To all of you readers who submitted noxious nominations for the 17th annual Golden Duke awards, we thank you for your service. It’s not easy to sift back through the grime that’s caked atop the first year of President Trump’s second term to elevate and celebrate the scandals and the creeps who remind us of the real reason for the season (honoring depravity).
Reading through your submissions was an unpleasant stroll down memory lane ❤️. How could I have forgotten about Rep. Nancy Mace’s (R-SC) manic meltdown at the Charleston Airport over a vehicle mixup? Or Trump ally and alleged sex pest Alan Dershowitz’s legal threats against a pierogi purveyor at the West Tisbury Farmers’ Market? Or Education Department (RIP) Secretary Linda McMahon referring to AI as A1? Amid such horrors as Trump’s mass deportation mission and invasions of U.S. cities, it was a marquee year for buffoonery, too.
Because of this, Allegra Kirkland and I created some new categories to match this unprecedented era of acting oafishly. You’ll notice, we kept President Trump and Stephen Miller (who one reader called “Nosferatu reincarnated”) off the list of nominees this year because they’re evil and and responsible for more scandals (and abuses of human rights) than we could possibly list. They’d win each category by a landslide and where’s the fun in that?
So, here’s our attempt to make it up to you with some new nonsense. In addition to some perennial Golden Duke categories, we also ask you to select winners this year in the following: Meritorious Achievement in Grifting, Best Supporting Hatchet Man, Biggest Journalism Fail and Most Egregious Ring-Kissing.
You’ll find the nominees and the voting forms below. Reminder: If you submitted a nomination and we published it here, we’ll send you an email soon. Happy Duking and may the sickest sleazebag win!
“Let your haters be your waiters when you sit down at the table of success.”
Eric Adams
Best Scandal — General Interest
Trump’s $300 Million White House Ballroom
Kash Patel flying his girlfriend to sporting events is tempting but I must go for the raw indulgence of the gold plated ballroom funded by shady crypto guys for most on the nose.
— TPM reader Riley
Kristi Noem’s Ghoulish Photo Ops
ICE Barbie Kristi Noem MUST be on the list for 2025. Her cosplay as a Mar-a-Lago smiling security professional as ICE tramples on the Bill of Rights probably deserves a win, not just a mention.
— TPM reader “TK”
Podcaster Dan Bongino’s Conspiracy Theory Fail
For being the most dog-who-caught-the-car man in recent memory, building a career promoting conspiracy theories he then sheepishly had to walk back as deputy FBI director, a role to which he was reportedly so ill-suited, the Trump administration had to appoint a *second* deputy FBI director.
— TPM Executive Editor John Light
Eric Adams’ Entire Mayoral Administration
Eric Adams’ lone term as New York City mayor was so weird and wild that it defies normal Duke categorization. After running for office while allegedly actually living in New Jersey, Adams declared himself the “swag” mayor as he proceeded to spend an inordinate amount of time in nightclubs and enriched various cronies.
Adams and his inner circle were soon hit with multiple indictments. In Adams’ case, he was accused of trading political favors to Turkish officials for airline upgrades and vacations to Istanbul. As if all that wasn’t nuts enough, the case against the mayor ended in a bizarre saga where he received a pardon from Trump and mounted an increasingly quixotic re-election bid while his new pals from the White House tried to block Adams’ progressive successor by reportedly tempting the mayor with a job in Saudi Arabia.
Along with all of this stunning corruption, Adams left us with some incredible catchphrases including his signature “let your haters be your waiters when you sit down at the table of success.” While pandering before various ethnic audiences, he declared New York “the Islamabad,” “the Istanbul,” and “the Zagreb of America,” among others. And, in his final months, the mayor brought us a sex scandal complete with a bizarre self-published book and an exit interview where he boasted about “the firmness of my body.” Wait on, haters.
— TPM Reporter Hunter Walker
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Meritorious Achievement in Grifting
Winnie Greco Let the Chips Fall Where They May
Red string and corkboard are required to keep straight all the ancillary characters in Eric Adams’ corrupt final months, but I raise a Pringle to this Adams confidant (formerly forced to resign as his liaison after being targeted by multiple investigations) for handing a local reporter $300 stuffed in a bag of Herr’s Sour Cream & Onion ripple potato chips. The bungled attempt to bribe the media missed the mark, but her flavor preferences deserve applause.
— TPM Reporter Kate Riga
Relaxium’s Very Own Mike Huckabee
The United States Ambassador to the nation of Israel continuing to hawk a quack sleep aid on television both as an embarrassment to our country and a perfect example of the shamelessness of this administration (Mike Huckabee and Relaxium Sleep in case, for some reason, you never watch TV!).
— TPM reader Lance
Tom ‘Cashbag’ Homan
His simple-yet-brazen approach — old school bag and only 50k *in cash* — was a reminder of days gone by.
— TPM reader Eric
The Trump Family’s Shady Memecoin
Donald Trump is always waving away any idea of conflict of interest regarding his power as president to unethically enrich himself by saying the Trump Organization is in a trust run by his sons. But that trust is literally revocable. And 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.
— TPM Reporter Layla A. Jones
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Best Supporting Hatchet Man
Bill Pulte, Housing Henchman
No one had on their bingo card that a primary tool for Trump’s retribution against his biggest foes would be bogus claims of mortgage fraud ginned up by 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. For his relentless creativity and craven devotion to MAGA, Pulte has been rewarded with extraordinary access to President Trump, whom he dazzles with helpful visual aids like poster boards.
— TPM Editor-at-Large David Kurtz
DOJ Weaponization Czar Ed Martin
No Golden Duke nominee has ever worn as many different hats in one year as Ed Martin: interim U.S. attorney, associate deputy attorney general, U.S. pardon attorney, special attorney for mortgage fraud, and director of the DOJ Weaponization Working Group — the last four of which he continues to hold simultaneously. Martin’s lack of any prior experience as a prosecutor has made him the blunt tip of Trump’s retribution spear. Whether he was parading outside Letitia James’ home in a trench coat looking more like a flasher than Columbo or securing pardons for the 2020 Big Lie conspirators or obliterating the wall between the Justice Department and the White House, Martin’s sheer obliviousness combined with an overeagerness to please has made him an exceptional underminer of the rule of law.
— TPM Editor-at-Large David Kurtz
Perplexed Prosecutor Lindsey Halligan
I think any Golden Duke award would be amiss without Lindsay Halligan as the hapless U.S. Attorney who tried to prosecute James Comey and Letitia James without being duly installed in the office, and then had to admit to the judge in open court that she hadn’t actually presented the indictment to the grand jury before bullying the foreman to sign it.
— TPM reader
Trumponomics Enabler Scott Bessent
Wall Street expected Bessent to be a “tariff skeptic” treasury secretary who could reign in Trump’s craziness. Bessent signaled as much by framing Trump’s pre-inauguration tariffs threats as strategic political posturing designed to intimidate U.S. trading partners. Well, the tariffs were real, they upset the market, and Bessent was powerless to stop them, so he’s spent the year contorting himself to justify them. Plus, he accomplished not one pillar of his so-called 3-3-3 ideology — to reach 3% GDP growth, have a deficit that accounts for just 3% of the U.S. budget, and to increase domestic oil production by 3 million barrels per day.
—TPM Reporter Layla A. Jones
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“I am a river. You are my canyon. …”
RFK Jr.
Biggest Journalism Fail
SignalGate
Admit it. With all the talk of Trump accusing Democrats of sedition and the foundational cracks of the USA being laid bare for all to see, you already forget that the United States government was using Signal to discuss military strikes on Yemen. And that they invited the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic by mistake. And that he saved the logs. And the only guy who saw any repercussions was punished by… becoming the Ambassador to the United Nations. An early indication of how much the bar for competence had fallen from Trump I to Trump II — and that the bar can always get lower.
— TPM reader
Olivia Nuzzi Goes Hiking the Appalachian Trail
Olivia Nuzzi, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Mark Sanford. Do we really have to read the texts again?
— TPM reader
The New York Times vs. Zohran Mamdani
The New York Times was less than subtle about their antipathy towards Zohran Mamdani during the New York City mayoral race. A year after announcing an end to endorsements in local races, the editorial board ran a bizarre anti-endorsement of Mamdani, calling his progressive campaign platform “uniquely unsuited to the city’s challenges” while essentially endorsing disgraced ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The paper subsequently published an “investigation” into the candidate’s (unsuccessful) application to Columbia University that showed that Mamdani, who grew up in Uganda and whose family is of Indian origin, checked both Asian and African American on the form. As it turned out, the piece relied on documents hacked by a self-proclaimed white nationalist. We love objective journalism!
—TPM Deputy Editor Allegra Kirkland
Lindsey Halligan Fails to Go Off the Record
Halligan bravely created her own SignalGate-style scandal months after Hegseth, messaging legal reporter Anna Bower about her ongoing prosecution of New York Attorney General Letitia James. This bizarre breach of conduct happened just before her invalid appointment as the interim U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia got the administration’s half-baked retribution cases against Trump’s enemies (James and former FBI Director James Comey) dismissed.
— TPM Deputy Editor Nicole LaFond
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Most Egregious Ring-Kissing
Mike Braun Bends the Knee
Indiana Gov. Mike Braun has repeatedly caved to the Trump administration’s redistricting pressure campaign, despite the lack of widespread Republican support for the effort in his state. Even after Trump went after Braun on Truth Social, and outright threatened him, Braun remained a devoted foot soldier, who pressured and threatened his own to bend the knee. Nothing seems to get between Braun and his fidelity to Trump’s midterms rigging plan that’s already losing steam.
—TPM Reporter Khaya Himmelman
Columbia Accepts Trump’s Terms of Engagement
For worst capitulation to nonsense and exhibiting grotesque pandering from an institution of higher learning, I nominate Columbia University. Institutions like Columbia (and law firms like Skadden Arps) failed us, miserably, and are part of the tragic shift from civic awareness and pride to oligarchism.
— TPM reader Elizabeth
Tim Cook and His Golden Idol
The Apple CEO has become convenient shorthand for elite/corporate weenery in Trump II, and he should always be remembered for not letting his immense power or wealth stop him from trying to win the king’s favor with a golden piece of bullshit.
— TPM Reporter Kate Riga
Bill Cassidy Believing Bullshit
Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a doctor, for his haplessness, cowardice, and self-debasement that would be comical were the consequences not so grave (voting to install a vaccine denier as head of HHS). After flushing his reputation down the toilet and thoroughly debasing himself, Cassidy is likely to lose his seat next year. Let’s send him home with a Golden Duke for meritorious achievement in dignity-wraithing and reputational self-immolation.
— TPM reader BW
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