Larry Bell was among the Newsmax writers cheering on our new Trump overlords. He gushed in a Nov. 13 column:
Immediately following Donald Trump’s historic reelection comeback victory, Team Trump has wasted nary a moment vetting and selecting strong leaders who will advance the unambiguous MAGA mandate.
This time around, and very much unlike his first 2016 Washington Rodeo, the president will know who best to trust and depend upon and to follow proven policies based upon previous support and performance.
Bell noted early nominations and speculation about future ones (but no mention of ill-fated attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz), touting one in particular:
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is reportedly being floated around Mar-a-Lago as a good choice to head the Department of Health and Human Services. This or any other nominated position for JFK Jr. would certainly gain resounding Senate approval.
Would he, though? Most people don’t like anti-vaxxer conspiracy theorists.
Bell served up more rah-rah for the cabinet nominees in his Nov. 22 column:
President-elect Donald Trump is going all-out at full speed to put his White House leadership team and guidance priorities together pursuant to carrying out a clear electoral and popular vote mandate for radical change.
In doing so, many of his nominations for top cabinet and agency positions draw upon individuals independent from the federal administrative state and its incestuously beholden special interest Washington Beltway cronies.
Unsurprisingly, the very notion of drawing from a pool largely comprised of establishment “outsiders” from successful business backgrounds whose central mission is to disrupt free-spending, overregulating bureaucratic bastions of fiscal and rule-making policy unaccountability is being roundly assailed by Democrats as “radical.”
Instead, the opposite is truer.
The federal establishment has moved radically afield from what America’s constitutional framers had in mind when they established three co-equal branches of government and placed primary responsibility for legislation on Congress rather than rulemaking by unelected agency officials.
Bell then tried to spin Gaetz’s withdrawal (without explicitly admitting he was a terrible choice):
To his credit, on Thursday Trump’s Attorney General pick, former Fla. Rep. Matt Gaetz, withdrew his own candidacy to avoid disruptive contention within his party ranks regarding denied sexual scandal allegations which he said were “unfairly becoming a distraction.”
The Department of Justice that Gaetz was nominated to reform had previously investigated such claims but has filed no charges against him for any criminal offenses.
Gaetz’s AG nomination also drew particularly strong opposition from some members of his own party in large part due to active and ultimately successful efforts over 14 rounds of ballots to remove Kevin McCarthy as Speaker when Republicans regained control of the House in 2023.
Bell parroted dubious right-wing talking points about the current occupant of that post:
Trump will now tap former Fla. Attorney General Pam Bondi to replace AG Merrick Garland, arguably the most radically unjust person ever to hold that politically weaponized position.
He’s the guy who authorized an armed early morning FBI raid on the former president’s and first lady’s personal Mar-a-Lago residence in search of classified documents while ignoring those haphazardly stored in Joe’s garage, and who had parents concerned about indoctrination of young school children with sexually age-inappropriate materials investigated as suspected domestic terrorists.
Bell is lying — no parent who were merely “concerned” were treated as “terrorists,” just the ones who actually threatened school board members. He went on to tout other nominees:
Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Security and John Ratcliffe as CIA Director will address radically neglected foreign espionage and coercion threats evidenced by rampant foreign Biden family influence peddling including Chinese Communist Party-affiliated entities and individuals.
[…]Afghanistan and Iraq combat veteran Pete Hegseth has been tapped as Secretary of Defense along with former Green Beret Fla. Rep. Mike Waltz as national security adviser at a time of radically great global unrest under weak and confused foreign policies including the spectacular Afghanistan withdrawal debacle.
Bell made no mention of the personal scandals surrounding Hegseth or the security issues surrounding Gabbard.
Bell concluded: “So yes, America is long overdue for radical disruption of a federal government that no longer represents what voters demand and deserve.” He offered no evidence that compromised partisan hacks like Hegseth, Gaetz and Gabbard are what “voters demand and deserve.”