Least favorite Cabinet secretaries in Trump world

None of Trump’s advisers confirmed that their designation of Bondi stemmed from her handling of the Epstein files. This advisor refused to answer follow-up questions about Bundy because Epstein was not something they were willing to discuss via text messages. Instead, they responded with a flushed face emoji (😳) and shared their list:

“Worse, Bondi,” they began. “2/Bondi.3/Bondi.4/Bondi.

The unanimous choice of number five highlighted something else I’ve been focusing on lately: this time, the apparent incompetence of many senior officials is actually keeping any sustained pressure away from any Cabinet secretary or agency head. It ends up working to everyone’s advantage if multiple garbage fires break out at once, rather than one large fire.

Kristi Noem, the Secretary of Homeland Security who oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement – or At least he plays the role On TV – it didn’t escape notice either. “The president’s biggest weaknesses are Lutnick and Noem, followed by RFK,” one senior administration official told me, without explaining why.

Under Noem running the Department of Homeland Security, Trump’s poll numbers on immigration, once one of his strengths, have declined, with more than half of those surveyed saying he has gone too far, according to the latest New York Times/Siena poll.

Then there’s Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who recently did a report advertisement With the president about an unproven link between the active ingredient in Tylenol and autism spectrum disorders. (This is what gave rise to the famous Trump quotes“Nothing bad can happen, only good can happen.”)

Another Trump adviser described the Cabinet hot seat as a “constantly moving target,” but they were confident Lutnick was in first place, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard in second place.

A third Trump adviser said Gabbard’s goodwill ebbs and flows. They said she was in a shakier position in the administration’s first months, but the president is “thrilled with Tulsi” because of the way she handled the release of several declassified materials. In many cases, Gabbard has published material that was already in the public domain or had not previously been digitized. Earlier this year, it published tens of thousands of pages about the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy Sr., and Martin Luther King Jr. these VersionsHowever, it has lacked any major revelations, as happened with the selective declassification of documents about the origins of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.