At the start of Donald Trump’s second term, the Senate had a very important job: provide advice and consent on the newly elected president’s cabinet picks, as enumerated in Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution.
These hearings don’t always come with fireworks, controversy, and drama — in 2017, for example, all but one of Trump’s nominations were confirmed. In 2021, all but one of Joe Biden’s picks were confirmed.
But in all fairness, neither 2017 nor 2021 was the wild and wacky clown show of 2025.
Trump’s second-term Cabinet reads like a list of Who’s Who of questionable and unsavory characters from the quackiest corners of the MAGA mediasphere.
There was Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, whose “Fox & Friends” weekend co-host gig may have gotten him the job, but whose personal life — accusations of infidelity, sexual assault and alcohol abuse — became a humiliating and alarming sidestory that nearly derailed his confirmation. Emphasis on “nearly.”
There was Justice Department head Pam Bondi, who had actively worked to undermine the 2020 election results, had faced accusations of corruption while Florida attorney general, and was presumed to be a willing accomplice in Trump’s efforts to weaponize the DOJ against his political enemies.
There was Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a known science-denier and conspiracy theorist whose weird interactions with a dead bear, a dead dog, a dead brain worm— and a living New York magazine reporter— very much should have ended his confirmation bid.
And let’s not forget Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel, Kristi Noem and Howard Lutnick — a “Star Wars” bar of unqualified, attention-seeking sycophants who definitely weren’t “the best people.”
But every one was confirmed, in many cases with every Republican voting yes — only five of the 53 Republicans voted against at least one of the president’s nominees, despite their clear and concerning controversies. It was an embarrassing look for the upper chamber.
But what a difference a year — and a midterm election — makes.
The Senate seems to have finally found its voice in standing up to Trump as he — and maybe because he — actively imperils their majority with every primary challenge, impolitic distraction, and election denial he offers.
Majority Leader John Thune has resisted pressure from Trump to eliminate the 60-vote legislative filibuster, and is now openly stating his frustration at Trump’s demands that Republicans pass his election-denialism SAVE America Act, telling Trump to “get on the phone and get the votes.”
Despite Trump’s insistence, Thune is pushing for senators to go home so they can campaign for their reelections, something Trump seems wholly disinterested in.
Meanwhile, retiring Sens. Thom Tillis and John Cornyn — both victims of Trump’s capricious and needless primarying — have held up his nomination of Todd Blanche to be attorney general, insisting Blanche provide a written guarantee the administration will not pursue a $1.8 billion weaponization slush fund.
Trump, who can only afford to lose one Republican vote, said Thursday that he may withdraw Blanche’s name until Tillis and Cornyn are out of office next year.
Three other Republicans — Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski — banded together to oppose Bill Pulte’s appointment to be director of national intelligence, effectively forcing Trump to give up.
And a group of Republicans, including Cassidy and Rand Paul, joined Democrats to limit Trump’s unilateral war powers, hoping to force an ending to his unpopular, ill-advised and spiraling Iran war adventure.
It’s perhaps a taste of the continued pressure Trump may face from his own party in his lame-duck years, or maybe it’s a foreshadowing of his life under a Democratic majority if Republicans get voted out in November.
But either way, it’s a welcome sight — senators, finally doing the job they were elected to do.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.