Trump Makes Up Best Jobs For Best Idiots Devin Nunes And Ric Grenell
Trying to keep them as far away from the White House as he can?
The All-Star lineup that is Donald Trump’s second presidential administration continues to take shape. And by All-Star lineup, we mean this chucklefuck collection of baked potatoes so odious, so repellent, so loathsome, that we will need all the bleach in the known universe to disinfect Washington DC after they eventually abscond with every dollar from the nation’s treasury that hasn’t been screwed into the floor.
Over the weekend, Sweet Potato Suharto added to this harem of monstrosities his ambassador to Germany from his first administration, who was such an asshole that the Germans openly cheered when he left. Then Trump followed up by adding a doofus former congressman who once sued a pretend cow for being mean to him. Like we said, all-stars.
We will say this, though. The jobs that Ric Grenell and Devin Nunes signed on for at least sound as if the two men are being shunted off to the edges of the administration, as opposed to being brought in toward any center of power. We suppose it is a second-best-case scenario with these two, the best-case scenario obviously being stranding them on Attu Island with nothing but a thermos full of horse diarrhea and one long-sleeve T-shirt to ward off the cold that they have to share.
Let’s start with Nunes. His list of sins is too long to summarize concisely. We do remember his laughingly ironic chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee during the early days of the investigation of Trump’s ties to Russia, when he spent weeks and months trying to undermine the inquiry by leaking to the press that he had information from whistleblowers that the Obama administration had illegally conspired to frame Trump. Needless to say, this was bullshit.
Nunes’ efforts included a secret meeting at the White House to meet with the alleged whistleblowers, who were actually Trump toadies, in a weird nighttime dash around Washington that was so inept, none other than Lindsey Graham compared him to Inspector Clouseau.
Christ, we wish anyone in the Trump administration had the competence of Inspector Clouseau.
Nunes sued Ryan Lizza and Esquire for publishing an accurate story about his family moving its dairy farm from California to Iowa, a suit that was eventually dismissed in its entirety. He also sued CNN for defamation for $435,000,000. Unsurprisingly, that one was also dismissed in its entirety. Nunes does love filing frivolous lawsuits that judges kick into the ionosphere.
Nunes eventually resigned from Congress to become CEO of the Trump Media and Technology Group, the parent company of Trump’s vanity social media product and Nazi safe space Truth Social. He will soon be taking on an additional gig, as chairman of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board:
So he’s taking this position while continuing to run one of Trump’s private businesses? Boy, that doesn’t sound at all like a massive conflict of interest waiting to happen.
According to the White House website, the PIAB exists to provide the President “with an independent source of advice on the effectiveness with which the Intelligence Community is meeting the nation’s intelligence needs.” This means that Nunes, according to Barbara McQuade of MSNBC, will have access to all of America’s massive trove of intelligence. Which, given Nunes’s past efforts to manipulate classified information to look favorable to Trump, feels like a recipe for disaster.
On the plus side, this is an advisory board and a position deemed not important enough for Senate confirmation. It’s not as if Trump is trying to make Nunes the Director of National Intelligence. Frankly, we’d be shocked if Nunes has the smarts to impress even the Senate enough to confirm him, and the Senate’s Republican caucus includes the likes of Tommy Tuberville and Ron Johnson.
Speaking of the DNI, we might have Tulsi Gabbard overseeing America’s entire intelligence community and Devin Nunes, a man his hometown paper once called “Trump’s yes-man,” running an advisory board telling Trump whether she’s doing a good job or not. This is either the setup for a horrific disaster movie or history’s dumbest romcom.
Then we come to Richard Grenell, possibly the nastiest piece of work in an administration full of people that would reject the shark from Jaws as too milquetoast, a description he will likely enjoy putting on his business cards.
Grenell served as the ambassador to Germany during part of Trump’s first administration. He took over the job in May of 2018. By the following January, as Our Liz once noted, German politicians were calling for his expulsion.
Grenell’s sins, in addition to general galactic assholery, were fairly numerous. We suppose you could sum them up as his trying to export Trumpism to one of America’s biggest European allies. Given that Trumpism is just warmed-over bullying by dotards, this went over about as well as one could expect.
For example, within one day of taking office, Grenell was threatening German companies that did any business with Iran. He publicly suggested on Tucker Carlson’s show, which was still on Fox, that Germany needed a change in leadership. As Liz noted:
Advocating for leadership change in a diplomat's host country is very NOT ON, not to mention being a violation of Article 41 of the Vienna Convention, which requires overseas diplomats "not to interfere in the internal affairs of that State." So Grenell was off to a cracking good start!
Grenell also spent time cozying up to Alternative for Germany (AfD), a far-right nationalist political party. Hey, when has coddling a far-right nationalist political party in Germany ever backfired on the planet? And yet these were the people Grenell found most comfortable being around, and violated an international treaty to stan for. Diplomacy!
Is it any wonder that Der Spiegel reported that of the more than 30 sources it interviewed for a profile on Grenell, the majority described him as a “vain, narcissistic person who dishes out aggressively, but can barely handle criticism”? Just like his boss!
And this was just Grenell’s ambassadorship. We won’t even get into his involvement with the Stop the Steal movement in 2020, except to say that he admitted to GOP operatives in Nevada that the whole thing was bullshit.
It’s always neat when people openly put their own desperate need for power above American democracy. Truly the evil orcs who raised Grenell in a cave in the woods must be proud.
Even before the 2024 election, Grenell was openly campaigning to be Secretary of State in the next Trump Reich. After the election, he was even more craven and pathetic about it, according to Politico, which reported recently on efforts by conservatives to convince Trump to name Grenell to the job:
Around the same time, an associate of Grenell had approached conservative social media influencers, according to two people with knowledge of the situation, offering paid contracts of as much as five figures to post favorably about Grenell.
Listen, if you have to pay people to say nice things about you, maybe the job of America’s chief diplomat is not a good fit. Nonetheless, Grenell supposedly told people in Trump’s orbit that he would accept nothing less than secretary of State.
Then the State gig went to Marco Rubio, and suddenly Grenell would accept whatever scraps the Trump people tossed his way:
“Presidential Envoy for Special Missions” sounds like the sort of make-work consolation prize you give to someone who didn’t get the job he wanted, and also who you would like to keep out of the White House and the country as much as possible.
So congrats to Grenell on his participation trophy. And Devin Nunes on his participation trophy. You’re both doing great.
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Competence is a liability. Only allegiance to the pricktator counts.
"Sweet Potato Suharto"
And the hits just keep on coming!