Since the start of the year, three problems have created major political traumas for President Donald Trump, helping to lower his already lagging job approval level.<\/p>\n
They are the mishandling of his signal program to deport thousands of illegal immigrants, the bungled roll-out of the Justice Department\u2019s Jeffrey Epstein files and the ill-planned, unpopular war against Iran.<\/p>\n
The public faces of the first two problems \u2014 Kristi Noem and Pam Bondi\u00a0\u2014 are already gone, abruptly fired by Trump. Can the third\u00a0\u2014 Pete Hegseth\u00a0\u2014 be far behind?<\/p>\n
After all, any administration\u2019s high-profile failures require political scapegoats to take the fall. Every White House generally tries to avoid responsibility for its own perceived shortcomings, especially one that repeatedly hails its leader as the paragon of all presidents.<\/p>\n
So, Noem is out as Homeland Security Secretary, having failed to achieve Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller\u2019s directives for ever-increasing numbers of deportations, while personally helping to prompt the political backlash that undercut public support for the entire policy.<\/p>\n
Bondi is gone as Attorney General. She not only mishandled the potentially politically explosive files concerning Epstein, the financier and sexual predator whose ties to public figures including Trump have become a major political issue. She also angered the president by failing to meet his demands that her department be the instrument of his retribution against his political enemies.<\/p>\n
Despite their ultra-loyalty to Trump, both Noem and Bondi were sent packing in a bid to put less confrontational faces on Trump\u2019s immigration and retribution policies.<\/p>\n
As for Iran, the person most responsible for that unpopular venture is none other than the president, who continues to think he could easily do militarily to Iran what other presidents chose to pursue diplomatically.<\/p>\n
But as he struggles to both meet his strategic goals there and prevent further damage to the global economy, it seems only a matter of time before he blames someone for selling the idea that the Iran venture would be as simple as the ouster of Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro.<\/p>\n
And though that would target one of his fellow male macho compatriots, the likeliest victim would, and should, be Secretary of Defense, aka Secretary of War, Peter Hegseth.<\/p>\n
After all, like Noem and Bondi, Hegseth was named for his ultra-loyalty to Trump and his willingness to do anything and everything to please the president, from his war against the Pentagon press to his heavy-handed efforts to de-diversify the Pentagon by ousting top female and minority officers, especially those with ties to prior presidencies.<\/p>\n
As Iran\u2019s military resilience has started to show, Hegseth\u2019s regular morning briefings, hailing daily unprecedented military success by U.S. forces, may begin to embarrass the administration, like the infamous \u201cfive o\u2019clock follies\u201d during the Vietnam war, at which military briefers in Saigon presented optimistic portrayals at odds with reality in the field.<\/p>\n
If this administration adhered to normal standards of legality, propriety and competence, Hegseth too would have been fired for even attempting some of the goals for which Trump tasked him, like Noem and Bondi.<\/p>\n
But they are not alone. This Cabinet is riddled with incompetence, embarrassments and officials whose views of their jobs run counter to what they should.<\/p>\n
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has threatened the future health of American children by putting the aegis of government behind highly questionable theories that undercut support for childhood vaccinations.<\/p>\n
The nation\u2019s top intelligence officials\u00a0\u2014 Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard of CIA Director John Radclife or those at the Pentagon \u2014 may have already endangered national security by misreading the likelihood of Iran\u2019s response against the Persian Gulf nations and the Straits of Hormuz.<\/p>\n
Then, some are just embarrassing.<\/p>\n
Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer has displayed the kind of personal problems that helped bring down Noem. They might have attracted more attention had it not been for the questionable activities of the White House, the Trump family and more high-profile officials.<\/p>\n
According to the New York Post, the department\u2019s inspector general has been investigating Chavez-DeRemer over a complaint she was \u201cabusing her position\u201d by pursuing an \u201cinappropriate\u201d relationship with a subordinate, a member of her security staff, who was placed on paid leave, though she denied any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n
She was also accused of drinking in her office during the workday and committing \u201ctravel fraud\u201d by having her chief of staff and deputy chief of staff \u201cmake up\u201d official trips. Subsequently, four top aides were placed on administrative leave, and two resigned.<\/p>\n
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, a businessman and former Democrat who became a Trump fundraiser and co-chair of his transition team, falsely sought to downplay his onetime relationship with Epstein.<\/p>\n
Lutnick claimed in a 2025 podcast interview with Pod Force One that he and his wife were so revolted by Epstein\u2019s conduct during a 2005 visit to his New York mansion they decided to \u201cnever be in a room with that disgusting person ever again.\u201d But The New York Times reported Justice Department documents showed that, in December 2012, he reached out to Epstein to see if he, his wife and his children could visit the financier\u2019s private Caribbean island for a meal, a visit that subsequently took place.<\/p>\n
Though a friend of Trump before both entered government, Lutnick may find that won\u2019t count for much; with Trump, loyalty is a one-way street. If something goes wrong, he won\u2019t be the one to pay the price.<\/p>\n
At present, a lot is going wrong.<\/p>\n
Yakima Herald-Republic opinion section glossary<\/p>\n
Editorials <\/p>\n
Editorials reflect the opinion of the newspaper\u2019s editorial board and are meant to offer perspective, raise questions or advocate for change. <\/p>\n
Though grounded in fact, editorials express opinions and are intended to spark thought and discussion. <\/p>\n
Opinion columns: <\/p>\n
Opinion columns represent the personal views of the writer, not the position of the newspaper. <\/p>\n
While news articles aim to present facts without bias, opinion columns offer fact-based individual perspectives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Since the start of the year, three problems have created major political traumas for President Donald Trump, helping…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19958,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[120],"tags":[10682,55,18],"class_list":{"0":"post-19957","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pete-hegseth","8":"tag-columnists","9":"tag-opinion","10":"tag-pete-hegseth"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116380525223997051","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}