Trump’s 'clown car' may be his reckoning: analysis

During his first presidency, Donald Trump famously clashed with a long list of traditional conservatives he appointed — including a secretary of state (Rex Tillerson), two U.S. attorneys general (Jeff Sessions, Bill Barr), a national security director (John Bolton), a White House chief of staff (Gen. John F. Kelly), a defense secretary (Jim Mattis), and, in the end, a vice president (Mike Pence). Some of the conservatives who served in the first Trump Administration, including former U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official Miles Taylor, Pence staffer Olivia Troye, and ex-White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham), endorsed Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in 2024.

But the second Trump Administration is considerably different. Although Secretary of State Marco Rubio is a traditional conservative, far-right MAGA Republicans dominate Trump's administration this time. And Trump made a point of picking mostly staunch loyalists this time.

In an article published by The Guardian on March 1, journalist David Smith stresses that although Trump's second administration is a "clown car," there are no signs that a shakeup is coming anytime soon.

"In the past two weeks alone," Smith explains, "(Democrats) saw a health secretary who boasted about snorting cocaine off toilet seats; a homeland security secretary who allegedly fired a pilot for leaving her blanket on a plane; and an FBI director who chugged beer with Olympic hockey players in Italy at taxpayers' expense. In all of U.S. history, there has never been government leadership quite like it."

Smith continues, "Although these individuals swear undying fealty to the president, their colorful and erratic antics may prove his political undoing. Yet there is no hint that the man who became famous for saying 'You're fired!' on reality TV has any intention of casting them aside."

Seneca Project founder Tara Setmayer, a Never Trump conservative, believes that Trump is now leading the worst administration in U.S. history.

Setmayer told The Guardian, "If you elect a clown, he brings the circus. This is the Cabinet that we currently have. It is the most corrupt, incompetent, and embarrassing Cabinet in the history of the United States, and unfortunately, it's the American people who are paying for it, literally and figuratively. When you look at Donald Trump's Cabinet, and how they have performed, you have to ask yourself: How are any of these people making America great again?"

Elections expert Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, draws a major distinction between the first Trump Administration and the second.

Sabato told The Guardian, "There were actually some good people in Trump's first Cabinet, which probably saved us, saved the country. But this time, I don't recall a Cabinet in my lifetime with this many problematic characters who are just awful and who normally would never have been selected and if somehow they'd slipped through would have been fired by now. Trump keeps them around because, in a way, they may look him better. They're so awful…. You have to use this kind of twisted psychology in analyzing Trump."

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