Former White House staffer: Trump Cabinet 'most inept lackeys' ever seen

U.S. President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., attend a cabinet meeting at the White House (Reuters)
U.S. President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., attend a cabinet meeting at the White House (Reuters)
Adam Lynch
November 28, 2025 | 12:10PM ET Trump

Former White House deputy press secretary Jen Psaki unloaded on the ‘clown car Cabinet’ of President Donald Trump.

“Donald Trump has been humiliated a lot lately. And while most of the time that’s because of his own behavior, it’s also because of the people he surrounds himself with,” Psaki said on MS NOW’s “The Briefing with Jen Psaki.”

For Trump’s Cabinet, “living like a C-list celebrity is the job,” said Psaki.

FBI Director Kash Patel has repeatedly used a government jet for recreational travel, including a golf trip at a Scotland private resort, a wrestling event in Pennsylvania and a getaway to a Texas hunting resort. Psaki said Patel has also made news redirecting SWAT team agents from actual emergencies to serve as the personal security detail for his 27-year-old girlfriend.

The White House pushed back on reports that Trump is considering removing Patel, saying Patel’s team is “doing an excellent job carrying out the President’s agenda,” and that Patel “is a critical member of the President’s team and he is working tirelessly to restore integrity to the FBI.”

“I know from experience that when a White House statement contains any version of ‘The president has confidence in,’ or ‘This Cabinet member is a part of a great team,’ it isn’t typically a good sign,” said Psaki, who handled media relations for president Biden and Obama.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, however, “when she isn’t spending her days playing cowgirl dress-up or riding around in Lego cars … has been facing considerable scrutiny over a report from ProPublica that her agency funneled hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to a firm with ties to Noem herself,” said Psaki. “A group of lawmakers has now called for an investigation into how that firm ended up getting all that taxpayer money.”

Meanwhile, Trump’s treasury secretary, Scott Bessent is defending Trump’s disastrous tariff policy and exploding grocery, housing and healthcare costs by telling Americans that the “best way” to bring down inflation is to “move from a blue state to a red state.”

Trump’s secretary of health and human services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is making the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website dispute evidence that that vaccines do not cause autism, (amid a nationwide measles outbreak). And Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is moving ahead with an investigation into Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) over [his] participation in a social media video reminding members of the armed forces that they do not have to follow illegal orders.

“Now, it’s clear none of the people Trump chose to be part of his administration are exactly killing it these days. But there is perhaps nowhere in Trump’s administration suffering more embarrassment than the Justice Department,” said Psaki. “In just the past week, we learned that Lindsey Halligan, Trump’s handpicked prosecutor leading the investigations into two of his rivals, made critical mistakes that jeopardized their entire case against former FBI Director James Comey.”

On Monday, a judge ruled that the administration never properly appointed Halligan in the first place, meaning the cases she lodged against Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James are dismissed. At the same time, Psaki said the Justice Department is investigating two Trump officials for potentially violating the law during their investigation of Trump political rival Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California.

“There is perhaps nothing more important to Trump in his second term than his revenge tour against his rivals,” said Psaki. “But somehow, those prosecutions have become the biggest example of incompetence from an administration staffed by some of the most inept lackeys this country has ever seen.”

Read the MS NOW report at this link.