Trump Mulls Putting His Life in the Hands of a Right-Wing Hothead

CNN reports that Dan Bongino, a former Secret Service agent turned conservative media B-lister, is up for consideration to run the agency for which he once worked. Bongino, who has periodically faced various social media sanctions for posting incendiary content over the years, is on Trump’s Secret Service short list, along with the former head of his personal detail, Robert Engel, and the head of his current Secret Service detail, Sean Curran. Engel was with Trump on January 6, 2021, and testified to the House January 6 committee about Trump’s speech at the Ellipse that day.

Bongino has run for Congress three times, twice in Maryland and once in Florida; he lost all three times. After failing to launch a political career, he went into punditry, becoming a commentator on right-wing talk radio and social media. He quickly became known as a leading election denialist, January 6 insurrectionist defender, and Covid-19 conspiracist.

Bongino would go on to host his own show on Fox News from 2021 to 2023, and today hosts The Dan Bongino Show on Rumble. He was critical of ousted Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle in the wake of the July assassination attempt against Trump, calling her “utterly unqualified” and accusing her of “putting politics ahead of presidential protection.”

That may well have endeared him to the president-elect, who has a personal stake in who takes over the agency in charge of protecting himself and his family. Trump also was a guest on Bongino’s podcast in October—an encounter that could hardly be called a hard-hitting interview, with multiple compliments exchanged.

It’s no secret that Trump watches a lot of television and seems to be favoring a “central casting” approach to his second-term appointments. Among those peppered throughout his agency picks are former Fox News host Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense, daytime talk show host Dr. Mehmet Oz as head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and his pick for secretary of transportation—former congressman, Fox News host, and reality TV star Sean Duffy. Should Bongino get the nod to head the Secret Service, he will fit right in with all of those personalities.

That said, heading up the Secret Service is not the best platform for maintaining one’s media infamy—unless, of course, Bongino warps the role to suit his personal needs and desires. The job, which normally has a low media profile, could very likely become part of Trump’s media circus in the hands of someone whose first priority is maintaining their own high profile or remaining a fixture on right-wing media. For someone like Trump who loves high TV ratings, that’s probably just what he wants. Whether that suits the numerous other people under Secret Service protection remains to be seen.

South Carolina Representative Nancy Mace’s bathroom crusade is nothing more than a shallow stunt for attention, at least according to the lawmaker’s former communications director.

Mace has spent the majority of her week advancing a bill with the aim of banning one person from using toilets on Capitol Hill—Representative-elect Sarah McBride, the first openly transgender person to be elected to Congress.

Hill alum Natalie Johnson torched her old boss for what she saw as a transparent media grab, posting on X that the attacks on McBride were little more than Mace’s “ploy to get on Fox.”

In response to a Mace team message that read, “I don’t want to see your junk in my bathroom,” Johnson said, “I don’t want to see your botched, cheap hooker-inspired boob job on my television. Can we introduce a bill to bar that?”

”Tweeting 262 times about a bill that applies to like .00000001% of Congress in 36 hours is definitely about protecting women. It’s certainly not just a ploy for media attention,” Johnson posted in a separate tweet.

The Republican communications strategist then argued that a real effort to protect women would involve preventing Matt Gaetz—who up until last week was being investigated by the House Ethics Committee for alleged sexual misconduct with a minor—from being confirmed as Donald Trump’s attorney general.

“‘Protecting women’ in Congress would be introducing a bill to bar Matt Gaetz, a sexual predator with an affinity for underage girls, from ever walking those halls again, rather than dropping a messaging bill that’s sole goal is getting on TV,” Johnson wrote.

The attention-seeking congresswoman openly acknowledged that the stunt was a direct attack on McBride, telling reporters on Monday that it was “that and more.”

“Sarah McBride doesn’t get a say. I mean, this is a biological man,” Mace said, adding that the newly elected Delaware congresswoman “does not belong in women’s spaces, women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms, period, full stop.”

In another interview, Mace claimed that the mere thought of a trans woman walking into a women’s locker room “feels like assault.”

But the whole charade appears especially hollow in light of the fact that Mace and McBride both have private bathrooms in their offices. The only people that the bill will actually hurt will be the nonelected trans employees of the U.S. Capitol complex, who apparently have—until now—been using the bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity with no issue.

Tom Homan, Donald Trump’s so-called “border czar” in charge of executing his massive deportation plans, made an eerie threat to double the number of ICE agents in sanctuary cities.

During an appearance on Newsmax Wednesday, Homan issued a warning to sanctuary cities, where local policies limit coordination and information-sharing with federal immigration authorities about noncitizens, allowing them to be able to report crimes, acquire homes and jobs, and participate in society without fear of being deported.

“They don’t have to help us, but they need to get the hell out of the way cuz we’re comin’, we’re gonna do it. Which means if I gotta send twice as many resources to that sanctuary city, twice as many agents, that’s exactly what I’m going to do,” Homan said.

“And I’ve been saying for the last several days that they need to study the law,” he said. “They can not help, but don’t impede us, and don’t cross certain lines.”

Homan also promised “consequences” for anyone who tried to conceal undocumented immigrants, and said that the government’s efforts to round up human beings for detainment and deportation would begin with “the worst of the worst first.”

Homan and House Speaker Mike Johnson have emphasized that Trump’s deportation plan will focus on “criminals” to start with, targeting the millions of criminals they imagine roam the streets of the country’s sanctuary cities. Trump and Homan have both said they expect the U.S. military to assist in executing their sweeping raids—promising to flood these Democratic cities with law enforcement.

During his campaign, Trump promised to end U.S. sanctuary cities even in places where they don’t currently exist.

Homan made a similar threat against these cities on Fox & Friends earlier this week, saying that if sanctuary cities “don’t want to help us, get the hell out of the way. We’re going to do it. If I got to send twice as many … resources to that city, that’s what we’re going to do.”

A woman identified as “Jane Doe” told police that she was assaulted by Pete Hegseth, a Fox News anchor nominated by Donald Trump to serve as secretary of defense, at a Republican women’s conference in 2017.

News of the accusations first surfaced last week, but the full 22-page police report was obtained by Mediaite on Wednesday, revealing the horrific extent of Hegseth’s alleged actions.

Police were only made aware of the assault after Doe, 30, submitted herself to a hospital for a rape exam some four days after the alleged attack.

Doe told police that she first spoke with Hegseth, a speaker at the convention in Monterey, California, on the final night of the conference, when she said she saw him flirting with and placing his hand on the legs of women who were drinking in a suite. She said that witnessing this compelled her to tell Hegseth that she “did not appreciate how he treated women,” according to the report.

Two different women reported the same eyewitness accounts to police, claiming they also saw Hegseth placing his hands on women. One woman who worked at the conference said she called Doe over to act as a buffer between Hegseth and the other women.

After the bar closed, Doe and Hegseth had an argument outside by the hotel pool, in which Doe reprimanded Hegseth for being loud and belligerent, according to the report. A staffer reported that around 1:30 a.m., the hotel received multiple complaints about a couple fighting by the pool. When he attempted to speak with them, Hegseth “began to curse” and complained that he had “freedom of speech,” according to the report. The report notes that Doe explained they were Republicans and apologized for Hegseth’s behavior to the staff member. The staff member believed that Hegseth was very drunk, though Hegseth denied that in his interview with police, insisting that he was instead “buzzed.”

After the pool, Doe said her memory became fuzzy. She had been drinking and believed that someone had slipped something in her drink, according to the report. The next thing she remembered, she told police, was being in an unknown room, where Hegseth took her phone and used his body to block the door to the exit when she tried to leave. She told police she said no “a lot,” but in the next moment, she was on a bed or a couch with Hegseth above her. She recalled his dog tags “hovering over her face.” He ejaculated on her stomach, threw her a towel, and told Doe to “clean it up,” according to her recollection.

Doe did not remember how she got back to her own room that night. In a second call with police, she told them that she has suffered from nightmares and memory loss since that night. Another person told police Doe would “cry secretly” and “out of the blue.”

Hegseth, through his attorney, repeatedly denied the accusations, claiming that the sex was consensual.

“This police report confirms what I have said all along that the incident was fully investigated and police found the allegations to be false, which is why no charges were filed,” Tim Parlatore, Hegseth’s attorney, told Mediaite in a statement.

In a statement to The Washington Post on Saturday, Parlatore said that Hegseth had paid his accuser in exchange for her signing a nondisclosure agreement in order to stop her from filing a lawsuit and to protect his position at Fox News.

A friend of Doe’s reportedly shared details of the attack to Trump’s transition team in a memo last week. In a statement, Trump Communications Director Steven Cheung told NPR that Trump had every intention of keeping Hegseth on board for the upcoming administration.

“Mr. Hegseth has vigorously denied any and all accusations, and no charges were filed,” Cheung told NPR. “We look forward to his confirmation as United States Secretary of Defense so he can get started on Day One to Make America Safe and Great Again.”

Some Republicans might actually support a House resolution to release the Ethics report on Matt Gaetz’s alleged sexual misconduct.

After the House Ethics Committee did not agree to release the report Wednesday, Democratic Representatives Steve Cohen and Sean Casten both introduced motions to force a House vote on releasing the report.

It seems that some Republicans actually are in favor of releasing the report, which details a yearslong investigation into Gaetz for alleged sexual misconduct, even though doing so could sink his nomination to be the next attorney general and possibly go against Donald Trump’s wishes.

CNN’s Manu Raju asked Wisconsin Representative Derrick Van Orden, a Republican, whether he would vote to release the report.

“I think it’s very important that everybody has as much knowledge as possible so they can make an informed decision,” Van Orden said.

“That sounds like yes,” Raju responded.

“That’s a yes,” Van Orden said. “So if the rumors are true about Gaetz’s conduct then there should be referrals to other agencies. And if they’re not true then there’s a whole lotta people who owe him an apology.”

Nebraska Representative Don Bacon, also a Republican, said he thought the report should at the very least be passed on to the Senate, even if the House Ethics Committee did not vote to release it.

“The Senate deserves to have it, so they can make a good decision,” he told Politico.

The House will have to vote on the motions within two days of their being introduced.

Republican senators are once again falling in line to support a man they’ve publicly and privately disavowed. But instead of Donald Trump, this time it’s Matt Gaetz. 

Gaetz was on Capitol Hill with Senator JD Vance today trying to corral congressional support for his jeopardized attorney general nomination. The former Florida representative and MAGA Republican is surrounded by ongoing investigations from the House Ethics Committee and the Justice Department regarding allegations that he trafficked and had sex with a minor at a sex party in 2017. Gaetz attempted to end the probe by resigning from Congress right before the House Ethics Committee was set to release its finding. The House Ethics Committee voted on Wednesday to complete the investigation but has not decided whether to release it. 

It has also been reported that the House Ethics Committee has proof of Gaetz paying over $10,000 to two women between July 2017 and January 2019—women who later served as witnesses in the House and Justice Department probes against Gaetz.

Now Republicans are bending over backward to get ahead of the release, making incredibly flimsy excuses to defend the embattled representative. 

“I just don’t think you can deal with allegations in the past as though they’re fact,” Senator Kevin Cramer told Politico in a striking quote. Cramer has also called similar past allegations against Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh “absurd.” He also noted that Donald Trump was  a “victim of lawfare” and was tried “unjustly” like Gaetz is being now.

“I support all of Trump’s Cabinet picks. That’s a whole part of the process—there’ll be a Senate confirmation, public hearings,” said Representative Nancy Mace, who is currently leading hateful efforts to stop the single transgender congressional representative from using the bathroom. “The DOJ decided not to pursue charges against our colleague. And so, there’s the media—you guys want to make him guilty, hook, line, and sinker, or be judged during an execution of a guy who’s never been charged with a crime.”

Gaetz is one of three Trump nominees to be accused directly of or accused of enabling sexual assault. And the president-elect himself has been accused of it countless times over decades, with a jury in a civil suit finding that he did in fact sexually assault E. Jean Carroll. It’s abundantly clear that this is no longer a morally disqualifying act for Republicans.

Donald Trump has nominated a Christian nationalist with ties to Project 2025 to lead the Office of Management and Budget. CBS News reported Wednesday that Trump has chosen Russ Vought to lead the office for a second time. During Trump’s first term, Vought also served as OMB director. Since then, Vought was part of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 team, writing a chapter about the “Executive Office of the President.”

It’s yet another reminder that Trump is extensively involved with the conservative manifesto, despite his repeated denials during the 2024 campaign. Vought bragged on camera to two undercover climate journalists over the summer about his ties to Trump and his love of “Christian nation-ism.”

Vought told the journalists that his organization, the Center for Renewing America, was already drafting executive orders and policy memos for Trump to use immediately after taking office, making the wild claim that the group planned to to create “shadow” agencies to solidify the “Judeo-Christian worldview value system.”

If Vought is confirmed, he’ll be tasked with putting together the president’s proposed government budget, giving him extensive influence to carry out his far-right agenda. Vought was rumored to be considered for a Cabinet position, having already gone through the Trump team’s (very flawed) vetting system. His appointment follows fellow Project 2025 alumnus Brandon Carr’s nomination as chair of the Federal Communications Commission.

The Project 2025 manifesto was frequently attacked by Democrats and other Trump opponents during the 2024 campaign, leading to Trump saying he had nothing to do with it. But Carr’s and Vought’s appointments, plus Trump’s plans to copy many of Project 2025’s proposals, suggest these denials were just for show.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are making it abundantly clear they will stop at nothing to slash the federal budget, even if it means weaponizing the Supreme Court in order to do so.

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed published Wednesday, the nominated co-chairs of the soon-to-be Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) outlined how they intend to downsize the government, as well as the resources it provides. They want to go after the Impoundment Control Act, a law passed in 1974 that served to limit the executive branch’s control over expenditures authorized by Congress.

“Mr. Trump has previously suggested this statute is unconstitutional, and we believe the current Supreme Court would likely side with him on this question,” Ramaswamy and Musk wrote.

Per the pair’s vision, their intended sweeping budget reform will largely come by way of executive action, working “closely” with the White House Office of Management and Budget. They believe the large-scale reforms are possible thanks to two recent Supreme Court decisions: West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency (2022) and Loper Bright v. Raimondo (2024).

The first case ruled that federal agencies couldn’t impose regulations that would have severe economic effects without the permission of Congress, while Loper Bright overturned a landmark 1984 decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, ceasing a mandate that federal courts defer to executive branch agencies’ interpretation of the laws they administer.

If you’re looking for specifics, the billionaires have a couple of immediate targets: They intend to slash more than $500 million a year from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (which funds NPR and PBS), nearly $300 million from Planned Parenthood, and “$1.5 billion for grants to international organizations.” They also suggest, in vague terms, that “entitlement programs” such as Medicare and Medicaid are on the line, though they refuse to acknowledge how much they intend to burn from the critical health care programs.

The changes will come fast and hard, according to Ramaswamy and Musk, who believe that they will be able to accomplish their goals of shrinking the federal deficit and slashing $2 trillion in spending by July 4, 2026—the nation’s 250th birthday.

“With a decisive electoral mandate and a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court, DOGE has a historic opportunity for structural reductions in the federal government,” the duo wrote. “We are prepared for the onslaught from entrenched interests in Washington. We expect to prevail.”

The House Ethics Committee did not agree Wednesday whether to release its report on former Representative Matt Gaetz.

Committee Chairman Representative Michael Guest said that they had not decided to release the report, according to NOTUS’s Reese Gorman.

“Guest would not say whether or not the committee took a vote on releasing the report just that there was not an agreement by the committee on whether or not to release it,” Gorman posted on X.

The committee was set to vote on whether it would release a report on its yearslong investigation into Gaetz over alleged sexual misconduct, including alleged sexual misconduct with a minor, among a slew of other potential violations. After the meeting adjourned Wednesday afternoon, Punchbowl News’s John Bresnahan and Melanie Zanona reported that there had been several votes on releasing the report, but committee members had been deadlocked along partisan lines. As the report is not yet complete, the committee voted that it be finished and scheduled another vote in December on whether to release it.

Illinois Democrat Sean Casten pledged earlier Wednesday that if the House Ethics Committee failed to vote for the release of the report, he would force a vote on the House floor, according to Politico.

“The allegations against Matt Gaetz are serious. They are credible. The House Ethics Committee has spent years conducting a thorough investigation to get to the bottom of it,” Casten said in a statement. “This information must be made available for the Senate to provide its constitutionally required advice and consent.”

Over the course of the last week, a slew of new information about the committee investigation had already come out. Two women testified before the committee alleging that Gaetz had paid them for sex, and one testified that he’d also had sex with her underage friend. ABC reported Wednesday that the House Ethics Committee reportedly holds records of Gaetz paying those two women more than $10,000 between July 2017 and January 2019.

There is some hope that the contents of the report, even those details that have already been publicly reported, might tank Gaetz’s nomination to be attorney general. However, it seems that allegations of sexual misconduct, even statutory rape, are no longer disqualifying for the potential head of the Justice Department.

“I just don’t think you can deal with allegations in the past as though they’re fact,” North Dakota Senator Kevin Cramer told Politico. He added that Gaetz, and Trump’s other Senate nominees facing allegations of sexual misconduct, haven’t been convicted of anything.

This story has been updated.

Donald Trump’s lame obsession with Elon Musk is actually helping Senate Democrats get stuff done.

As the current Senate majority races to approve all of President Joe Biden’s pending judicial nominations during what remains of the lame-duck session, five GOP senators missed confirmation votes on Tuesday—including Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Tennessee Senator Bill Hagerty who had been invited to watch a SpaceX starship launch with Trump in Texas.

Even though he’d so obviously gotten in his own way, Trump jumped on Truth Social Tuesday to demand that more senators show up to “hold the line” against Biden’s judicial nominees.

Tensions among Senate Republicans have been at an all-time high as they find themselves momentarily helpless against the Democrats’ lame-duck blitz. Without a majority, playing a numbers game on who shows up is their only hope. Cruz, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, and Ohio Senator JD Vance were among the several Republicans who missed Senate votes that stretched late into Monday evening.

“I’m a bit frustrated,” West Virginia Senator Shelley Moore Capito told reporters Tuesday. “After last night’s voting extravaganza, I wonder what we are doing.”

“If we don’t show up, we lose,” said North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis at a GOP policy luncheon Tuesday. “I don’t care what the reasons were. We have fewer than 15 scheduled legislative days. You have to show up. Period. End of story. There’s nothing more important.”

After the luncheon, North Dakota Senator John Hoeven stressed that it was important that as many Republicans as possible were present for these votes. “Because, you know, we could win possibly some of those votes if we have all our folks here. Particularly in the circuit court,” he said.

Not everyone is open to that kind of criticism. When a right-wing pundit tried to call out Vance for missing the votes Tuesday, he had a complete meltdown, claiming he was way too busy to bother showing up and that it wouldn’t make a difference if he did. Within an hour, he had deleted the temper tantrum, as it was explicitly at odds with what Trump had demanded.

Vance has since returned to Capitol Hill to drum up support for Trump’s unfavorable Cabinet nominees Matt Gaetz and Pete Hegseth, who are both facing allegations of sexual misconduct. Cruz, however, has remained MIA. He and Indiana Senator Mike Braun were the only two Republican senators absent Wednesday, while their Democratic colleagues confirmed two more judges on Wednesday by 50–48. So it’s plausible that if Cruz and Braun had actually been in attendance, they might’ve been able to block those confirmations, seeing as Vice President Kamala Harris is on vacation and not available to break a tie.

There are currently 45 judicial vacancies and 17 pending nominees.