by Roger Kimball
Trump’s nominees showcase strength and competence in confirmation hearings, clashing with Democrats' partisan tactics and grandstanding.
Here we are, more or less midway through the confirmation hearings for Donald Trump’s key nominations. Among those we’ve heard from are Pete Hegseth (nominated to be Secretary of Defense), Pamela Bondi (Attorney General), Marco Rubio (State), Scott Bessent (Treasury), Doug Burgum (Interior), Lee Zeldin (EPA), John Ratcliffe (CIA), and Kristi Noem (Homeland Security). Among the most notable still to come are Kash Patel (FBI), RFK Jr. (Health Human Services), and Tulsi Gabbard (National Intelligence).
I have listened to longish bits of several of the hearings. I think there are two main takeaways from the festivities.
One is the coordinated, ideologically fired attack-dog tactics of the Democrats.
The other is the strength, seriousness, and general competence of Trump’s nominees. The contrast with the dramatis personae for Trump’s first go-around is striking. Even more striking is the contrast with Joe Biden’s consiglieri. Could there be more disparate personalities than Pete Hegseth and Lloyd Austin, Marco Rubio and Antony Blinken, Pamela Bondi and Merrick Garland, and Scott Bessent and Janet Yellen?
As to the first, the behavior of the Democrats makes the term “hearing” totally inappropriate. These struggle sessions are not hearings but yappings. One and all, the Democrat senators seem to be pursuing two ends. One is to take as much airtime as possible to preen and publicize their own views. The focus is not on eliciting the opinions or gauging the experience or competence of the candidates. Rather, it is to grandstand.
The second end is to cater to the far-left Democrat playbook. Do you think that the 2020 election was fairly won by Joe Biden? Are you a mindless Trump loyalist? Do you have an enemies list? Will you pursue the enlightened “green energy” policies favored by the Biden administration?
Many of the exchanges—no, “exchanges” is not right, because that suggests a respectful give-and-take. Make that, “harangues”: many of the harangues demonstrated the Democrats’ mastery of the art of projection: accusing your opponents of the bad behavior that you yourself are guilty of. (One witty commentator offered this pithy formulation: “Shorter: I accuse them of doing what we did and they must be stopped.”)
The Democrats seem terrified that Trump’s DOJ will do to them what they have been doing to Trump and his supporters these past four years. That would include denying the legitimacy of Trump’s 2016 election; cooking up groundless accusations of Trump’s “collusion” with Russia; pretending that the self-guided tour-cum-protest at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, was an “insurrection” more deadly than the attack on Pearl Harbor or 9/11; impeaching Trump not once but twice, the second time after he had left office; saddling him with groundless felony lawsuits in at least four jurisdictions; attempting to bankrupt or incarcerate him, the man who for many months has clearly been the chief political rival of the regime party. The phrase “turnabout is fair play” must have been ringing in the ears of the Democrats.
One of the most egregious inquisitors was Alex Padilla, a senior senator from California. He began his cross-examination of Pamela Bondi by reminding the audience that Donald Trump had been convicted of 34 felonies (“Objection your honor! Relevance?”). Possibly, some viewers at home will be a bit vague about the fact that those “34 felonies” were fabricated out of a single bookkeeping error that might have been a misdemeanor or might have just been a bookkeeping error with no criminal taint attached.
Like some other inquisitors (notably the Hawaiian belle Mazie Hirono), Padilla wanted to know whether Bondi thought the 2020 election was on the up-and-up. I thought her answer to Hirono was spot on: “Joe Biden is the president of the United States.” And the election itself? Padilla invoked the hoary phrase “the Big Lie” to impute conspiracy inclinations to Bondi. In fact, the deployment of the phrase “the big lie” by Democrats is yet another example of their projection. Perhaps the most (unintentionally) amusing bit of Padilla’s performance came when, noting that Bondi had described Donald Trump as a “friend,” he said, “I continue to have reservations about your ability to function as a truly independent attorney general.”
What a card! Would that be a “truly independent attorney general” like Eric Holder, who repeatedly described himself as Barack Obama’s “wingman” and thumbed his nose at a citation for contempt of Congress? (Beginner’s quiz: Who was John F. Kennedy’s attorney General? Did that person function as a “truly independent” counselor? Asking for a friend.)
Pamela Bondi distinguished herself in her responses. Perhaps my favorite moment came from her first session with Padilla. The senator from California asked Bondi if she could explain what the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment says. Of course, she could. Bondi was a long-time prosecutor and former attorney general of the state of Florida. What Padilla did not say is that the meaning of the clause is highly contested. Some say it establishes so-called “birthright” citizenship: drag your body over the border and give birth and your spawn is thereby a U.S. citizen. Many others dispute this claim. With supreme condescension, Padilla said, “I gave you an opportunity to study overnight. Can you tell this committee” what the clause says? “Senator,” Bondi coolly replied, “I am here to answer your questions. I am not here to do your homework and study for you.” A hit, a palpable hit.
One of my other favorite moments came during Scott Bessent’s testimony. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon (I know, it already sounds funny) told Bessent that the U.S. is in an “arms race with China for clean energy.” China? Clean energy? China and “clean energy?” No, replied Bessent. “China will build 100 new coal plants this year. There is not a clean energy race. There is an energy race.” Point. Set. Match.
So far, almost all of Trump’s nominees have performed brilliantly. All, I predict, will be confirmed. There has been a lot of talk about Trump’s second term ushering in a new “golden age” for America. I think that is very likely to be true. Donald Trump’s pick of so many superb lieutenants will be a major enabling fact in this success story.
Roger Kimball
Source: https://amgreatness.com/2025/01/19/trumps-second-term-nominees-competence-under-fire-amid-partisan-hearings/
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