The Week: Trump’s Second Term Approaches

• Hunter Biden’s art burning down days before its value is reduced to zero might be the Biden family’s most elaborate scam to date.

• Hearings on Donald Trump’s key cabinet choices have thus far been a study in contrasts, but they seem headed toward the same denouement. Fellow senators gave Marco Rubio a lovefest in hearings about his appointment as secretary of state. Rubio took a preemptive step to quell MAGA skepticism of him with an opening statement declaring that “the postwar global order is not just obsolete” but “a weapon being used against us.” Pam Bondi got the usual fireworks around a nominee for attorney general, but to little effect. She was asked, rightly, to repudiate theories that voter fraud had swung the 2020 election, and demurred. She was asked, ridiculously, by Democrats to pledge not to weaponize the Department of Justice, and she responded with a denunciation of its present weaponization. But Pete Hegseth was the main event: Doubts remain about his personal life and preparedness for the job, but Senate Republicans are afraid of crossing the forces mobilized behind him. He was sharp and polished. Democrats are showing that they haven’t yet figured out how to handle Trump’s second term.

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• Hunter Biden’s art burning down days before its value is reduced to zero might be the Biden family’s most elaborate scam to date.

• Hearings on Donald Trump’s key cabinet choices have thus far been a study in contrasts, but they seem headed toward the same denouement. Fellow senators gave Marco Rubio a lovefest in hearings about his appointment as secretary of state. Rubio took a preemptive step to quell MAGA skepticism of him with an opening statement declaring that “the postwar global order is not just obsolete” but “a weapon being used against us.” Pam Bondi got the usual fireworks around a nominee for attorney general, but to little effect. She was asked, rightly, to repudiate theories that voter fraud had swung the 2020 election, and demurred. She was asked, ridiculously, by Democrats to pledge not to weaponize the Department of Justice, and she responded with a denunciation of its present weaponization. But Pete Hegseth was the main event: Doubts remain about his personal life and preparedness for the job, but Senate Republicans are afraid of crossing the forces mobilized behind him. He was sharp and polished. Democrats are showing that they haven’t yet figured out how to handle Trump’s second term.