Besides the ill-defined Iranian war, DOJ-FBI created the Epstein file debacle, tariff fiasco, Venezuela, Ecuador, Greenland, and Cuba interventions, special elections turning in Democrats’ favor, and the ever-increasing cost for gasoline, health care, mortgages, rent, prescription drugs, food, clothing, natural gas, electricity, and Agri-fertilizer, President Trump has other problems.
YouGov polling reveals that nearly all of Trump’s second-term political appointees are net-unpopular. Let’s examine six of Trump’s most troubling appointees.
Kristi Noem
Fifty-two GOP and seven Democratic senators confirmed Kristi Noem’s appointment to serve as Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary. After Noem gutted FEMA, received hundreds of court orders for unconstitutional immigration actions, spent $220 million for self-promoting DHS ads, and her ICE agents killed two citizens in Minnesota and one resident in Texas, Mr. Trump had seen enough and on March 5 told Noem, “You’re fired.”
Pete Hegseth
Mr. Hegseth’s tenure as Secretary of Defense commenced unfavorably when a journalist and several unauthorized individuals were included in a Signal chat where details about immigrant strikes on Houthi targets were revealed. Hegseth’s mismanagement is under investigation by the Pentagon.
Gerard Baker, a journalist for the conservative-oriented Wall Street Journal, criticized Hegseth in a March 10 essay where Baker described Hegseth’s Iran wartime oratory language as “cringe-making … `death and destruction from the sky all day long’ is the sort that would be rejected by the cartoonists at Marvel Comics.”
On March 13, Hegseth said of the Iran war, “no quarter, no mercy for our enemies” (the refusal to take prisoners and execute everyone), which violates international law and the 1966 War Crimes Act; a serious red flag.
Currently, only 29% of citizens feel Hegseth should remain in office (Truthout).
Pam Bondi
As Trump’s attorney general, Ms. Bondi fired the Department of Justice’s top ethics adviser. Bondi then fired the head of the Office of Professional Responsibility, which investigates DOJ attorney misconduct. Bondi did not fill either position. Legal experts and former judges say the DOJ is now an “ethics-free workplace” (Liz Oyer, March 5).
Despite a December 2025 legal deadline requiring the release of all Epstein files, lawmakers maintain that around 50% of the files remain unreleased (ABC News). It’s not surprising that a March 2026 poll revealed only 22% of Americans believe she should remain in office (Truthout).
RFK Jr’s leadership of the Health and Human Services agency has created turmoil through a series of anti-medical science decisions from issues related to children’s vaccines, mental health grants, fluoridated water, anti-vaccine advisory board, and autism holocaust. A front page headline from March 14-15’s Wall Street Journal spoke volumes: White House puts RFK on tight leash.
Kash Patel
Kash Patel’s tenure as FBI director has been marked by multiple high-profile controversies, centering on the politicization of the bureau, personnel vendettas, public misstatements, the erosion of institutional norms, the use of FBI resources for personal conduct, strains with foreign intelligence partners, and the handling of the Charlie Kirk assassination investigation.
A Feb. 17 Rasmussen Report notes low morale exists among current and former FBI employees. 66% of Americans have unfavorable or very unfavorable opinions of Mr. Patel.
Stephen Miller
Mr. Miller, White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, has been a central figure in the Trump administration’s far-right, populist, pro-tariff, and anti-immigration policies (Parmar & Furse; Nagel; Bose; and Apel). In 2021, Jean Guerrero, an American investigative journalist, characterized Miller as a white nationalist.
As of Jan. 27, 2026, YouGov polling found that only 17% of respondents have a positive impression of Miller.
Brendan Carr
When Mr. Carr, chair of the Federal Communications Commission, threatened to revoke broadcast licenses for ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR, and PBS for being critical of President Trump, freedom of the press and civil liberty groups came unglued.
Suspending Jimmy Kimmel’s show from ABC and cancelling Stephen Colbert’s `The Late Show’ were too much for Americans. Mess with Americans’ TV and here’s the result: only 19% of Americans have a positive opinion of Mr. Carr (Quinnipiac poll).
Reality and Resolve
In an essay I opined, titled `Best and Worse U.S. Presidential Cabinets Ranked: What the Research Reveals,’ published Sept. 3, 2025 in The Fulcrum, research revealed Mr. Trump’s first- and second-term cabinets were the worst in US history, citing his “cabinets have been widely criticized for their lack of qualifications … appointments based on loyalty over capability … and poorly vetted appointees ….”
With over $1 billion in taxpayer funds spent – every year- to keep the Senate operating, we should expect better-vetted, approved presidential appointees.
Let your two Senators know how disappointed you are in their role in permitting Hegseth, Bondi, RFK Jr., Patel, Miller, and Carr to remain on the taxpayer’s payroll while Trump’s appointees are irresponsibly serving their 348 million American constituents. Senators’ and citizens’ silence effectively endorses the status quo.
Americans’ sentiment is clear. Mr. Trump: Say it again six more times, “you’re fired!”
Steve Corbin is a professor emeritus of marketing at the University of Northern Iowa and a non-paid freelance guest columnist contributor to 158 newspapers and 47 social media platforms in 44 states
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a“ Steel Across America” event ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11th attacks on the Ellipse near the White House on Sept. 8, 2026 in Washington, D.C. President Trump welcomed 9/ 11 first responders to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation’ s“ Steel Across America” event featuring a 16,900- pound, 21- foot steel beam recovered.
For Trump, even 9/11 is an opportunity
There was a reason organizers of the 9/11 ceremony in Manhattan told President Trump he could not speak at this year’s memorial service.
A good one, it turns out.
Because in a speech he gave on Tuesday in Washington, he did exactly what they were presumably worried about — he made it about himself.
According to The New York Times, Trump had wanted a speaking role at the service, but the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum, which oversees the site, said no, as they’ve maintained for the past decade-plus that the venue and event should be nonpartisan.
Trump has long used awful tragedies to either puff himself up, trash political opponents, or sell lies to the American people.
He blamed a deadly plane crash at Washington National Airport last year on diversity, equity and inclusion policies. He blamed Puerto Ricans for the devastation they endured after Hurricane Maria in 2017. He reportedly considered withholding disaster relief after the California wildfires based on the way affected regions voted. In an interview on Fox News meant to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, he used the occasion to slam former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi…with graves of the dead behind him.
And now, as we approach the 25th anniversary of what many New Yorkers consider the darkest day in modern history, Trump has done it again.
He told a rambling, nonsensical story — one he’s told before — about going to Ground Zero just after terrorists flew two commercial jets into the twin towers. In the story, which no one has been able to verify, despite multiple attempts, he says firefighters had to carry him out of One Liberty Plaza, also known as the U.S. Steel Building, because they thought it was about to collapse.
As CNN fact checker Daniel Dale notes, there’s no evidence Trump went into this building, especially at a time when NYPD and NYFD had locked down the area. There’s no evidence that building was collapsing — in fact, it was deemed structurally sound and reopened within two months of the attacks. There’s no evidence he was carried out of it by firefighters.
But the lie isn’t even the worst part. Pretend it was all true — why would the leader of our country, and a New Yorker, decide to make that tragic day about himself?
Because that’s who Donald Trump is. He’s a malignant narcissist.
He’s also, incidentally, a terrible and ineffectual president, who’s made ill-fated decisions that he has to keep defending, and there’s nothing he won’t do to make himself look and feel better.
Within the first two minutes of his speech, he was cravenly using 9/11 to justify and promote his dumb war in Iran — two events separated by 25 years and 6,000 miles.
“And I will tell you, we’re right now fighting because we have a certain nation that wanted a nuclear weapon, they were very close to getting it, and now they have no chance at getting it. They will never have a nuclear weapon. Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. And they’ve been punished greatly. As you know, we’ve really taken it to them.”
As a New Yorker who lived through 9/11, still one of the worst days of my life, I’m utterly sickened by Trump’s crass, political, and self-promotional framing of that awful day.
And I’m relieved he won’t be given a platform to do it again on Friday’s anniversary in lower Manhattan.
Because for Trump, everything is his for the taking, and absolutely nothing is sacred.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.