Friday Insights-January 31, 2025
Chaos visits Trump 2.0.
The top news this week was supposed to be the nomination hearings of RFK, Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, and Kash Patel, but that changed when an army helicopter collided with an American Airlines regional jet on Wednesday night. The tragic accident should have been followed by national mourning and a vigorous investigation. Donald Trump had a different idea.
On Thursday, Trump convened a press briefing on the accident. He started with a moment of silence and scripted condolences to the crash victims. Then, he promised a vigorous investigation and improved air safety.
But after Trump finished his prepared remarks, he launched into a partisan attack on Presidents Obama and Biden, as well as former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. and suggested that incompetent air traffic controllers hired as a result of Obama and Biden DEI policies may have caused the crash. In part, Trump said:
We'll restore faith in American air travel. I'll have more to say about that. I do want to point out that various articles that appeared prior to my entering office, and here's one. The FAA's diversity push includes focus on hiring people with severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities. That is amazing. And then it says, FAA says, people with severe disabilities are most underrepresented segment of the workforce and they want them in and they want them. They can be air traffic controllers. I don't think so. This was in January 14th, so that was a week before I entered office. They put a big push to put diversity into the FAA's program.
He also attacked former Secretary of Transportation (and likely 2028 presidential candidate) Pete Buttigieg:
And then I came in and I assume maybe this is the reason, the FAA, which is overseen by Secretary Pete Buttigieg, a real winner. That's the guy's a real winner. Do you know how badly everything's run since he's run this Department of Transportation? He's a disaster. He was a disaster as a mayor. He ran his city into the ground and he's a disaster now. He's just got a good line of bullshit. The Department of Transportation, his government agency charged with regulating civil aviation while he runs it, 45,000 people and he is run it right into the ground with his diversity. So I had to say that it's terrible.
Then it's a group within the FAA, another story determined that the workforce was too white. That they had concerted efforts to get the administration to change that and to change it immediately. This was in the Obama administration just prior to my getting there. And we took care of African Americans, Hispanic Americans. We took care of everybody at levels that nobody's ever seen before. It's one of the reasons I won. But they actually came out with a directive, too white. And we want the people that are competent.
Watch the Trump briefing here and read the transcript of the briefing here.
Takeaways and speculation regarding the disastrous Trump press briefing.
Trump embarrassed himself at the briefing, which may have been scheduled to conflict with the confirmation hearings for Tulsi Gabbard and Kash Patel and Kennedy’s second hearing. All three hearings were expected to highlight the nominees' unfitness and reveal embarrassing information about them—things like Caroline Kennedy’s condemnation of her nephew, Tulsi Gabbard’s call for a pardon for Edward Snowden, and dozens of off-the-wall statements from Kash Patel, including calls for retribution and violence against perceived enemies of Donald Trump.
Was that part of why the briefing did not last five minutes but ran for 49 minutes and included Secretaries Hegseth and Scott Duffy and Vice President Vance? We likely will never know.
What he said is more important than why Trump held the press briefing. Trump entered the room looking weird—look at the video. But when he began his free-form, unscripted comments, America saw the man who will be president for the next 205 weeks.
Trump was incoherent—one might say in decline. Here’s another example from his press briefing. After being asked if people should be hesitant to fly in light of the accident, Trump responded:
No, not at all. I've not hesitate to fly. This is something that it's been many years that something like this has happened and the collision is just something that we don't expect ever to happen again. We are going to have the highest level people, we've already hired some of the people that you've already hired for that position. Long before we knew about this, long before, from the time I came in, we started going out and getting the best people because I said it's not appropriate what they're doing. I think it's a tremendous mistake. They like to do things and they like to take them too far, and this is sometimes what ends up happening.
Had I been in the room, I would have asked, “What?!”
Most Republicans who evidence blind loyalty to Trump today have serious doubts about his fitness for office. Screw-ups like the reversal of the federal spending freeze, the January 6 pardons, and the nomination of people like Gaetz and Gabbard are spawning growing doubts about Trump.
Trump’s approval ratings are dropping quickly as the public questions the actions of his first 10 days in office. It will get worse. And as his public approval declines, Trump’s grip on Congressional Republicans will loosen. GOP lawmakers will not want to go down with a ship they are already embarrassed to be associated with.
More on a bad week for Trump.
It has not been a good week for the Trump administration. The decision to freeze federal spending, despite exceptions for direct payments to individuals, created confusion and fear. By mid-week, the directive was rescinded, making the administration look foolish. A second action—offering buyouts to federal employees who resigned from their positions- is also not working out. It is unclear how many employees will take the offer, whether it is legal, and whether it could create havoc in some agencies “if the wrong employees quit.”
AFGE president Everett Kelley commented:
The number of civil servants hasn't meaningfully changed since 1970, but there are more Americans than ever who rely on government services. Purging the federal government of dedicated career civil servants will have vast, unintended consequences that will cause chaos for the Americans who depend on a functioning federal government. This offer should not be viewed as voluntary. The flurry of anti-worker executive orders and policies suggests the Trump administration's goal is to turn the federal government into a toxic environment where workers cannot stay even if they want to.
Donald Trump may be a man of action, but he also leaps before he looks. He is repeating a trait he perfected during his first term: not doing much analysis before acting on what someone tells him is a good idea.
Some friends have told me we should be grateful that the administration is fouling up. This means that Trump’s “Golden Age” will likely not happen. But it is not time to celebrate. Not all of Trump's actions are backfiring. ICE raids are continuing, and despite reports that people without criminal records have been arrested and deported, the public outcry is minimal. Even when Trump announced he would house deportees at Guantanamo Bay, only a few groups condemned the action. (More about Guantanamo Bay below).
I could include a longer list of things that have gone south for Trump this week, but what’s the point? I will only discuss a few that I believe are noteworthy.
Gabbard and Kash nomination hearings.
Notwithstanding serious skepticism about Tulsi Gabbard's nomination as Director of National Intelligence, the former Hawaii Democrat may yet be confirmed by the Senate. Democrats have attacked Gabbard on various subjects, including her call for a pardon for Edward Snowden and statements supporting Russia after Putin invaded Ukraine. Republicans are known to have doubts about Gabbard, but they did not express them at this week’s confirmation hearing.
I still believe Gabbard may fail confirmation, but the odds are decreasing.
The odds of Kash Patel being confirmed as FBI director are increasing. I did not watch his confirmation hearing, but it has been described as a “dud.” Patel is slick and did not take attacks from Democrats like Adam Schiff (D-CA) sitting down. He fired back. He also brushed off attacks based on his many outrageous statements made in the past.
Notably, Patel expressed disagreement with Donald Trump’s pardon of January 6 rioters who attacked police. However, Patel avoided answering whether Trump won the 2020 election.
Thank you.
Sorry for the length of this issue of Dean’s Insights. I will be back on Sunday, including comments on the expansion of Donald Trump’s media company into financial services and on the housing of deportees at Guantanamo Bay.
Have a nice weekend.
Good point--thank you for the correction.
Just to clarify - Caroline Kennedy is RFK JR’s cousin and not his aunt. Thanks!