The Face-Plant President

 

Opinion

Bret Stephens

The Face-Plant President

 

April 22, 2025

Bret Stephens

By Bret Stephens

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/22/opinion/trump-hegseth-powell.html

Opinion Columnist

 

Harold Macmillan, the midcentury British prime minister, supposedly said that what statesmen feared most were “events, dear boy, events.” Misfortunes happen: a natural disaster, a terrorist attack, a foreign crisis. Political leaders are judged by how adroitly or incompetently they handle the unexpected.

 

Luckily, the Trump administration hasn’t yet had such misfortunes. Its only misfortune — and therefore everyone else’s — is itself.

 

So much has been obvious again this week, thanks to two stories that are, at their core, the same. First, there was the revelation that Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, had shared sensitive details of the military strike on Yemen with his wife, brother and personal lawyer on yet another Signal group chat. That was followed by an essay in Politico from a former close aide to Hegseth, John Ullyot, describing a “full-blown meltdown at the Pentagon” — a meltdown that included the firing of three of the department’s top officials. Donald Trump Jr. responded by saying Ullyot is “officially exiled from our movement.”

 

Then there was a market rout and a dollar plunge, thanks to President Trump’s unseemly and unhinged attacks on Jerome Powell, the Fed chairman. Powell’s sin was to have the audacity to describe the probable effects of the president’s tariffs: namely, that they’ll cause prices to go up and growth to slow down. This sent Trump into a rage, complete with White House threats to examine whether Powell can be fired — a potential assault on central bank independence worthy of the worst economic days of Argentina.

 

Both cases are about adult supervision: the absence of it in the first instance, the presence of it in the other and the president’s strong preference for the former. Why? Probably for the same reason that tin-pot dictators elevate incompetent toadies to top security posts: They are more dependent and less of a threat. The last thing Trump wants at the Pentagon is another Jim Mattis, secure enough in himself to be willing to resign on principle.

 

The same goes for other departments of government.

 

An adult secretary of state would never have allowed his department to be gutted in its first weeks by an unofficial official (Elon Musk) from a so-called department (DOGE) by unaccountable teenage employees with nicknames like Big Balls. But Marco Rubio has a moniker with a very different meaning, Little Marco. He’ll do as he’s told right until he’s fired, probably (like one of his predecessors, Rex Tillerson) via a social media post.

 

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An adult attorney general would have quickly abided by a Supreme Court decision to “facilitate” the return from El Salvador of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly deported by the administration in March and wrongfully imprisoned in his native country. But Pam Bondi would rather serve her boss loyally but foolishly than intelligently and independently. Eventually she’ll have to choose between a humiliating acquiescence to a more forceful judicial order or a politically debilitating battle with the court.

 

An adult team of economic advisers would have dissuaded the president from repeatedly announcing and then pausing tariffs, if only to preserve the president’s political credibility, avoid business uncertainty and forestall the predictable revolt of the markets. And they would have been particularly keen to avoid an all-out trade war with Beijing, since China’s capacity both to absorb and impose economic pain vastly exceeds Washington’s. But not this team. Whether from cowardice or hubris, they prefer to risk global economic chaos than the displeasure of their boss.

 

As for Trump, his goal is to extract maximum loyalty and inspire maximum loathing, each feeding the other. It’s a method of control: The more reckless he gets, the more he forces his minions to abase themselves to defend him. The more they do so, the more Trump’s opponents become convinced that tyranny is aborning. Is he another Viktor Orban? Or Mussolini? Each time a critic reaches for an overblown comparison (I’ve been guilty of it, too), it merely dulls its own moral force and explanatory power.

 

When the president completed his extraordinary political comeback in November, he was at the summit of his political power. He has eroded it every day since. With Matt Gaetz as his first choice for attorney general. With the needlessly bruising confirmation fights over the absurd choices of Hegseth, Robert Kennedy Jr., Kash Patel and Tulsi Gabbard. With making an enemy of Canada. With JD Vance’s grotesque outreach to the German far right. With the Oval Office abuse of Volodymyr Zelensky. With the helter-skelter tariff regime. With threats of conquest that antagonize historic allies for no plausible benefit. With dubious arrests and lawless deportations that can make heroes of unsympathetic individuals. And now with threats to the basic economic order that sent gold soaring to a record high of $3,500 an ounce and the Dow on track to its worst April since the late Hoover administration.

 

Democrats wondering how to oppose Trump most effectively might consider the following. Drop the dictator comparisons. Rehearse the above facts. Promise normality and offer plans to regain it. And remember that no matter how malignant he may be, there’s no better opponent than a face-plant president stumbling over his untied laces.