On the menu today: Yes, today begins with a plea for our webathon. Read through it, kick in what you can — this newsletter is free, but that doesn’t mean it costs nothing to produce — and then let us marvel at my instant karmic retribution for publicly arguing yesterday morning, “A president deserves to get the cabinet officials he wants, provided that the nominee is qualified, scandal-free, and not some sort of ideological extremist or a proven incompetent manager.” As the nominee to be U.S. director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard might be getting a less influential gig than many expect, and as for Matt Gaetz, well, the number of reasons that Gaetz shouldn’t be the next attorney general must be in the . . . teens.
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Enemy at the Gaetz
Once and future president Trump sure saw yesterday’s Corner post as a green light to let his freak flag fly, didn’t he?
I’m, at minimum, open to Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense. Let’s see and hear how he wants to run the Pentagon and what his ideas for refocus, reform, and efficiency are.
As for Trump nominating Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence . . . I wonder if this is as great a spot for her as the Gabbard fans think.
A key point about the DNI position is that despite the title, it doesn’t “direct” all that much. As David Ignatius noted after Dennis Blair resigned the job after 18 months back in 2010, “Nearly all of the intelligence chiefs have other bosses. The FBI director reports to the attorney general. The heads of the surveillance agencies, the NSA and the NRO*, report to the secretary of defense. That left the CIA director as Blair’s only important direct underling, which led to the battle with [then CIA director Leon] Panetta.”
Budgetary authority in Washington is like the Infinity Stones in the Marvel Universe. With it, you can do and change almost anything. Without it, someone else can, at any time, snap their fingers and make you disappear.
The Forum for American Leadership, a conservative foreign-policy think tank, examined the structural flaws with the DNI job back in 2023:
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The DNI writes a National Intelligence Strategy and IC policies, but agencies write their own strategies and policies with little oversight.
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The DNI coordinates and usually delivers the Presidential Daily Brief, but the process operates out of CIA Headquarters, is staffed primarily by CIA officers, and the President often asks for the CIA Director (DCIA)’s views. The DCIA has a direct line to the President on covert action.
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The DNI runs the National Intelligence Program (IC budget) process but has only rarely forced an agency to significantly increase or decrease investments in specific capabilities or missions. For the Military Intelligence Program, which covers NSA, NGA, NRO, and others, the DNI must negotiate every major initiative with the Secretary of Defense.
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The DNI also helps Congress bring together the IC agencies on national intelligence assessments or cross cutting issues. This is particularly useful when it comes to solving for major flaps (e.g., the Snowden disclosures) or advocating for authorities (e.g., FISA).
(As readers of the thriller-novel series know, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence works at the Liberty Crossing campus in Tyson’s Corner, not far from Langley. My imaginary team works there, in part, because while everyone’s seen CIA headquarters in a million films, almost no one pays any attention to the Liberty Crossing campus.)
Trump’s pick to be the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Ratcliffe, served as DNI from May 26, 2020, to the end of Trump’s term. Do you think there’s a reason Ratcliffe didn’t want the job a second time? Why do you think Ratcliffe wanted the CIA-director job instead?
As for Matt Gaetz . . . look, if you’ve ever wished for an attorney-general nominee who knows a lot about sex trafficking, you needed to be more specific. If it comes to pass, the best part of Gaetz’s tenure as attorney general will be all the outreach to troubled youth.
The Justice Department has huge problems that have to be addressed. Much of what has to be done will require legislation, which means there would have to be some Democratic buy-in. Trump needs a strong, experienced hand who is widely respected for his or her legal acumen and bureaucratic know-how — specifically in the Justice Department, which is certain to chew up and spit out an outsider who doesn’t know how the place works and how veteran adversaries can sabotage a novice.
It’s not a job for Matt Gaetz.
There is a chance that Gaetz’s nomination is designed to fail in the Senate, either to lay the groundwork for a more acceptable (but still fiercely Trump-loyalist) candidate later or to cast the Senate as the designated Establishment scapegoats for subsequent Trump legislative failures.
But it will be almost impossible to confirm Gaetz, as well it ought to be.
Dan McLaughlin looks down the road:
A failed Gaetz nomination, if it goes to a vote and is killed by fellow Republicans, would make him an immediate martyr in some MAGA corners. That could well be a blessing to Gaetz, just in time for a primary fight to either succeed Ron DeSantis as governor of Florida in 2026 or in that fall’s special election (perhaps, against DeSantis or a DeSantis appointee) to fill the remainder of Rubio’s term.
How bad a pick is Gaetz? My friend Hugh Hewitt won’t defend him.
A quick point about anyone contemplating leaving the corporate world, television punditry, or consulting gigs for a cabinet post: Running a federal cabinet agency is often an exhausting, frustrating, and thankless job. The permanent bureaucracy has been doing things its own way for decades, long before you arrived, and has no intention of changing; it will still be working here in four years, and you won’t be. You usually get little face-to-face time with the president, and you’re lucky if your biggest initiative can get a brief mention in the State of the Union Address. You get blamed for every screw-up that your department oversees — hello, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg — Congress is always on your case, and you constantly have to justify and re-justify your budget. The pay is nothing special. (White House staff salaries are probably less than you would expect, as well.)
There are a handful of secretary positions that get a lot of attention — State, Defense, Treasury, attorney general — but otherwise, a lot of cabinet secretaries toil in relative obscurity. (Quick, who’s the current administrator of the Small Business Administration? [Jeopardy theme] Isabel Guzman.)
I know Robert Reich went nuts years ago, but his memoir recounting his time as secretary of labor, Locked in the Cabinet, is one of the funniest and most brutally honest portraits of what it’s like to be a cabinet secretary and how the indignity-strewn reality is light years away from any glamorous image that Washington newcomers have in their heads.
If you like being a star, you will probably hate being a cabinet secretary.
*The U.S. National Reconnaissance Office, not National Review Online.
ADDENDUM: Over in that other little Washington publication I write for, an observation that “gentle favor-trading, relationship-building and collegiality are still the way to become leader of your party in the Senate. Go figure. Effusive endorsements from the likes of Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson just don’t carry that much weight in the halls of the Senate.”