The Washington Post just endorsed 19 Trump nominees. Here are the 5 worst.
The Post previously said these nominees “spread treacherous disinformation,” “sabotage democracy,” and "parrot false claims about fraud." Now it says they lack "disqualifying deficiencies."
Remember when Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos spiked the paper’s planned editorial board endorsement of Kamala Harris and then Bezos piously insisted that endorsements demonstrate bias and his publisher William Lewis claimed that refusing to endorse constituted “a statement in support of our readers’ ability to make up their own minds”? I do!
Imagine my surprise, then, when The Washington Post issued a mass endorsement of nearly every Trump cabinet-level nominee over the weekend — 19 in all — offering little more in support of each candidate than a simple thumbs up and, for some, quick blurb like “among Trump’s most reasonable intended nominees” or “has never run a big organization, but that is not disqualifying” or “a natural fit for a job traditionally held by a presidential friend” or “The former reality TV star is also a former congressman from Wisconsin. He’ll still need to study.” And those aren’t even the worst of the endorsements!
These are the worst of the Washington Post’s endorsements — all of whom, according to the Post, are free of “disqualifying deficiencies in competence, temperament or philosophy.”
Pam Bondi, Attorney General
On November 22, 2024 the Washington Post editorial board wrote of the relationship between Donald Trump and Pam Bondi:
Mr. Trump’s charity contributed $25,000 to a political group backing Ms. Bondi in 2013, around the time she decided not to pursue fraud complaints against Mr. Trump’s for-profit seminar business, Trump University. Both Mr. Trump and Ms. Bondi denied wrongdoing. […]
More important than any of that, however, is her view about the proper role of the Justice Department. Mr. Trump has been explicit that he doesn’t value or respect the traditional independence of the federal government’s law enforcement function. He soured on both his attorneys general during his first term when they showed independence […]
In contrast, Ms. Bondi led chants of “lock her up” about Hillary Clinton in 2016 and parroted false claims about fraud on television in 2020. She was one of his impeachment defense attorneys and has led the legal arm of the Trump-tied America First Policy Institute.”
Seems bad!
Last month, the news side of The Washington Post published a lengthy report about Bondi’s “baseless claims about election fraud” in 2020, noting “Pennsylvania officials from both parties say there were consequences to her actions, arguing that Bondi spread misinformation that helped wreak long-lasting damage to the electoral system.”
Again, not really what you typically want from an Attorney General!
In November, Washington Post columnist Philip Bump wrote of similarities between Bondi and Trump’s first choice for Attorney General, Matt Gaetz:
[N]o similarity is likely more important to Trump than the one he highlighted when announcing each as his pick to lead the Justice Department: their willingness to combat the “weaponization” of federal law enforcement, which is to say a willingness to exact retribution within the department for investigating Trump and his 2016 campaign. Trump showed trust in both Bondi and Gaetz to leverage the power wielded by the attorney general’s position to the ends he wants.
Where do Bondi and Gaetz differ? Bondi, far more than Gaetz, has already done it.
Still, The Washington Post editorial board gives Bondi a thumbs-up:
Oh, ok.
Chris Wright, Secretary of Energy
The Washington Post editorial board’s endorsement of oil and gas executive Chris Wright for Secretary of Energy rests on the setting-the-bar-so-low-it’s-underground rationale that Wright “acknowledges that climate change is real.”
Well, this is awkward! Just last month, the Washington Post’s news side reported:
Oil executive Chris Wright, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Energy Department, accepts that burning fossil fuel is warming the planet, but he departs from the mainstream over the consequences, contending that there is no climate crisis.
Wright cites scientific studies to argue that global warming “alarmists,” as he calls the majority of climate scientists, have it all wrong. He rattles off data to support his contention that a warmer Earth has reduced deaths from cold weather. And he points to published research to assert that hurricanes and other major storms are not growing in intensity, despite observations by meteorologists.
The references to scientific research make his arguments seem more compelling, but the authors of those studies told The Washington Post in interviews that Wright has misrepresented their work.
“What he is saying is flat-out wrong,” said Jim Kossin, a climate and atmospheric scientist who was an author of a section of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report about dangerous weather that Wright cited in a recent video on LinkedIn. Other researchers accused Wright of cherry-picking bits of data to support his thesis while ignoring abundant evidence of climate dangers. [emphasis added]
USA Today reported on November 16, 2024:
In a video posted in 2023 on LinkedIn, Wright took aim at the scientific consensus that manmade greenhouse gas emissions are responsible for the warming planet. “There is no climate crisis and we’re not in the midst of an energy transition either,” said Wright, whose company counts among its services the hydraulic fracking technique used to extract natural gas and oil from deep below the Earth's surface. [emphasis added]
The Associated Press reported on November 16, 2024:
Wright has been one of the industry’s loudest voices against efforts to fight climate change, and could give fossil fuels a boost, including quick action to end a year-long pause on natural gas export approvals by the Biden administration [emphasis added]
In 2024 testimony to the House Committee on Financial Services, Wright argued: “The fact is that few if any climate-related risks rise to the level of ‘materiality.’ […] the risks associated with extreme weather are decreasing.” (How does that claim look this week?)
Even Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal presented Wright’s climate claims more skeptically than the editorial board of Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post:
Wright is basically the “this is fine” meme in real life and The Washington Post is endorsing him because hey, at least he isn’t denying the fire exists.
Kelly Loeffler, Small Business Administration
The Washington Post editorial board endorsed Loeffler, but couldn’t muster a single reason for doing so, commenting on her nomination with nothing more than a Trumpian thumbs-up:
Back on November 20, 2020, the Post editorial board had this to say about Loeffler:
GEORGIA OFFICIALS have concluded a painstaking audit and recount of the nearly 5 million ballots cast in this month’s presidential election. They have found errors, but no fraud and nothing that comes close to changing the results: Democratic candidate Joe Biden was the winner of the state’s 16 electoral votes. That makes all the more unforgivable the conduct of Georgia’s two Republican senators in making reckless charges about the integrity of the vote. Their attempts to undermine the election, falling in line with President Trump’s dishonest and anti-democratic machinations, should not be forgotten by Georgia voters […]
Georgia voters have an opportunity to enable another period of tangible progress. Their alternative is to reward two politicians conspiring to groundlessly undermine faith in American democracy. [emphasis added]
On December 20, 2020 the Post editorial board denounced Loeffler for “stoking the unfounded anger that is driving the threats” of violence and described her as having “contempt for the people’s will.”
From criticizing Loeffler for “unforgivable” conduct, contributing to threats of violence, and “conspiring to groundlessly undermine faith in American democracy” to a simple thumbs-up is quite a journey! Too bad the editorial board refuses to explain its endorsement of Loeffler.
Elise Stefanik
On May 10, 2021, the Washington Post editorial board wrote of Elise Stefanik:
Mr. Trump continues to spread falsehoods about whether legally tallied election results can be trusted. Acolytes such as Ms. Stefanik continue to amplify them. Anyone who recognizes that the falsehoods are falsehoods should recoil at the prospect of winning an election by welcoming those who spread treacherous disinformation about the nation’s system of government. Fidelity to democratic principles should be a minimum requirement for serious participation in the nation’s politics. Any party that fails this test, particularly as flagrantly as the GOP is, does not deserve to win — in 2022, 2024 or ever.
[…]
Ms. Stefanik’s rise and Mr. McCarthy’s complicity suggest that Republicans are, indeed, unifying — around the “big lie” and the sabotage of democracy. [emphasis added]
On May 5, 2021, The Washington Post editorial board denounced Stefanik for being “among those who reinforced Mr. Trump’s lies even after the Jan. 6 violence, adding “Her tactical embrace of Trumpism, including the Big Lie, has permanently stained her.”
Apparently The Washington Post editorial board found a magic eraser to take care of that “permanent stain”:
As with Loeffler, the Post editorial board doesn’t bother offering a rationale for backing Stefanik.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Linda McMahon
On November 24, 2024, the Washington Post’s news side reported:
Linda McMahon, Trump’s pick for education secretary and former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO, was accused in an October lawsuit of failing to prevent the sexual abuse of teenage WWE workers.
[…]
McMahon, whom Trump has asked to lead the Education Department and is his transition co-chair, faces a lawsuit from five plaintiffs who helped set up WWE events as teenagers. They allege that Linda McMahon and husband Vince McMahon — the WWE co-founder — knew that the then-teens were being sexually abused by high-ranking WWE employees. Linda McMahon’s attorney, Laura Brevetti, told The Post this week that the lawsuit was baseless.
Ah, well, nevertheless, Linda McMahon gets a thumbs-up from The Washington Post editorial board:
My favorite line: “We would not have picked any of his choices for our hypothetical Cabinet.”
But hey! That is no reason not to endorse them.
Yes, WaPo's reason(s) for each endorsement was/were weak, at best. When they did set the bar for endorsing a Trump recommendation, it was so low it was a scraping the dirt. And dirt is whom Trump is picking for each position.