The clown car cabinet

When Donald Trump announced this week that he would choose Marco Rubio as his secretary of state, it seemed for a brief moment that Trump might be making some kind of peace with the Republican Party he had shattered, humiliated, and reassembled. Yes, the "Little Marco" sobriquet that Trump gave Rubio eight years ago would be shadowing the Florida senator all the way to the State Department. But by refashioning himself as a Trump team player Rubio had regained some semblance of power and even dignity.

It looked like Trump had decided to take the win, and staff his administration with Capitol Hill players like Rubio and New York congresswoman Elise Stefanik. Rubio even gained an endorsement from the Democratic chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mark Warner, who seems to have understood that the country's best bet in the Trump II era was that the Cabinet would be staffed by people like Rubio.

Then Rubio, and the rest of the country, got to find out the company that he'll be keeping. First came plans for a defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, elevated directly from Fox News and a border czar, Tom Homan, godfather of the unconscionable border policy of family separation. Then came the choice of Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic representative and presidential candidate known for her conciliatory words for Vladimir Putin and Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, for director of national intelligence. And then for attorney general, Trump has named Matt Gaetz, the congressman known for his efforts to blow up House leadership and a tawdry scandal of alleged sex trafficking.

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It is hard to find anything redeeming here. Maybe the only hopeful news of the week is that GOP senators overrode Trump's request and chose John Thune (R-S.D.), an establishment Republican who opposed efforts to overturn the 2020 election, to lead their new majority. Let's hope they keep that spine. If there was ever a time for the Senate to vigorously assert its constitutional power of "advice and consent" on presidential appointments, surely this is it.

This is the editor's letter in the current issue of The Week magazine.