Attorney General Pam Bondi's combative performance with lawmakers could be her last, an analyst explained Thursday.
Joanna Coles, Chief Creative and Content Officer of The Daily Beast, described how Bondi's behavior was meant for an audience of one — President Donald Trump — but how that might have backfired.
"Because these hearings, like so much political theater now, are staged for an audience of one: the great and powerful Donald Trump. So while Bondi thought she was playing the role of loyal defender, her sneering responses and burn book takedowns turned her into something else: the Angry Woman. And that is not something her boss would order from Central Casting," Coles wrote.
Bondi did the one thing Trump has openly criticized: women who do not behave in the way he wants them to.
"Yet Trump has made something else equally clear over the years: he does not like 'angry women,'” Coles explained.
Bondi, who was facing a high pressure situation to respond to the Department of Justice's conduct and criticism over the Epstein files and treatment of survivors, lashed out against lawmakers with yelling, insults and name-calling. It was opposite of what he likes, as "his preference has always skewed toward the ornamental: Melania Trump, serene and sphinx-like; Ivanka Trump, polished and now conspicuously silent in his second administration."
Trump has complained about CNN's Kaitlin Collins not smiling around him; he's called Hillary Clinton a "nasty woman."
"Trump prefers women who smile. Women who glide. Women who understand that in Trump’s court, volume control is permitted, but only if it belongs to him," Coles wrote.
Any woman's behavior differing from that, not necessarily a man, is unappealing to him.
"Trump likes dominance," Coles wrote. "He likes control. He likes television moments in which he is the axis and others orbit smoothly around him. What he does not enjoy is watching subordinates seize the emotional spotlight or, worse, look as though they might combust on live television."
Trump views a woman's fury as "dangerous currency" and could ultimately view Bondi's reactions as mentally unstable, and as Coles pointed out, "instability is fatal."
“'You’re fired' has always been more about mood than merit. It’s possible that Bondi’s ugly performance could be her last. And if it is, it’s her own fault. The fix was obvious. If only she had smiled more," Coles wrote.
