Donald Trump's decision to remove Attorney General Pam Bondi — despite her loyalty to the president — has reportedly revealed how he really sees even the most supportive women around him: disposable.
Salon's Amanda Marcotte described how even "the most faithful MAGA acolytes" could be cut from their Trump administration jobs. And for Bondi, even after years of service to Trump, she was the "latest victim of her own hubris."
"Trump has surrounded himself with people who had little to no chance of rising to high levels of power in Washington on their own merits, and certainly not in a traditional Republican administration," Marcotte wrote. "He has no use for expertise or talent; he prefers people who will grovel before him. But because most of Trump’s appointees are talentless hacks, they are disposable. Losing them causes no problems for the president, who can easily replace them with other mediocrities who may not know how to do the job, but are gifted at debasing themselves for the boss."
But Bondi's ousting added another layer of complications, Marcotte explained.
"Bondi’s firing, though, is an especially brutal heave under the MAGA bus," Marcotte wrote. "As the former attorney general of Florida, the president’s adopted state, she has one of the longest histories of Trump staffer at pleasing him."
Trump has made it clear that removing women from the top administration roles doesn't cause a problem for him, especially if he's feeling "grumpy" or frustrated, Marcotte added.
"If she weren’t such an indefensible character, Bondi’s efforts to save her job would be sad," Marcotte wrote. "At congressional hearings, she avoids answering real questions by yelling a lot and heaping embarrassing, disingenuous praise on the president. Trump has reportedly enjoyed these performances, but that’s all water under the bridge now. He had a bad day on Wednesday, where both his sit-in at the Supreme Court during arguments over birthright citizenship and his big White House speech on the Iran war backfired horribly. He needed a whipping post."