The thing that ends Donald Trump's presidency may not be the war in Iran or high prices, according to columnist Molly Jong-Fast. She argues it will be the way his White House runs, like a high school clique.
In a guest essay published Sunday in The New York Times, Jong-Fast wrote that Trump governs "alongside a high school clique of dumb jocks (Pete Hegseth!) and hot cheerleaders (Natalie Harp!) and nerdy suck-ups (Mike Johnson!)."
"This dynamic — more than another unnecessary war or even a cost of living crisis — will be the key to Mr. Trump's undoing," she wrote.
Jong-Fast said past White Houses, from George Washington's to Joe Biden's, were full of competing power centers that could slow down or stop bad decisions. She said Trump's cabinet was "picked like something out of Bama rush." In her telling, officials are chosen for how well they "dazzle dear leader," and after that, all that matters is "continuing to tell the president what he wanted to hear."
She wrote that the result is a "sycophancy Olympics." She pointed to cabinet members wearing matching $145 Florsheim shoes that Trump gave them, and to Harp, who she said passes Trump "positive news coverage and good polls like she's the 'Mean Girls' gossip Gretchen Wieners."
She cited Axios reporting that Trump's aides no longer try to stop him. "Why bother? He's the boss," a longtime adviser told the outlet.
"Maybe because everybody around him was too scared to tell him," Jong-Fast wrote.
She said that could explain why Trump seems not to notice his record-low approval rating or that Hispanic voters are leaving the GOP. She argued that the president who once knew how to shape the story is now "living in such a fantasy world that his greatest power has been effectively neutralized."
She predicted the midterms could be his "next project to fail." She also said the GOP could still turn on him to save itself.
"Teenage girls can't invoke the 25th Amendment on their bullies," she wrote, "but this cabinet theoretically could."