Matt Gaetz
Matt Gaetz

PR artist Donald Trump has painted a masterpiece via the nomination of the reprehensible Matt Gaetz as attorney general, a post that vice president JD Vance called the second most powerful position in the new administration.

There is no way that the Senate can approve Gaetz, who was the subject of a three-year Justice Dept. probe into sex trafficking that ended in 2023, for the job.

Putting his name forward though sends a strong signal to Trump’s MAGA base that he is serious about blowing things up in DC. Trump has gone beyond draining the swamp to ripping down the infrastructure of the federal government.

The response to the Gaetz nomination also gives the incoming president an early signal about how much leeway he will get from the Republican-controlled Senate. Will it take on the traditional advise and consent role, or will it cave to the whims its Dear Leader?

The selection of Gaetz, who has called for the dismantling of the FBI, is so off-the-wall, it makes the pick of the totally unqualified guy to run the Department of Defense, Pete Hegseth, look not so bad in comparison.

The telegenic “Fox & Friends Weekend” co-host has never run a big institution like the Pentagon, which has a budget of $840B and 2.8M employees around the world. But he will look good on TV defending the policies of his boss. That’s all that matters.

Hegseth is a committed culture warrior and is expected to wage a war on “wokeness” at the Pentagon.

That’s a risky focus as the US faces military challenges with the wind-down of the Ukraine conflict, chaos in the Middle East, a showdown with China in the Pacific, and rising tensions with North Korea.

Battling wokeness should be far down on the to-do list on the next SecDef.

What are the chances that Elon Musk will continue to be a valued member of Team Trump on July 4, 2026, the target date for the completion of the work of the Dept. of Government Efficiency? I would say slim to none.

First off, why did Trump install Vivek Ramaswamy, another super-ego maniac, to work with Musk on the DOGE project. They are two unlikely peas in the same pod.

DOGE should be Elon’s show. He was the guy who has been mouthing off about getting rid of government regulations, and slashing spending by a whopping $2T from the $6.5T federal budget. That’s about a third of US spending.

Musk plays second fiddle to nobody.

And then there is the matter of management bloat at the top of an operation that believes it can replace thousands of federal employees who are involved in overlapping work.

Yet Trump has charged these “two wonderful Americans to pave the way for my Administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures and restructure federal agencies.”

In his announcement about the creation of DOGE, Trump referred to “the Great Elon Musk” and “American Patriot” Vivek Ramaswamy.

The Washington Post has reported that $2T in cuts are impossible to achieve unless military spending and Social Security programs are slashed by 33 percent.

Elon is not deterred. He is currently throwing out cliches about cutting spending “to get government off your back and out of your pocketbook” and promises “an amazing future.”

His future is bright indeed as Tesla’s market capitalization has surged more than $300B since the election, which is more than the combined market cap of General Motors, Ford and Stellantis.

God help the rest of us.

Poor pathetic Joe…The Nov. 5 election drubbing wasn’t enough for President Joe Biden, who is trying to get through his worst week in PR.

On Nov. 12, the US decided not to withhold military aid to Israel because it improved the humanitarian conditions in Gaza.

Biden had given Israel boss Benjamin Netanyahu a one-month deadline to allow more food assistance into the embattled enclave or face a cut-off of some weapons.

Per usual, Netanyahu paid little attention to the threats from Biden. Per usual, Joe caved.

At deadline time, eight human rights groups including Oxfam and Save the Children issued a report, saying that “Israel not only failed to meet the US criteria that would indicate support to the humanitarian response, but concurrently took actions that dramatically worsened the situation on the ground, particularly in northern Gaza.”

The groups said Israel’s military operations have kept food aid from flowing to Gaza, resulting in famine conditions for 800K Palestinian civilians.

And then there was Biden’s photo-op with president-elect Trump in which the president promised a smooth transition for the guy who triggered the Jan. 6 riot, and now claims that he should not have left office in the first place.

Biden shaking hands with the man that he once called a great threat to America’s democracy was head-spinning.

It was the capstone of his uneven presidency.

Mattel makes embarrassing PR stumble amid the over-the-top hype for the movie, “Wicked.” The toymaker mistakenly listed the web address of a pornographic website on the packaging of its Wicked character dolls.

The address was supposed to link to the official movie site, but a misprint led consumers to the site of Wicked Pictures, which produced the upcoming “Kenzie Loves Girls 2” porn flick.”

Target, WalMart, Macy’s, Kohl’s, and BestBuy pulled the Mattel dolls from their shelves, as did amazon.com.

Mattel apologized for its “unfortunate error” and advised parents that the “misprinted, incorrect website is not appropriate for children.”

You can say that again.

Good luck to the 1400 professionals at FGS Global who will go under scrutiny by the consultants at McKinsey & Co.

My hunch is that a good chunk of FGS Global’s 31 offices will either be shuttered or consolidated.

That’s the hallmark of McKinsey.

It’s a bit troubling that a sophisticated corporate communications shop is being graded by a firm with a tattered reputation due to its work with Saudi Arabia and opioid king Purdue Pharma.

But I guess that's what happens when FGS Global ownership shifts from communications and creative powerhouse WPP to the bean-counters at KKR investment firm.