The Trumps are going to Greece!
If the South Park guys were to revive the format of their early 2000s oddity That’s My Bush (a parody of old sitcom tropes that happened to be set in the George W. Bush White House) for the Donald Trump era, this would surely be a set-up they’d use…
Here me out: Don Jr accidentally organises two dates on the same night, a romantic misadventure which his dad eventually solves by appointing one of the women as ambassador to Greece. No, seriously — rumour has it that Trump’s eldest has split with his fiancé, former Fox TV host Kimberly Guilfoyle, and has been seen “flaunting” his romance with “stunning It girl” (per the Daily Mail), socialite Bettina Anderson. In the immediate aftermath Trump Sr appointed Guilfoyle ambassador to Greece.
“Don [Jr] and Kimberley haven’t been getting along over the past year,” a source told gossip site Page Six. “They get argumentative at Mar-a-Lago in front of people.”
Guilfoyle headed Trump Sr’s finance team in 2020 and gave a window-rattling, beat poetry-style speech at that year’s Republican National Convention. According to Politico, senior campaign and Republican Party officials called her an “HR nightmare”:
Some donors were horrified by what they described as Guilfoyle’s lack of professionalism: she frequently joked about her sex life and, at one fundraiser, offered a lap dance to the donor who gave the most money.
Republicans to capitulate on Hegseth?
Speaking of former Fox hosts getting appointed to roles they have no obvious qualifications for: support appears to be slowly falling into place for Pete Hegseth, the president-elect’s pick for defence secretary, whose appointment briefly appeared to be in jeopardy.
Hegseth had been dogged by revelations that he paid off a woman who in 2017 accused him of rape (an encounter he maintains was consensual), as well as accusations of excessive alcohol use and mistreatment of women. He was mocked for reportedly having his mother (who in 2018 called him an “abuser of women”, but now insists he is a “new person”) call senators on his behalf to campaign for his confirmation.
But his mum’s efforts — or is it the bulldozing tactics of Trump allies? — may have had the desired effect. While Hegseth is still meeting with senators to argue his case, the door is reportedly being “kept open” for him. A key vote will be Republican Joni Ernst, a long-time campaigner on sexual assault who initially expressed scepticism about Hegseth but has described recent meetings with him as “encouraging“. A Republican figure who compromises their values to accommodate Trump? I mean, it’s a new tactic, but let’s see if it works out.
Cold hard Kash
Jumping before he is pushed, FBI director Chris Wray has announced he will step down at the end of President Joe Biden’s term, conceding to the reality that Trump was going to fire him. Trump called Wray’s resignation a “great day” for America, posting on Truth Social:
It will end the weaponisation of what has become known as the United States Department of Injustice. I just don’t know what happened to him … [The FBI] have used their vast powers to threaten and destroy many innocent Americans, some of which will never be able to recover from what has been done to them.
A very different tone was deployed when Trump announced Wray’s appointment in 2017: “He is an impeccably qualified individual, and I know that he will again serve his country as a fierce guardian of the law and model of integrity once the Senate confirms him to lead the FBI”. You may have already guessed this, but these were the very traits that caused Trump and Wray to fall out. In 2020, Wray said there was no evidence to back up Trump’s claim of voter fraud in the lead-up to that year’s presidential election.
Wray’s resignation clears the way for Trump’s new pick, long-time loyalist Kash Patel. Patel has promised that he would “shut down the FBI Hoover Building on day one and reopen it the next day as a museum of the deep state”.
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