I think it's slightly different than what you're suggesting. I'm thinking he's picking the worst people he can pick for these jobs so they get denied and his next pick, which is almost as bad, gets approved instead.
Either way, he mostly gets what he wants... and if whatever attorney general finally does get approved ends up fucking up, which they will, Trump can say, "not my fault, I nominated Gaetz."
I think you’re assigning a level of intelligence that Trump simply doesn’t have here. He’s absolutely not planning for anything more than 10 seconds ahead. He’s got a list of people he knows will do anything he says and he’s installing them wherever with no rhyme or reason.
Hard disagree on this. This has Trump's stench all over it. Every person being tapped for these positions is a Trump sycophant, and none of them are even remotely qualified to do the job he's trying to assign them.
I agree that Trump is not good at planning, well, anything. But none of this feels like a plan. It's all: "I like PersonX. I will hire them." If it feels like a very stupid, short-sighted, and childish thing, it's because Trump is a stupid, short-sighted child.
There is no plan for what happens if Gaetz doesn't get confirmed, just like there was no plan informing his selection of Gaetz. If Gaetz doesn't get confirmed, Trump will make a few all-caps posts on Truth Social, and then nominate another sycophant. He's got so many to choose from these days.
I think that's probably giving him too much credit. He's not really a democratic politician, he's a fascist.
My bet is that he is constructing a loyalty test to weed out opposition within the ranks. Anyone who doesn't fully give into the cult of personality gets put on a list of people he can't trust.
He doesn't really care about gaetz, but gaetz has pissed off enough people within the party to act as a good tool to test the waters of his own party.
That's brilliant, which means that trump isn't thinking that. He's picking the absolute worst people, because he always chooses the absolute worst options for any given choice. We already lived through this reality for four years.
Gaetz was reportedly two days away from the House Ethics Committee releasing its report on his… activities with minors - which was going to be damning. Gaetz instead quits congress to nullify their jurisdiction, and Trump gets easy blackmail over his new AG.
Obviously having a crony run the Justice Department kills all of Trumps investigations, but it also lets him steer the department as he pleases.