SCOTT LUDWIG: Trump’s first order of business: Complete the clown cabinet

Some of you are probably old enough to remember going to the circus and seeing a clown car: 23 Bozos emerging from a small car roughly the size of a VW beetle.

Ridiculous, huh? You ain’t seen nothing yet.

On that note, allow me to introduce Donald Trump’s new Cabinet of Clowns (which may be the “softest” name ever given to a contingent of sycophants and psychopaths):

· Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security: South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, who wrote in her autobiography that killing her dog Cricket made her “a better politician.”

· Secretary of State: Florida Senator Marco Rubio, the man Trump once referred to as “Little Marco” in retaliation to Rubio mocking the size of Trump’s genitalia. Now Trump refers to Rubio as a fearless warrior.

· National Security Adviser: Florida Congressman Mike Waltz, a vigorous supporter of Trump’s bid to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election that led to an apology from the Orlando Sentinel for endorsing Waltz for re-election. (Waltz also campaigned to rename Dulles Airport after Trump. No, I’m serious!)

· Environmental Protection Agency Administrator: Lee Zeldin, who voted against the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 because, presumably, he thought it was OK for people in poverty to die during a pandemic.

· Secretary of the Interior: North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum who, like Trump (supposedly), is a billionaire. He’s got so much money that he once offered $20 gift cards to anyone who donated $1 to his campaign. (I checked; it’s legal.)

· Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy: Stephen Miller. Who on earth could have come up with the idea of deportation camps to hold millions of immigrants? Yep, Stephen Miller. If he’d been born a century earlier, he could have been Hitler.

· Border Czar: Tom Homan, the brains behind separating immigrant children from their parents in Trump’s first term. Now he’s promising to “run the biggest deportation operation this country has ever seen” this time around. By the way, is czar actually a real thing in this country? (Technically, czar is a Russian word for “rule.” Or “Putin.”)

· United Nations Ambassador: Elise Stefanik, who in 2024 asked “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?” then proceeded to answer her own question: “The answer is a resounding no.” For reference, four years ago was 2020, when hundreds of thousands of people were dying from a pandemic, people were afraid to venture outside their homes, the economy was taking the biggest hit since the Great Depression, and Trump was lying to the country about all of it. Sorry to burst your bubble, Elise, but the answer to your question is a resounding Do you really need to ask?

· Ambassador to Israel: Mike Huckabee, who once snipped that Trump couldn’t find John 3:16 (in the Bible) if he tried, and in 2017, while serving as governor of Arkansas, tweeted “Comey’s fired, which means Trump must be one of the few people in D.C. that the FBI doesn’t have something on.” I guess the two have kissed and made up.

· Chief of Staff: Susie Wiles, who chaired Trump’s presidential campaign and whose advice to “stick to the issues” in all of his campaign appearances he blatantly chose to ignore. So who else other than someone he doesn’t listen to would you expect him to pick as his top advisor?

· Deputy Chief of Staff: Dan Scavino, given this title presumably because there isn’t any other spot in the cabinet for someone who’s only purpose is to be Trump’s director of social media.

· Secretary of Defense: Pete Hegseth, who has publicly stated that women shouldn’t have combat roles in the military, which is sort of expected from someone who hosts a show on Fox News. (Apparently Tucker Carlson wasn’t up for the job.) Incidentally, Hegseth impregnated a fellow Fox News employee – who later became his third wife – while still married to his second.

· Director of National Intelligence: Tulsi Gabbard, apparently Trump’s way of thanking her for prepping him for his debate with Kamala Harris. You may remember the debate as the one Trump didn’t dare make eye contact with his opponent the entire evening, presumably because he was intimidated by Harris goading him to “Say it to my face” in campaign speeches leading up to the debate.

· C.I.A. Director: John Ratcliffe, former acting Director of National Intelligence, who earlier faced accusations of weaponizing intelligence to boost Trump’s political prospects. He was also one of the most ardent defenders of Trump during his first impeachment trial.

· White House Communications Director: Steven Cheung, who became available after being turned down for the role of the villain in the next James Bond movie.

· Attorney General: Florida representative Matt Gaetz. (I’ll give you a minute to catch your breath.) Help me out here: Was he Beavis or Butt-head?

· The newly-created Department of Government Efficiency will be led by Elon Musk, the man who paid $44 billion for Twitter just so he could openly disseminate his racist, homophobic, and bat poo crazy thoughts and philosophies, and Vivek Ramaswamy, who has replaced Ron DeSantis as having the most punch-able face in politics.

· Secretary of Health and Human Services: Robert F. “a worm ate my brain/I dumped a dead bear in Central Park/vaccines cause autism” Kennedy Jr. Apparently, actually being a human isn’t required to become the head of an outfit that addresses human services. Go figure.

But what, pray tell, will become of the other looney toons in Trump’s orbit? People like Tim Scott, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and lest we forget, the My Pillow guy? I guess the answer to that question is going to be the same as the answer to how Trump’s Clown Cabinet is going to perform.

Only time will tell.

But if I were a betting man, I’d put my money on mass chaos.