In the wake of the United States dropping bombs on Iran, New York Times Opinion WriterFrank Bruni is railing against the “coterie of toadies” who are supposed to be advising President Donald Trump on such actions.
“President Trump dropped 15-ton bombs on uranium enrichment sites in Iran with Tulsi Gabbard as his director of national intelligence and Pete Hegseth as his defense secretary,” Bruni said, “I, for one, am not comforted.”
Noting several reports claiming Hegseth was not consulted on the move, and Gabbard's relationship with Trump is strained, Bruni believes Trump chose them because he is a “shock artist” who wants to color outside the lines. He added, “The kookier the crayon, the better.”
Bruni noted that complaints about the motley crew of advisors Trump has chosen are not new. However, it has now become a different story “to confront their inappropriateness when an impulsive, mercurial president takes a risk this enormous, commencing the kind of military intervention he long railed against, in a combustible region that he previously expressed such wariness about.”
The opinion writer also railed against Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio who, along with Hegseth, stood around Trump Saturday evening “with such strenuously blank expressions, such erect postures, it was as if they’d been turned into automatons and feared that any tiny twitch might be interpreted as doubt or disagreement.”
Claiming Vance and Rubio are “less devoted to complementing Trump than to complimenting him,” Bruni is hoping for a confident voice to arise from the wake of the strikes on Iran.
“What [Trump] needs at a juncture like this are confident confidants who can play devil’s advocate, not a coterie of toadies who whisper sweet nothings in his ear—or have nothing valuable to whisper at all,” Bruni said.