The hearings for the Trump nominees have been very disappointing and it is only partially because of the nature of the nominees themselves. The other reasons include the format of the hearings themselves, as well as the nature of the questioning done by the Senators who are members of the various vetting committees.

In most instances, I believe, the members of the various committees have the opportunity to have a personal meeting with the nominee, in addition to being able to review whatever material is made available. The only case this year where this did not happen is when the new Secretary of Defense refused to meet with the Democrats. This blanket refusal didn’t affect his clearance at all.

But the Democrats have done a terrible job questioning the nominees. Why is this? Perhaps it relates to the competence of the individuals, but I don’t think this is the case. In part, it’s because the hearings, being televised, are opportunities for the Senators to put something on video record that might be useful back home. In part, it’s because in the nature of members of Congress generally to berate those who testify before them, a form of public bullying that I have never understood or accepted. It’s also because many times a Senator wants to get a question on the record, but doesn’t have the patience to wait out an answer, or is afraid the nominee will answer the question in a way different from the way the Senator would like the nominee to answer it. So the Senator starts to ask the follow up question without giving the nominee a chance to respond to the first. But it is also because each Senator is generally limited to five minutes to question the nominee.

Five minutes is insufficient to do anything productive. First, each Senator obviously wants to make a brief opening statement, which eats into their time. Second, the nominee knows that he/she can stall almost anything for five minutes and not really answer a questions, which provokes the questioning Senator, whose time is fast running out, to interrupt and get nowhere.

I would suggest it would be better to limit the number of questioners to, say, six (three from each party, to be decided by that party’s committee members) and give them each 30 or 45 minutes to question the nominee. This would make for a much more meaningful hearing.

To make matters worse, the Senators do not ask the obvious questions, such as: (1) Do you think Trump is perfect? If not, name two things that he has done or said that you do not approve of. (2) If DOGE is successful in cutting the budget of your agency by, say, 20%, where will those cuts be made, and how will that affect your agency’s accomplishment of its mission? (3) How do you define DEI? How will you insure that there is no DEI activity in your agency? What will the effect of those efforts be? Will you recognize, for example, Black History Month?

And so forth.

Trump has been in office for 11 days and the world has been turned inside out (much harder to comprehend than upside down). But it is now that the fun is starting. Today (Feb 1) 25% tariffs are being charged to material coming in from Mexico and Canada. Not that I have any real idea as to how quickly that can actually be implemented, but how will industries (and particularly the auto industry) accommodate to this practice, which will throw all of their operations and planning off?

We have also heard that various FBI officials have been asked (ha!) to resign, and clearly those who worked on the Trump investigations are at risk. How will the FBI deal with this. Forget about the Trump investigation cases – what about the other pending cases that these investigators are working on? The same question can be asked with regard to the various U.S. Attorney offices. Won’t our entire criminal justice system be affected?

Finally, I am glad that someone quickly fact checked DJ’s ridiculous press conference yesterday, when he blamed the National Airport crash on Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg and their ridiculous DEI hiring program at the FAA. We now know that that hiring program was not instituted by Biden or even by Barack Obama. It was implemented by the administration of one Donald J. Trump the First.

It will be interesting (that’s a euphemism) to see how all this plays out. If it plays out at all.