The Worst People In Trump’s Orbit Ahead of His Second Term

It can be tough to separate Elon Musk’s actual political beliefs from his rampant shitposting, but here goes: Women should give birth to as many children as possible, preferably to him (“Fine Taylor, you win… I will give you a child,” he tweeted at Taylor Swift when she endorsed Harris); climate change isn’t an issue, we can just go to Mars; unregulated cryptocurrency is the way of the future, and anyone trying to stand in its way hates freedom; the “woke mind virus” is pervasive and turning children — including one of his — trans; Democrats are “importing” undocumented immigrants to vote for them, even though it’s illegal for noncitizens to vote and they rarely do, an idea that echoes the racist “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory. If this all sounds like wading through the dregs of Twitter, it’s not a coincidence — the billionaire and richest man in the world bought the social media site and re-created it in his image. Musk also spent at least $119 million on a pro-Trump Super PAC, effectively taking over the Trump campaign’s canvassing operation while running countless ads promoting Trump, attacking Kamala Harris, and repeatedly demonizing migrants — all while admitting that a Trump presidency would “involve some temporary hardship” for Americans, while claiming “it will ensure long-term prosperity.” Now, that thoughtful, South African mind is set to join the new administration in some high-level role, and while we don’t know exactly what that is yet, the fact that he reportedly hopped on a call with Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky shows that it could be pretty serious. —EGP

Trump’s 2024 campaign was largely based on fear-mongering around immigrants, painting them as criminals trying to illegally break their way into the country to kill Americans, destroy our way of life, and illegally vote for Democrats. None of that terrifying rhetoric would have hit as hard had his last administration not been so punishing toward immigrants and asylum-seekers — and the architect of that was one Stephen Miller. Miller was barely in his thirties when he joined the first Trump transition team in 2016, but as the president’s main adviser on immigration issues throughout the administration, he’s done more damage than most men twice his age could even dream of. The public first began to notice him after he came out as one of the minds behind the so-called Muslim travel ban in January 2017, but instead of shying away from the attention, he leaned into the role of D.C. boogeyman — going on to orchestrate and champion the worst of that administration’s immigration measures, like the family separation policies that left children in cages in facilities along the border. Now, after promising a “100 percent deportation policy” while he stumped for Trump — day one, “all these criminal migrants, that have been flooded in the country [sic], are going to be the first to go,” he said — Miller is expected to head back to the Trump White House as deputy chief of staff for policy. —EGP

Robert Francis Kennedy Jr. may be a member of one of the most prominent Democratic families of the past century, but his obsession with crackpot conspiracy theories about vaccines, rigged election machines, and fluoride aligned him almost perfectly with large segments of the MAGA movement. He first led what Democrats characterized as a spoiler campaign against Trump, initially as a Democrat and then an Independent, as he labeled the MAGA leader a “sociopath.” (Trump responded by calling him a “radical left lunatic.”) RFK Jr.’s 2024 bid might have been best known for all of the weird news it generated — the fact he once had a brain worm, his admission that he was the guy who left a dead bear cub in Central Park a decade ago, his sexting scandal with a journalist. Once it became clear he might pull Trump votes, RFK Jr. endorsed the “sociopath” and campaigned with him all over the country. In exchange, Trump promised him a prominent role shaping health policy in his administration. Much of RFK Jr.’s family has denounced him in the starkest possible terms ever since he crossed over into enemy lines, but that won’t do the country much good in a couple of months when he’s expected to be given real power over our health care system. —AG

Tom Homan, the architect of the idea of separating migrant families at the border to deter migration, previously served as the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement under Trump. In that capacity, he said that undocumented immigrants “should be afraid,” later doubling down on the comment: “It needed to be said.” Homan has suggested charging politicians running sanctuary cities with crimes. “We gotta take [sanctuary cities] to court, and we gotta start charging some of these politicians with crimes,” he said. In 2016, The Washington Post called Homan “really good at” deporting people. When he was recently asked for alternatives to separating families during deportations, he said, “Families can be deported together.” A former police officer and border patrol agent, he was also an ICE official under Barack Obama, when he won a presidential award for distinguished service. Trump announced that Homan will serve as his “border czar,” and “will be in charge of all Deportation of Illegal Aliens back to their Country of Origin.” Homan promptly went to Fox News to call on Democratic politicians to either assist the Trump administration with deportations or “get the hell out of the way,” adding, “If we can’t get assistance from New York City, we may have to double the number of agents we send to New York City.” —NL

Mike Davis has long been viewed as a possible attorney general pick under Trump. He may have told Rolling Stone that he doesn’t plan to serve in a Trump White House, but at the very least, he is expected to help advise the Trump administration on judicial nominations. Last time around, for example, as the Senate Judiciary Committee’s chief counsel for nominations, he was caught saying the quiet part out loud when he tweeted that he was “unfazed and determined” to appoint Trump’s newest pick for the Supreme Court, despite the sexual assault allegations against him. “We will confirm Judge [Brett] Kavanaugh,” he wrote. (He later tried to walk it back.) His rhetoric has only gotten much worse. In the wake of Trump’s win, he tweeted that his “current mood” is to go after Trump’s enemies: “I want to drag their dead political bodies through the streets, burn them, and throw them off the wall.” Though he clarified that he meant to do this “legally, politically, and financially,” it’s the kind of grotesquely violent language that is quickly becoming the norm. He recently pledged to “rain hell on Washington D.C.,” explaining: “I have five lists ready to go and they’re growing. List number one: We’re gonna fire. We’re gonna fire a lot of people in the executive branch of the deep state. Number two: We’re gonna indict. We’re gonna indict Joe Biden and Hunter Biden and James Biden and every other scumball sleazeball Biden, except for the five-year-old granddaughter who they refused to acknowledge for five years until political pressure got to Joe Biden.” —EGP

J.D. Vance has taken quite the political journey ever since Donald Trump entered the political scene a decade back. The bestselling author of Hillbilly Elegy privately said Trump could be “America’s Hitler” and publicly labeled himself a “never-Trump guy.” But when he decided to run for the Senate in Trumpy Ohio, Vance shredded nearly all of his supposed views and remade himself as a MAGA super fan. The gambit earned him a Senate seat despite his complete lack of political experience, and his fierce opposition to Ukraine aid and lies about Biden stealing the 2020 election made him a favorite in Trumpland.

At the urging of Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump Jr., Vance was named Trump’s running mate in summer 2024. Vance faced scrutiny over his history of misogynist comments, like his claim that the Democratic Party is run by “childless cat ladies,” as well as his retrograde views on reproductive access — he had previously argued a national abortion ban might be necessary to block liberal donor George Soros from sending airliners to “to Columbus to load up disproportionately Black women to get them to go have abortions in California.” He also helped Trump push racist lies about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, eating their neighbors’ pets. He continued to push the baseless claims even as his constituents faced a wave of bomb threats and disruptions to their daily lives, and said he was willing to “create stories” if necessary in order to get the media to cover issues he believes are important. In two months or so, he’ll be one heartbeat away from the presidency. He’s also the clear frontrunner for the 2028 Republican nomination. —AG

Ric Grenell is a state department veteran who served as Trump’s acting director of national intelligence in 2020, a role in which he reportedly led a purge of intelligence officials perceived as disloyal to Trump. During his time as Trump’s ambassador to Germany, Grenell spoke openly about wanting to empower conservative politicians “throughout Europe.” The Washington Post reported earlier this year on how Grenell has essentially been conducting rogue diplomacy on Trump’s behalf in the years since he left the White House, with Trump referring to him as “my envoy.” He’s now considered a top contender to be Trump’s new secretary of state or director of the CIA. Grenell reportedly participated in the effort to overturn the 2020 election results and to undermine the Justice Department’s charges against Trump. Susan Rice, who served as U.N. ambassador under Barack Obama, called Grenell “one of the most nasty, dishonest people I’ve ever encountered.” —RB

There’s no telling what could have happened after the 2020 election if Donald Trump had been able to install Jeff Clark as attorney general. The former president abandoned his attempt to do so after Justice Department officials threatened to resign en masse if the unqualified election denier was given the keys to the department, which he presumably would have used to keep Trump in power. Clark was eventually charged in Georgia for his role in the fake electors scheme, and was identified as a co-conspirator in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s indictment against Trump. Smith is abandoning the case now that Trump is heading back to the White House, however, and Clark, who was in attendance at Trump’s criminal trial in New York, could be in line for a plum role in a Justice Department that figures to be tasked with exacting revenge. If the aftermath of 2020 was any indication, he’ll have no problem skirting the rules to do so. During a disciplinary hearing earlier this year, officials said Clark defied department policy by speaking to Trump directly following the election. Clark repeatedly invoked various privileges during the hearing, and when asked who his client was when he tried to invoke attorney-client privilege, Clark made his allegiance clear: “President Trump. The head of the executive branch. The sole and the unitary head of Article Two, the executive branch of the United States government.” —RB

It’s not easy to stand out as uniquely unhinged in the world of Donald Trump. But political activist Laura Loomer pulled it off by spouting deranged conspiracy theories about numerous school shootings, the 2020 election, the “over 20,000 cannibalistic Haitians who are now killing people’s pets and hunting domestic animals on the streets of Ohio” in Springfield, and 9/11 being an “inside job.” She’s also a committed racist who calls herself a “white advocate” and attacks Muslims as terrorists at every opportunity. In September, she said “the White House will smell like curry & White House speeches will be facilitated via a call center” if Kamala Harris won the election. This would prompt most responsible political figures to denounce her in the loudest possible terms, but it caused Trump to bring her into his close orbit on the 2024 campaign trail — they even attended 9/11 ceremonies together, an episode that caused a freakout among Trump allies. After that, Loomer was reportedly sent away. We’ll soon see if he’s reserved a place for her in his administration. —AG

As a Capitol Hill staffer, Kash Patel worked to discredit the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election. He was the main author of a memo written in 2018 that accused investigators of anti-Trump bias. In the Trump administration, Patel served as an enforcer, reportedly helping lead a purge of disloyal intelligence officials. Trump also considered having him conduct loyalty tests among White House staff. In 2020, he helped persuade Trump to fire Defense Secretary Mark Esper when Esper voiced opposition to deploying the military during Black Lives Matter protests. Patel said recently that Trump should go after liberal media like MSNBC for its negative coverage. He said the second Trump administration “will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government but in the media” and “come after them,” adding, “Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out.” In late 2020, Trump reportedly looked to make him CIA deputy director, but the plan was nixed when CIA Director Gina Haspel threatened to resign. Now, Patel could head the CIA. —NL

Vought, who calls himself a Christian nationalist, was previously director of the Office of Management and Budget under Trump. He has long been plotting out plans for a radically right-wing second Trump administration obsessed with imposing its will; co-authored Project 2025, the notorious agenda project led by the Heritage Foundation; and was policy director for the Republican National Convention’s official platform committee. Vought, who wrote in 2022 that Americans “are living in a post-Constitutional time,” was the subject of a hidden video sting this summer, and some of his recent think-tank speeches were leaked as well. Some notable items: Vought said he was spending 80 percent of his time on plans “to take control of these bureaucracies,” and he specifically wants to put government workers “in trauma.” He wants to defund the Environmental Protection Agency. Vought says he is helping plan out “how the deportation would work,” and thinks mass deportations could “save the country.” He’s ready to destroy “agencies’ notion of independence.” He wants Trump’s administration to deploy the military in the U.S. to “shut down the riots” (i.e., protests), and said that the 2020 George Floyd protests would have been a good opportunity to do so. He’s likely to have a senior role. —NL

Virtually no propagandist benefited more from the rise of the MAGA era than Tucker Carlson. The former Fox News host established himself as a kingmaker for aspiring Trumpian Republicans as a primetime cable news host, and one of the nation’s most prominent mouth pieces for racist conspiracy theories that are now mainstream GOP dogma. Carlson is known for lowlights such as claiming that immigrants make the country “poorer, and dirtier, and more divided,” and mainstreaming the Great Replacement conspiracy theory; calling the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines “the single deadliest mass vaccination event in modern history;” defending Jan. 6 rioters as “orderly and meek” sightseers; and claiming that hurricanes were a punishment for abortions.

Carlson’s abrupt firing from Fox in 2023 freed him from any remaining restraints brought about by an employer’s supervision, and the now independent commentator has established a direct foothold in the president-elect’s orbit. Carlson was an instrumental advocate behind Trump’s decision to pick Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance as his running mate, and hosted a national speaking tour in the weeks before the election that melded together the most prominent names in Trump’s orbit — like Vance, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Charlie Kirk — with extremist figures like Alex Jones and Jack Posobiec. Carlson has now reportedly taken up an unofficial role advising Trump’s team as they prepare their transition into the White House. According to The Wall Street Journal, Carlson attended a meeting this week with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has been floated to lead the Trump administration’s health care policy, and other Trump surrogates including Donald Trump Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard. —NMR