraine's rare-earth minerals? That spirit persists. According to New York Times reporting this week, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who are notionally negotiating to end the Russia/Ukraine war, have "expanded" their talks to include a multibillion-dollar oil deal that would benefit "Middle Eastern business executives with ties to" — guess who? Kushner and Witkoff.

While "there is no indication that Mr. Kushner and Mr. Witkoff themselves stand to profit," the Times writes with considerable understatement that it is "a striking intermingling of personal business ties with geopolitics."

The Trump sons are doing well, too. Companies in which Eric and Donald Jr. have invested have been awarded $3.2 billion in direct government business and secured another $3.1 billion in future contract options, according to a Washington Post analysis.

The list of corrupt, tainted transactions is virtually endless. On April 30, the tobacco company Reynolds American donated $5 million through a subsidiary to MAGA Inc. Executives were then invited to lunch at one of Trump's clubs. They complained about an FDA regulation of vaping cigarettes. Trump made a call then and there to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and, voila, the regulation was changed a few days later.

Other than the $Trump memecoin, the most direct pathway for dollars to Trump's pocket has been the scheme to sell early access to Truth Social posts. For $100,000 a month, Trump will sell you his often market-relevant posts a few seconds before everyone else sees them. The funds would go directly to Trump Media, which Trump owns. Attempting to defend this corrupt arrangement in a federal court on Wednesday, a Department of Justice lawyer compared it to Franklin Roosevelt's "fireside chats." The judge immediately interrupted him: "Well, President Roosevelt didn't charge money for his fireside chats, did he?"

As Brendan Ballou, the lawyer representing media organizations who are suing to stop Trump's Truth Social grift, put it, "In some ways, Trump is the Picasso of corruption. He comes up with schemes that just wouldn't occur to you or I, and the Truth Social one is an example of that."

The MAGA intellectuals — and yes, there are some — imagine that they are keeping the United States from decline by supporting Trump. They say things like "Import the Third World, become the Third World." But it is Trump's record-shattering corruption that is rushing us toward Third World status. Trayon White at least faced a jury. Trump's only reckoning can come from the ballot box, and while that may be encouraging, it's not nearly proportional to the destruction he is wreaking.

Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the "Beg to Differ" podcast. Her book, "Hard Right: The GOP's Drift Toward Extremism," is available now.

Photo credit: Giorgio Trovato at Unsplash

Explore Morepowered byHeadlines PlusArticle thumbnailTrump's Corruption Could Be His Undoing, by Mona Charen | Creators SyndicateArticle thumbnailThe Truth about the Forever War, by Susan EstrichArticle thumbnailTrump Avoiding Repeating History in Iran, by Michael Barone | Creators SyndicateArticle thumbnailTrump's War Psychology, by Mona Charen | Creators SyndicateHeadlines Plus article thumbnailTrump's Approval Rating: Where the Polls Stand Right Now Headlines PlusHeadlines Plus article thumbnailNew Polls Spark Alarm Bells for Trump and GOP Ahead of Midterms Headlines Plus


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The Maduro capture, which convinced Trump that he could easily topple the Iranian regime the following month, was in no sense an effort to improve the lives of the Venezuelan people. It was plunder. Recall that Trump's criticism of Operation Iraqi Freedom was that we failed to "take the oil." No surprise, then, that taking Venezuela's oil was foremost on his mind after the Maduro snatch-and-grab. Trump's White House boasts that "In the biggest oil deal in world history, President Donald J. Trump has secured U.S. majority control of more than 65 billion barrels of proven oil reserves in Venezuela." Some of Trump's personal and political allies are swooping in to take advantage of the Venezuela opportunities. Meanwhile, the funds from the sale of this oil have supposedly been moved to an account in Qatar, but the administration has not shared a detailed breakdown of these funds with Congress or the public. Trump has claimed that the oil windfall has paid for the Venezuelan military operation "many, many, many times over" but there has been zero transparency about how much oil has been sold, where the proceeds are and how they've been spent.

Doubtless the Trump administration is sincere in its demonization of immigrants and indifference to the suffering of those it wrongly rounds up, detains and deports (sometimes to third countries with which the immigrants have no ties, including countries with appalling human rights records). But if there's also a way to pay off big donors while enjoying all this human suffering and injustice, all the better. The GEO Group and CoreCivic, two firms that operate private prisons and detention centers, donated $2.8 million to Trump's reelection effort and inauguration. Since then, GEO has been awarded more than $1 billion in ICE contracts. CoreCivic sold two facilities to ICE for $1.5 billion. Perhaps it was a coincidence. "So, $1.5 billion just for the facilities," former senior ICE official remarked to CalMatters. "And how many migrants are ever going to come in and out of there who are national security and public safety threats? The people that we actually do need to keep off the streets."

Remember the attempted shakedown of Volodymyr Zelensky in 2025, when Trump and Vice President JD Vance teamed up to bully him in the Oval Office and Trump demanded access to Ukraine's rare-earth minerals? That spirit persists. According to New York Times reporting this week, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who are notionally negotiating to end the Russia/Ukraine war, have "expanded" their talks to include a multibillion-dollar oil deal that would benefit "Middle Eastern business executives with ties to" — guess who? Kushner and Witkoff.

While "there is no indication that Mr. Kushner and Mr. Witkoff themselves stand to profit," the Times writes with considerable understatement that it is "a striking intermingling of personal business ties with geopolitics."

The Trump sons are doing well, too. Companies in which Eric and Donald Jr. have invested have been awarded $3.2 billion in direct government business and secured another $3.1 billion in future contract options, according to a Washington Post analysis.

The list of corrupt, tainted transactions is virtually endless. On April 30, the tobacco company Reynolds American donated $5 million through a subsidiary to MAGA Inc. Executives were then invited to lunch at one of Trump's clubs. They complained about an FDA regulation of vaping cigarettes. Trump made a call then and there to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and, voila, the regulation was changed a few days later.

Other than the $Trump memecoin, the most direct pathway for dollars to Trump's pocket has been the scheme to sell early access to Truth Social posts. For $100,000 a month, Trump will sell you his often market-relevant posts a few seconds before everyone else sees them. The funds would go directly to Trump Media, which Trump owns. Attempting to defend this corrupt arrangement in a federal court on Wednesday, a Department of Justice lawyer compared it to Franklin Roosevelt's "fireside chats." The judge immediately interrupted him: "Well, President Roosevelt didn't charge money for his fireside chats, did he?"

As Brendan Ballou, the lawyer representing media organizations who are suing to stop Trump's Truth Social grift, put it, "In some ways, Trump is the Picasso of corruption. He comes up with schemes that just wouldn't occur to you or I, and the Truth Social one is an example of that."

The MAGA intellectuals — and yes, there are some — imagine that they are keeping the United States from decline by supporting Trump. They say things like "Import the Third World, become the Third World." But it is Trump's record-shattering corruption that is rushing us toward Third World status. Trayon White at least faced a jury. Trump's only reckoning can come from the ballot box, and while that may be encouraging, it's not nearly proportional to the destruction he is wreaking.

Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the "Beg to Differ" podcast. Her book, "Hard Right: The GOP's Drift Toward Extremism," is available now.

Photo credit: Giorgio Trovato at Unsplash

Explore Morepowered byHeadlines PlusArticle thumbnailTrump's Corruption Could Be His Undoing, by Mona Charen | Creators SyndicateArticle thumbnailThe Truth about the Forever War, by Susan EstrichArticle thumbnailTrump Avoiding Repeating History in Iran, by Michael Barone | Creators SyndicateArticle thumbnailTrump's War Psychology, by Mona Charen | Creators SyndicateHeadlines Plus article thumbnailTrump's Approval Rating: Where the Polls Stand Right Now Headlines PlusHeadlines Plus article thumbnailNew Polls Spark Alarm Bells for Trump and GOP Ahead of Midterms Headlines PlusExplore Morepowered byHeadlines PlusArticle thumbnailTrump's Corruption Could Be His Undoing, by Mona Charen | Creators SyndicateArticle thumbnailThe Truth about the Forever War, by Susan EstrichArticle thumbnailTrump Avoiding Repeating History in Iran, by Michael Barone | Creators SyndicateArticle thumbnailTrump's War Psychology, by Mona Charen | Creators SyndicateArticle thumbnailWin, Lose or Draw, I Have No Regrets Over Supporting the Iran War, by Ruben NavarretteHeadlines Plus article thumbnailTrump's Approval Rating: Where the Polls Stand Right Now Headlines PlusHeadlines Plus article thumbnailNew Polls Spark Alarm Bells for Trump and GOP Ahead of Midterms Headlines PlusHeadlines Plus article thumbnailDonald Trump Latest: Breaking News and Video Updates Headlines PlusHeadlines Plus article thumbnailTrump Voters Losing Steam for Midterms as Approval Dips Headlines Plus

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Guilfoyle's Shakedown Target Blasts Corruption Of Trump Crime Family On CNN

Guilfoyle's Shakedown Target Blasts Corruption Of Trump Crime Family On CNN

Ambassador Kimberly Guilfoyle's scandal is spreading as her $100,000 shakedown of Eric Deters, a campaign donor to President Donald Trump makes the rounds, but Deters told CNN anchor Jake Tapper on Thursday that Guilfoyle's brand of grift is nowhere near the end of the corruption choking the Trump administration.

Speaking with Tapper, Deters outlined a dismal stream of exploitation, repeating that Guilfoyle is “wicked” and “knows plenty” about Trump-era corruption.

“That's just common sense. I mean, when Don Jr. and her broke up, she gets the Greek ambassadorship. That was throwing her a bone,” said Deters. “She could find herself a Greek billionaire. And the Trumps could have peace. However, it's not working out very good because she's been flying around Europe with an energy lobbyist, and now she's having to deal with the allegations that I've brought forward against her.”

According to a Wednesday Wall Street Journal report, Guilfoyle needed Deters, a former Kentucky congressional candidate, to secretly pay off her $100,000 American Express bill. Deters, meanwhile, said that he desperately needed someone in the Trump administration to help on some personal tax and legal issues. Guilfoyle said that she could use her influence as Donald Trump Jr.'s ex to connect Deters with the new chief of the IRS and the Justice Department so he could lobby his case. She just needed the $100,000 first.

Deters said he simply didn’t have it. But it was at that point in the interview that Deters unloaded on the rest of the Trump clan, which he considered just as dirty as Guilfoyle.“Is this standard operating procedure in the Trump orbit?” asked Tapper, to which Deters confirmed.

“I don't know everybody in Trump world, but I know a lot of them because I know Corey Lewandowski did it all the time. I know Kristi Noem did it. I know Kimberly Guilfoyle has done it. … we might disagree with some of this, Jake, but I just so you know about my motivation here. I have been a Trump supporter forever. I still consider myself a supporter of Trump's policies for the most part, but I've never cared for Trump's egomania, like the Trump Arch and all that stuff.”

“I bashed the Bidens all the time for what I saw as shadow criminality with Hunter and the family. Well, what the Trumps are doing is just totally different,” Deter said. “Jared Kushner is involved in the Abraham Accords and then does a $3 billion fund with Saudi Arabia? Don Jr. — Uh, Trump says ‘crypto is a scam’ and then his sons get involved in crypto. And all of a sudden, Trump's a proponent of crypto. So, they're adding to their wealth just out in the open.”

“They're not just grifting,” Deters continued. “They're getting appointed to boards and, boom, value stock goes up. They get some stock; they make some money. And now Jared Kushner is an envoy over in the Middle East and wants to help develop the Gaza strip. I mean, it's kind of sickening. It's two sides of the same coin. And that bothers me.”

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet

Ignorance Plus Arrogance: What The Real 'Trump Derangement Syndrome' Has Wrought

Ignorance Plus Arrogance: What The Real 'Trump Derangement Syndrome' Has Wrought

If there is any single person who bears responsibility for the Iran war and its calamitous consequences – aside from Donald Trump – it is his son-in-law and diplomat plenipotentiary, Jared Kushner. Bumbling but conceited, ill-informed but haughty, the New Jersey real estate heir (and his trusty sidekick Steve Witkoff, a Bronx tenement hustler) drove us blindly into a military conflict because, according toThe New Yorker, he had no idea what the Iranians were offering to prevent it.

In the magazine’s damning profile, Dexter Filkins reveals the breathtaking arrogance behind Kushner’s failures, both in Iran and Ukraine, where he and Witkoff likewise botched their peacemaking mission. Unduly distracted by greedy grasping or simply too stupid to know what he didn’t know, Kushner exemplifies what might accurately be termed Trump Derangement Syndrome: the belief, mirroring the president’s own bloated self-esteem, that “only I can fix it,” whatever it is.

Highlighting a 2024 speech that Kushner delivered at Harvard – where his father once paid $2.5 million to gain his admission – Filkins deftly captures both the overweening self-regard and the shallow disdain for experience, knowledge, and real achievement. In that address Kushner disparaged the 2015 Obama nuclear deal with Iran as “one of the dumbest agreements” ever and the 1993 Oslo peace accords as “a total failure.” Of his own work during the first Trump administration, he boasted: “My track record of success in the Middle East I do think is second to none over the last many years.”

If success means pulling down billion-dollar bribe-like investments in his private fund by the region’s despotic regimes, that would be hard to dispute. Meanwhile, the Iran war drags on with no exit and nothing but shame, expense, economic hardship and pointless bloodshed for the US and its allies.

The style of Trump Derangement Syndrome exemplified by the president and Kushner is epidemic among his top appointees. Trump has an unerring sense of how to choose individuals who mimic his worst qualities, with predictably bad results. An outstanding example is Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the historically underqualified military chief who insists on being called the “Secretary of War.” His mismanagement of this war -- and his ongoing attempt to conceal its actual damage to our soldiers, our defense infrastructure and our security – displays a level of incompetence rarely seen even in the Pentagon, which is saying a lot. Troops in the region have sent clandestine images and messages exposing what Hegseth and Trump have tried to hide.

Perhaps that’s why House members are tabling resolutions to impeach Hegseth, which forced Speaker Mike Johnson to recess early this week so that Republicans could avoid an embarrassing vote.

Across the Trump 2.0 cabinet, we see again and again the same blustering, ignorant and ultimately ruinous conduct modeled by the president for his subordinates. Loudmouthed and obnoxious, they respect no authority or expertise except what they claim to see in Trump, to whom they defer with a sickening sycophancy.

The examples are legion, but some are more dangerous to the nation than others. Among the very worst, of course, is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the health secretary whose tenure has seen deadly outbreaks of measles, a disease formerly eradicated on these shores until he undermined vaccination, and cyclosporiasis, a parasite that ravaged communities after cuts to the systems that control such threats. When Kennedy isn’t lying, which is almost always, he is uttering nonsense that makes scientists blanch. Naturally he has spent years slandering Dr. Anthony Fauci, a dedicated official with actual knowledge about infectious diseases and public health. Bobby would rather rely on a mish-mash of murky opinions from online weirdos profiting off snake-oil remedies. It’s the worst of the 19th century delivered at 21st century velocity.

The list goes on and on and on, over the horizon of doom. Consider Elon Musk, a presumptuous fool whose “efficiency” in cutting government caused hundreds of thousands of deaths abroad (and could still bring a record-breaking and incurable Ebola infection over here). Or Todd Blanche, whose jaw-jutting approach to federal prosecutions has hollowed out the Justice Department and wrecked the criminal justice system. Or Kash Patel, the perk-abusing imbecile who has dismantled federal law enforcement and the country’s counter-intelligence capabilities, to the delight of our adversaries in Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.

Nobody who knows Kushner or Hegseth or Kennedy or Patel – or Trump -- is shocked by this performance. What remains shocking still is how so much of the country has come to accept the unacceptable.

Joe Conason is founder and editor-in-chief of The National Memo. He is also editor-at-large of Type Investigations, a nonprofit investigative reporting organization formerly known as The Investigative Fund. His latest book is The Longest Con: How Grifters, Swindlers and Frauds Hijacked American Conservatism (St. Martin's Press, 2024). The paperback version, with a new Afterword, is available wherever books are sold.


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