Going Deeper: A New Weekly Column

Who are the worst in the Trump Administration?

Hey everybody,

I have another exciting announcement for you. As I promised at the end of last year, I am making some changes to this Substack to better serve all of you who are a part of the community.

Today will be the first of a recurring weekly column called “Going Deeper” that will take a step back every Thursday from the daily news firehose and look a little harder at a big topic that deserves a more attention.

Our first edition moves the spotlight off Donald Trump, who always needs to be the center of attention, to his lackeys who help develop and execute his horrible agenda.

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Let’s just say it. These are bad, cruel, and incompetent people.

I’m talking about the team that has given us death on the streets of Minneapolis, crises abroad, a degraded justice system, and more. Donald Trump can’t do it all by himself. He needs his flying monkeys.

The deeper question we want to look into today: Who is the worst of the worst?

Let’s consider the primary candidates:

Kristi Noem — As secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Noem is ultimately responsible for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency’s violence-prone effort to arrest and deport undocumented immigrants by any means necessary. Noem has been building a small army to do the dirty work in places like Minneapolis, where locals have spent weeks tracking and protesting against the masked officers. The result so far: Two protesters killed in broad daylight. Add these deaths to others around the country, and you get roughly 40 people who have died in encounters with agents.

The deaths are the starkest result, but not the only tragic element in the DHS story. As officers have swarmed neighborhoods and pulled people out of their homes, cars, and businesses, they have routinely kicked, dragged, and pummeled them. DHS has more than a hundred thousand to mass detention centers where they are routinely denied basic rights and held in deplorable conditions.

For her part, Noem (nicknamed ICE Barbie) goes around to key sites -- the border, a hellhole prison in El Salvador, the rooftop of a federal building in Portland -- and strikes tough-girl poses for photographers. Here, she wears a law enforcement-style outfit with a ball cap. There she’s dressed in a giant cowboy hat. Never does she take responsibility for the violence and mayhem. Instead, she used the term “domestic terrorism” to describe protester Renee Good as she inched her car forward before an agent killed her. Four shots at point-blank range constituted “a justified response,” said Noem as she lied about the officer being struck by the car.

When ICE agents killed another protester, Alex Pretti, Noem was quick to say he too was a “domestic terrorist” and that he was “brandishing” a gun when, in fact, it was a cellphone. With video of the brutal killing circulating the world, Noem smeared Pretti by saying he intended to “kill law enforcement.” No evidence supports this claim, and it has inflamed national outrage over the war on immigrants.

Away from the ICE disaster, Noem has also decimated the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) and held up billions of dollars in aid to victims of natural disasters. She has defied Congressional efforts to practice oversight and is accused of granting a $200 million contract for an ICE agent recruitment campaign to a friend of a friend.

Pam Bondi -- Attorney General Bondi has been responsible for the politically-motivated and mangled handling of the Epstein papers. She began roughly a year ago with a lame “release” of a handful of previously-known documents and declared the case closed. She maintained this position for months despite a howl of protest, much of which came from Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement. What made MAGA so mad? Well, as he campaigned in 2024, their man Trump had promised to release all the Epstein documents as soon as he became President. Bondi’s stonewalling, clearly done to protect Trump, was a betrayal.

Jeffrey Epstein was a prolific abuser of young women who had been convicted of state crimes but given a sweetheart sentence. A mega-rich friend to what seems like a countless number of rich and powerful men -- Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, then Prince Andrew of the United Kingdom, etc. -- Epstein and his assistant Ghislaine Maxwell groomed as many as 1,000 young women and girls to visit his homes and perform various sex acts in exchange for money and a glimpse of glamor. Arrested again on federal charges, Epstein killed himself while in federal detention awaiting legal proceedings.

Bondi spent months preventing the world from seeing evidence of Trump’s bond with Epstein, including a lurid birthday card that was eventually revealed by a House committee. Hounded by Congress, she slowly released what eventually became a torrent of millions of documents, which implicated Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, his buddy Elon Musk, his former chief of staff Steve Bannon, Brett Ratner (director of the new documentary about the First Lady) and others related to the president. The files also include evidence of Trump’s own close relationship with Epstein. He is mentioned more than 1,000 times.

Bondi’s Epstein cover-up is just one of many scandals in her department. In various cases, judges have found that her people have either lied or withheld information from the courts. After Renee Good’s killing, she publicly supported the ICE officer who shot her and blocked officials who were poised to conduct the usual investigation that would follow such a tragedy. She fired six DOJ lawyers whom she thought failed to adequately support the officer who fired the fatal shots and condemned protesters who called for justice in the Good case. Finally, she ordered an investigation into Good herself.

Like others in the Trump administration, Bondi talks tough. When a man threw a sandwich -- yes, a sandwich -- at a Customs and Border Patrol Agent, she promised, “If you touch any law enforcement officer, we will come after you.“ After she had journalist Don Lemon arrested on bogus charges of disrupting a religious service, she pledged that if anyone interferes with a service, “we are coming after you” too. The point? To intimidate reporters.

After a little more than a year on the job, Bondi’s record is that of a hack determined to politicize the Department of Justice in service to a vindictive President. She has been both his shield and his sword as she has weaponized a once great institution.

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — A notorious vaccine skeptic, the head of Health and Human Services Kennedy has slashed medical research and begun to dismantle public health initiatives like vaccine programs, which have protected us for generations.

Trump knew what he was doing when he appointed this guy. RFK Jr. spent decades railing against vaccines and encouraging people to reject them. As secretary, he dismissed every member of a key vaccine policy board and replaced them with anti-vax fringe “experts” who have only added to mass hysteria over shots that prevent serious disease. After a terrible measles outbreak in Texas (two children died) he encouraged treatment with vitamin A and cod liver oil. Now South Carolina is suffering a much worse wave of measles, and it’s been left to Dr. Oz, head of Medicare and Medicaid, to rally people to get their shots.

Kennedy’s worst offense? Using his bully pulpit to spread bizarre ideas, including the disproven notion that acetaminophen causes autism and the ridiculous claim that schizophrenia can be cured by a keto diet. Add his advocacy of raw milk (much more likely to carry deadly bacteria), and we’ve got a crackpot in charge of America’s health

Pete Hegseth [MD1] -- A former Fox News host, Hegseth was appointed as much for his chiseled looks as for his (severely limited) expertise. He is, arguably, the least qualified person ever to lead the Department of Defense. Perhaps this is why he and Trump renamed it the Department of War. As Secretary of War, Hegseth has chosen to embroil himself in petty controversies (see my recent post on his tiff with the scouts) and ignore the Pentagon’s sober tradition of serious leadership.

Early in his tenure, Hegseth broke security protocol in three ways. First, he shared the contents of a classified briefing on imminent airstrikes in Yemen with his wife, his brother and his lawyer. Second, he decided to do it on his personal cellphone. Third was part of the so-called Signalgate fiasco in which a journalist was invited to join him and other high-ranking officials on a call in which the secretary shared classified information.

Hegseth’s loose lips may not have caused much damage. But he severely rattled the Ukrainians when he temporarily suspended shipments of American military aid, and then argued that Kiev should not expect a peace deal that would return territory seized by Russia. He overstepped his authority to announce that Ukraine would not be admitted to NATO and briefly suspended U.S. cybersecurity assistance to Kiev.

Along the way, Hegseth has found time to reverse a policy against naming U.S. military facilities for Confederate generals (they were traitors after all). He has banned military men and women from attending Harvard University (too “woke” in his estimation), and he has, in a truly reprehensible move, launched an investigation into Senator Mark Kelly for “misconduct” related to a video he recorded with other lawmakers, which reminded personnel that they could refuse to carry out illegal orders. Kelly was right, but Hegseth pushed forward, threatening the retired Navy captain who could be court martialed. The secretary’s real purpose? Political intimidation.

Stephen Miller -- As deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security, Miller is a cruel-minded demagogue who is the driving force behind the administration’s attack on undocumented immigrants. He is the one who set a 3,000-arrest daily quota for ICE and the Customs and Border Patrol agency. He orchestrated the expansion of mass detention centers, is pushing the reduction of work visas (even for talented tech workers), and has reduced the number of people permitted to seek political asylum in the US to virtually zero.

Miller might be the most adept Trump official when it comes to channeling his boss’s desires. With this in mind, he has:

· Declared the US has a right to seize Greenland for strategic purposes.

· Devised the policy that separates children from undocumented immigrant parents.

· Called Alex Pretti a “would-be assassin” who “tried to murder federal agents.”

· Suggested, falsely, that ICE agents have complete legal immunity as they round up immigrants.

· Announced America is being “conquered” by immigrants who must be removed “or people will not know the country they are living in.”

· Accused judges who rule against the Administration of being communists.

· Said China is “pillaging” the American economy.

· In his own tough guy statement, Miller announced that the world is run by strength, force, and power, and “These,” he said, “are the iron laws of the world.”

An angry man with a messiah complex, Miller has positioned himself as a leader who will “save this civilization” and “save the West” from those (black and brown) people who seek political, and economic refuge in the United States. In the words of Steve Bannon he is an “evil robot” and to his cousin, he is “the face of evil.” Alisa Kasmer wrote, “I grieve what you’ve become, Stephen… I will never knowingly let evil into my life, no matter whose blood it carries—including my own.”

Miller’s ongoing agenda? To eventually deport as many as 14 million undocumented immigrants and then begin a program to strip naturalized immigrants of their citizenship. Presumably, they would then be deported too.

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Less visible, but destructive in her own way, is Susie Wiles. As Trump’s chief of staff, the first female to hold the job, Wiles keeps a very low profile. But she is, in fact, an enabler of the first order who has never confronted the extremist President with the suggestion that he’s gone too far on a major issue. Her mission is to keep the trains running on time, and she does it with machine-like precision.

Someone you’ve never heard of, Elbridge Colby may be the most destructive player in the Trump administration’s foreign/military policy. As deputy secretary of war for policy, he is the intellectual godfather of America’s shift away from its traditional roles as a global stabilizing force. He’s the one who wants to reduce America’s role in NATO and has suggested breaking up a joint intelligence and defense program involving Australia, the US, and the United Kingdom. In other words, behind every retreat from engagement, you’ll find Elbridge Colby.

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The results? It’s a tie -- To me, the worst of this terrible lot, if you measure them by the amount of pain they have caused, are Miller and Noem. Miller is the policy guy, and his ideas power the immigration crackdown, but Noem executes the plan. Her evil lies in following cruel and reckless orders to the point of bloodshed and death. Together, they have ruthlessly deployed a small army on America’s streets, unleashing violence and fear and prompting a level of protest not seen since the civil rights movement.

If you judge the nominees by their destructive effect on our democratic system, then Pan Bond is your winner. In defiance of decades of tradition, she has turned the Justice Department into Trump’s personal law firm. Her persecution of the president’s supposed enemies has been a disgrace. She has followed orders to dismiss scores of top-level prosecutors who worked on January 6 cases, and she has abused the victims of Jeffrey Epstein as she played games with the release of documents. (By all accounts, more than one million documents have yet to be revealed.) Altogether, Bondi has damaged the DOJ’s reputation, gutted its workforce, and destroyed morale. It will take years for it to recover.

Finally, there are the also-rans. Hegseth, RFK Jr., Wiles, Colby, and others too numerous to name. They have done their best to serve Trump’s perverse agenda, dividing the country and decimating our standing in the world. It says everything that in a ranking of the worst people on the Trump team, these awful people don’t even make the first cut.

Do you agree? Let me in the comments know if I got it right or if you think someone else deserves the title of Worst Trump Lackey.

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