Dem
53
Ties
1
GOP
46
Ever since the news broke that Kimberly Guilfoyle tried to use her Trump family connections to shake down a Republican donor for $100,000, it certainly seemed like she was a dead woman walking. And yesterday, the axe was finally swung, as the White House asked for, and received, her resignation as United States Ambassador to Greece.
It is very hard to know why some members of the Trump administration get canned for their misdeeds, and others skate by. Could be gender, at least in part. Trump seems to fire high-profile women in a ratio of roughly 2:1 with high-profile men; for every Corey Lewandowski there's a Lori Chavez-DeRemer and a Pam Bondi, for every Greg Bovino there's a Kristi Noem and a Tulsi Gabbard. Another theory that's out there, in the case of Guilfoyle, is that it's OK to be a grifter in the Trump administration, but only if you let the Grifter-in-Chief wet his beak a little (which she did not). It's also possible that whatever purpose was served in sending her halfway across the globe has been fulfilled. We have no hard evidence to back this up, but it always seemed like sending her abroad was a way to keep her from spilling her guts about the Donalds Trump, as Junior was her former fiancee and Senior was very nearly her father-in-law. Now that Guilfoyle is disgraced, any dirt she might spill would come off as sour grapes, and wouldn't be taken as seriously.
In any event, Guilfoyle's out. In case voters needed a reminder, weeks before the election, that this administration is both chaotic and corrupt, they now have one. Well, another one. We would guess it's 50/50 that Guilfoyle gets replaced before January 20, 2029. It takes Donald Trump a very long time to make nominations anyhow, and if and when he does name a replacement, it's possible that the Senate will be controlled by the Democrats. If they don't approve the nomination, then the U.S. embassy in Athens will just be run by Josh Hack, the professional diplomat who is taking over for Guilfoyle on an interim basis. He's almost certainly better than anyone Trump might come up with.
Meanwhile, which head might be the next one to roll? A pretty good guess is... the person who made the official announcement that Guilfoyle was out. That would be the new White House Press Secretary (WHPS), Katie Zacharia, who made her official debut yesterday. Needless to say, serving as WHPS is no easy task, particularly if you're not used to extemporaneous public speaking. It's even harder to do that job under Donald Trump, as you not only have to lie, lie and lie some more, you have to do so convincingly.
However, even allowing for the fact that it takes some time for a WHPS to find their groove, Zacharia was... underwhelming. The entire press conference lasted only 14 minutes, and she took only three questions. She spoke in a manner that made her seem like an AI-generated character and struggled to read her notes. While she understands well that her job is primarily to deliver propaganda on behalf of the White House, her delivery of said propaganda made Sean Spicer seem believable. Here is a 3½-minute supercut of the lowlights:
If you are a glutton for punishment, and you want to see the whole 14 minutes, that's here.
Zacharia has one other liability, beyond the fact that she was pretty terrible yesterday. She made a big point of the "fact" that she has a law degree, and that she practiced in China. Yesterday, however, it came out that there is no evidence that Zacharia has ever practiced law, or been licensed to practice law, in any jurisdiction in the United States. Initially, she explained that away by asserting that she sat for the bar exam while she was in China. The problem there is that China does not allow non-citizens to do that, and even if they do, the entire exam is in Chinese, and Zacharia is not plausibly fluent enough to handle it. Further, the job she had in China was not a position that is typically filled by a lawyer. By the end of the day yesterday, Zacharia's position had evolved to asserting that she has "all the appropriate credentials" to practice law. OK, then. That reminds us that we've been meaning to make an announcement. We are pleased to share with Electoral-Vote.com readers that both (V) and (Z) have "all the appropriate credentials" to play center for the Los Angeles Lakers.
Trump has an enormous amount of tolerance for incompetence in certain jobs. For example, he doesn't give a tinker's dam about what the Department of Housing and Urban Development is up to, so Secretary Scott Turner is free to do as he pleases. But the President cares enormously about the image that his administration puts forward, and he absolutely hates to see clumsy, embarrassing clips of his press secretary on Fox. So, the WHPS has a much shorter leash. One White House official, speaking off the record, predicted Zacharia might not even make it to 1 Scaramucci (10 days).
And if you would like a dark horse candidate to be the next head to roll, then how about Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth? We are absolutely persuaded that one day, probably sooner rather than later, he will take the fall for the Iran disaster. The only question, as far as we are concerned, is what incident will precipitate his fall. And it is at least possible that the incident that does the job will be... the plans to livestream the execution of Nidal Hasan. It would seem that when he secured permission to use a firing squad, the SecDef neglected to mention that Hasan is disabled and uses a wheelchair; he was shot by law enforcement to stop his attack at Fort Hood and was paralyzed as a result. Trump is not pleased about all the blowback that the decision has produced, and he's concerned that shooting a paralyzed, wheelchair-using man will be a very bad look, indeed. The odds are very good the livestream gets canceled. It's also possible the method of execution will be changed. And if those things come to pass, it could be that Hegseth gets swept aside at the same time. (Z)