The People’s List of Trump’s Worst

Mel Gurtov

(12/22) Donald Trump has promised to go after enemies of the people, and will seek revenge against a list of individuals and organizations. But we the people have our own list. It consists of nominees for top positions in the Trump administration who should never serve in government.

These people can be divided into three groups: super-rich donors to Trump’s campaign who have bought their way into an official position; supreme loyalists whose chief qualification is subservience to Trump; and members of Trump’s extended family. So far as I can tell, none of these people puts devotion to the rule of law, the Constitution, and the public interest above personal gain and support of strongman rule.

Donald Trump heads the People’s List, of course—the convicted felon and demagogue who is once again creating chaos in the political system rather than governing by bargaining and consensus. This man constitutes the number-one threat to America’s national security—not just in my opinion, but in the opinion of numerous former US officials, many of whom were appointed by Trump in his first term. They came to understand that Trump is a wannabe dictator.

The Big-Time Donors

In the first category are around eight people so far who have donated at least $1 million to Trump’s campaign and have been rewarded with top-level jobs. Elon Musk comes first with donations of over $262 million. He’s followed by Linda McMahon, nominated for secretary of education, who has donated over $21 million. Howard Lutnick, nominee for secretary of commerce, is third with over $9 million. The other five have donated around $3 million or less. They include two ambassadors, treasury secretary, an undersecretary of state, and the head of the small business administration.

Musk hardly needs an introduction; he’s essentially Second President, though he’s never been elected to anything. Like Trump, Musk is a security risk, in two respects.

First, his status as a private Trump benefactor who regularly, and forcefully, speaks out on public affairs raises serious questions. Does Musk speak for Trump? Is Musk a US official who can be held accountable for his actions? Musk speaks with foreign leaders and comments on politics abroad with increasing regularity. Is what he says US policy? When, for example, he says that the far-right, neo-Nazi AfD party in Germany is that country’s savior, will that be the official position of the Trump administration? Or when Musk speaks with Vladimir Putin or Viktor Orban, will Musk be offering his personal views or Trump’s—and is there a risk that Musk will share classified information with them?

Second, as CEO of SpaceX, a major Pentagon contractor, Musk has a top-secret security clearance. When he engages with foreign leaders, he has consistently avoided signing off on protocols that report on details of his activities. The US Air Force, some foreign governments, and a number of SpaceX employees have all questioned Musk’s handling of sensitive data concerning military technology. No one has accused Musk of passing secrets to foreign governments, but "since at least 2021, Mr. Musk and SpaceX . . . have not provided some details of his travel — such as his full itineraries — and some of his meetings with foreign leaders, [Times informants] said. He has also not reported his use of drugs, which is required even with a prescription, they said." Given Musk’s new position in the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), he will probably be immune to further investigation by Air Force or any other Pentagon official out of fear for their jobs.

The Loyalists

Among the several nominees who are distinguished by their absolute loyalty to Trump are Kash Patel, slated to be FBI director in place of Christopher Wray. If Patel follows through on his many threats to former officials, Wray will be among the victims of Trumpian retribution. Michelle Goldberg succinctly describes Patel in the New York Times: "a thuggish lackey who has spent years fantasizing about taking revenge on Trump’s enemies." Who are those enemies? Patel’s 2023 book provides 60 names, most of them familiar. It seems crystal clear that Patel is the real enemy here—a prototype of the Soviet-era NKVD inspector who delights in sending people to the gulag. He is certifiably crazy.

Patel’s 2023 book, Government Gangsters, Goldberg writes, "purports to show how government employees who defied Trump constitute a shadowy cabal that is "the most dangerous threat to our democracy." The "deep state," in Patel’s telling, is "as treacherous and evil as the villains portrayed in books and movies." Virtually every investigation of Trump and his allies, Patel suggests, is part of a monstrous plot against "the people’s president." The book strongly implies that January 6, "the insurrection that never was," was encouraged by "deep state" agitators and then used as a pretext to persecute patriotic Trump supporters.

(In a blurb on the book jacket, Trump wrote, "We will use this blueprint to help us take back the White House and remove these gangsters from all of government!" Translation: He will pardon the criminals and pursue the innocent.) Patel has also gone the extra mile to defend Trump’s handling of classified documents after he left office, trying to shift the blame to the FBI and taking Trump’s position that a former president can take what he wants on leaving.

Pete Hegseth, nominee for secretary of defense, is another unfit nominee. By now we’re all familiar with his sordid background—outrageous behavior toward women, drunkenness on the job, terrible administration at the VA. Of course he’s in total denial; he’s a changed man, we’re assured. But even if we give him a pass on his behavior, we have to consider his views of the military—"woke," and victim of "poisonous ideologies" such as gender parity and adaptation to climate change—and his foreign policy views. He sees NATO as merely a US-funded defense system, not an alliance; Turkey as Islamist and therefore unsuitable for NATO membership; the UN as anti-American; and the Geneva Convention as something that should not apply to US soldiers.

His wholehearted support of Israel comes from a Christian nationalist foundation. Israel is vital to an "American crusade": "For us as American crusaders, Israel embodies the soul of our American crusade – the ‘why’ to our ‘what’." "Faith, family, freedom, and free enterprise; if you love those, learn to love the state of Israel. And then find an arena in which to fight for her."

Tulsi Gabbard joins this list because of her well-hidden pro-Russian views and her contempt for human rights. She apparently believes the war in Ukraine is America’s fault, which puts her in good company with Russian propagandists. Her secretive meetings with Syria’s dictator, Bashir al-Assad, in 2017 seem to have aimed at improving his image in the US. Now that Assad is a resident of Moscow, does Gabbard still believe he’s the victim of a bad press?

Former Trump national security adviser John Bolton, normally not someone I would quote, is believable when he says that Gabbard has "an inclination to believe the most outrageous propaganda against the United States by some of its strongest enemies." How this person could do the job of director of national intelligence, which involves oversight of 18 agencies, defies imagination. All the more so when we consider that her conversations with Assad could compromise her if she lies to Congress and is contradicted by Assad or Putin.

Richard Grenell was Trump’s ambassador to Germany and acting director of national intelligence. Thereafter, the New York Times says, "his online toxicity, foreign business contacts and tendency toward biting personal attacks on political opponents and the media turned off many centrist conservatives, helping propel him toward Mr. Trump, a man he denounced in 2016 as "dangerous."

Grenell led the effort to overturn the 2020 vote in Nevada. More recently, he hooked up with Jared Kushner to land hotel projects in the Balkans. Grenell evidently had ambitions to be named secretary of state, but he’ll have to settle for performing "special missions" for Trump—working "in some of the hottest spots around the World, including Venezuela and North Korea," Trump says.

That role may enable Grenell to avoid a Senate confirmation hearing. Asked how he would handle being secretary of state, he said: "If you want to avoid war, you better have a son of a bitch as the secretary of state." By all accounts, that he is.

Peter Navarro, slated to be Trump’s Senior Counselor for Trade and Manufacturing, is another ex-con. He was found in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over documents in the January 6 committee hearings. The Supreme Court recently rejected his attempt to overturn that ruling. Nevertheless, Navarro will be spearheading Trump’s trade war with China.

Mel Gurtov is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Portland State University.

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