The lawless no man’s land between the holidays and the New Year are an apt time to announce the winners of the 17th Annual Golden Duke Awards, TPM’s yearly toast to the toads who took venality and nonsense to new heights.
In 2025, the first year of Donald Trump’s second term, those who specialize in political corruption, shameless capitulation and unabashed betrayals of public trust had ample opportunity to shine. And shine they did.
Earlier this month we asked you to vote on nominees for Golden Duke awards in five different categories to help us celebrate 2025’s Best Of degradation. The competition was fierce in some categories. In others … well, anytime the name Donald Trump was mentioned, you readers couldn’t help yourselves.
My colleagues Josh Marshall and Kate Riga announced the winners of this year’s Golden Duke awards on the podcast this week, which you can listen to here or watch below. You can also scroll further to see some snippets of the discussion. Thank you to everyone who participated in the 17th Annual Golden Dukes and, fingers crossed, your preferred psycho won!
Happy Golden Dukes to you and yours.
Best Scandal — General Interest
The Nominees: Trump’s $300 Million White House Ballroom, Kristi Noem’s Ghoulish Photo Ops, Podcaster Dan Bongino’s Conspiracy Theory Fail, Eric Adams’ Entire Mayoral Administration.
The Winner: Trump’s $300 Million White House Ballroom takes the cake for, as one reader put it, the most visually “on the nose” corruption of Trump’s second term and the “raw indulgence of the gold plated ballroom funded by shady crypto guys.” Trump’s ballroom won with 62% of the vote.
Runners Up: They were virtually tied with Noem’s Ghoulish Photo Ops winning 17.3% of the vote to Eric Adams’ corrupt run as NYC mayor with 17.2% of the vote.
“Not everyone can have good taste.”
Kate Riga
The Takes*:
Kate: “I mean, Trump is a good choice in terms of the size of the scandal. I think in terms of like raw dollars, that’s going to be the biggest. And it’s funny because Noem’s is like, not really what I think you would think of as a scandal in normal terms. It’s more just like … “
Josh: “A hideous spectacle.”
Meritorious Achievement in Grifting
The Nominees: Winnie Greco Let the Chips Fall Where They May, Relaxium’s Very Own Mike Huckabee, Tom ‘Cashbag’ Homan, The Trump Family’s Shady Memecoin.
The Winner: The Trump Family’s Shady Memecoin won with 60% of the vote. The blatantness of the crimeing is what made this a top choice for readers. As TPM reporter Layla A. Jones put it in her nomination, “a big chunk of the $800 million his sons raked in this year for the family business conglomerate has 1) come from the sale of memecoins actually called $TRUMP to 2) foreign investors, several of whom told Reuters they were hoping to curry favor with the president, as 3) Trump has openly sought to deregulate crypto at hyperspeed. It’s just a ridiculous out-in-the-open grift.”
Runner Up: Tom “Cashbag” Homan with 30% of the vote. As a reader put it in their nomination, Homan’s “simple-yet-brazen approach — old school bag and only 50k *in cash* — was a reminder of days gone by.”
“Grifty, but stupid and weird.”
Kate Riga
The Takes*:
Josh, on the inevitability of a Trump win in this category: “It’s sort of like … if you’re doing the acting awards at your high school. And Robert De Niro somehow was in the play, like, okay he’s going to win. I mean, come on. You need to focus on runner up at that point, right? Because it’s De Niro and that’s that.”
Best Supporting Hatchet Man
The Nominees: Bill Pulte, Housing Henchman, DOJ Weaponization Czar Ed Martin, Perplexed Prosecutor Lindsey Halligan, Trumponomics Enabler Scott Bessent.
The Winner: With 29.8% of the vote, Bill Pulte — “the 37-year-old scion of a major homebuilding family ensconced as the head honcho simultaneously at the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac, where he’s free to rifle through the personal mortgage records of prominent Democrats,” as David Kurtz put it — wins.
Runners Up: This was the closest category by far. Second place goes to Ed Martin (28%), followed by Scott Bessent (21.5%) with Lindsey Halligan in last (20.7%).
“There’s a kind of respect for the hustle here.”
Kate Riga
The Takes*:
Kate: “It’s just, like, it’s a little bit funny to have this rabid pit bull who — the best assignment he could get is in this random little housing office. And he’s like, ‘don’t worry, sir, I will weaponize everything at my disposal.’ And that involves just having these poor schlubs sift through mortgage paperwork, looking for errors. It’s all a little comical.”
Josh: “Right, it’s so striving. … Like you find yourself in different places in life and you do the best you can in your station in life, and you try to do more than people thought you could do.”
“A lot of these Trump appointees, because they have inner darkness, it must make them age prematurely.”
Josh Marshall
Biggest Journalism Fail
The Nominees: SignalGate, Olivia Nuzzi Goes Hiking the Appalachian Trail, The New York Times vs. Zohran Mamdani, Lindsey Halligan Fails to Go Off the Record.
The Winner: NYT vs. Zohran wins with 37.2% of the vote.
Runner up: SignalGate came in close second with 34.3% of the vote.
“Left at the altar more than one way here.”
Josh Marshall
The Takes*:
Kate: “Okay. And the winner is. Oh NYT vs. Zohran. What! What! What!”
Josh: “What!”
Kate: “With a whopping 37.2% of the vote? What?”
Josh: “What?”
Most Egregious Ring-Kissing
The Nominees: Mike Braun Bends the Knee, Columbia Accepts Trump’s Terms of Engagement, Tim Cook and His Golden Idol, Bill Cassidy Believing Bullshit.
The Winner: Columbia won with 43.6% of the vote. As TPM reader Elizabeth described it in her submission, Columbia should receive its due recognition because it demonstrated “the worst capitulation to nonsense and the most grotesque pandering from an institution of higher learning.”
Runner up: Bill Cassidy “for his haplessness, cowardice, and self-debasement that would be comical were the consequences not so grave,” as TPM reader BW put it.
“Columbia. What the fuck?”
Kate Riga
The Takes*:
Kate: “Columbia … the poster child for university capitulation and getting absolutely nothing in return.”
* Lightly edited for clarity.