There’s a Clear Pattern to Who Trump Throws Under the Bus |
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Pam Bondi is out as attorney general, the latest in a line of high-profile Trump administration women to be sacked in recent weeks. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was fired in early March. Centers for Disease Control Director Susan Monarez was fired in August, even though she had only been confirmed a few weeks earlier. National Intelligence head Tulsi Gabbard is still in her role, but the president has reportedly been polling other Cabinet members on whether he should oust her. And earlier this week, President Donald Trump told press secretary Karoline Leavitt that she was “doing a terrible job,” blaming her for the “93 percent bad publicity” his administration has received. Leavitt, who is pregnant, is set to take leave beginning in May. Trump-watchers are wondering if she’ll last that long.
For a Cabinet that was largely male and almost entirely white to begin with, it’s … interesting to see the women get picked off one by one. When Trump casts around for someone to blame, there’s a clear pattern to who he zeroes in on.
Trump has pushed out men, too—but for the most part only after spectacular screw-ups (and even then, some of the biggest screw-ups remain in their roles). And these men were largely not actually given the public axe, and not made to endure the resulting public humiliation. Former Border Patrol head Greg Bovino oversaw a disastrous Immigration and Customs Enforcement incursion into Minnesota that led to the public killings of two U.S. citizens, sparking mass protests. Even after all of that, he was simply moved back to his previous role in California and allowed to quietly retire. National Security adviser Mike Waltz accidentally added the editor in chief of the Atlantic to a private Signal chat about bombing Yemen; he was removed from his national security post, but made ambassador to the United Nations.
Other men who have made colossal errors have retained their posts. Pete Hegseth is the one who decided to send war plans and other sensitive classified information to his colleagues, his wife, and his brother on Signal in........