Heads Won’t Roll

Hello it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕️

Eager to cleanse his administration of the human guardrails that fenced him in during his first term, President Trump stocked his second White House with slavishly loyal zealots.

Podcast hosts and Fox News anchors run the FBI and Pentagon, Trump’s small-time defense lawyers get launched into the stratosphere of the DOJ. 

While prioritizing blind devotion over basic competency has its pitfalls — see the fiefdom of nightmares Kristi Noem and Cory Lewandowski are running over at DHS, complete with a FEMA director who refuses to respond to natural disasters outside the 9-5 — it’s also given Trump’s orbit significantly more job protection than it had the first time around.

During Trump I, he had six White House communication directors, four chiefs of staff, four DHS secretaries. Brookings found that as of January 2021, Trump’s “A team” — “the most influential positions within the executive office of the president” — had a 92% turnover rate (Reagan’s 78% was the only rate of a modern president that came anywhere close to Trump’s). His Cabinet turnover was similarly astonishing compared to other presidencies, nearly doubling the next highest rate.

Trump’s second administration — while still early in the term — is markedly stable by comparison. 

Mutterings occasionally circulate about displeasure with AG Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, but each cycle of speculation fizzles fairly quickly, more often than not with a Truth Social announcement of confidence from Trump. Michael Walz, the former National Security Adviser who let a reporter into a Signal chat about combat operations, was the most high profile head to roll, and he was gently parachuted over to the United Nations. The staff has been so stable that the departure of a deputy chief of staff without a national profile made headlines this week as the first major aide to leave.

The first time around, Trump had to systematically dispense with the “adults in the room,” the serious people that came along with him either (ungenerously) for the big name jobs and proximity to power or (generously) to also temper his worst impulses. 

There are no adults in charge this time. The few that carried over to the second term — Russ Vought, Stephen Miller — share or exceed Trump’s authoritarian passions. Anyone with the spine to oppose him has been expelled. 

Trump’s thirst for bloodletting hasn’t diminished, he’s just trained that impulse on USAID staffers and National Labor Relations Board members, the second ever Black chairman of the Joint Chiefs and inspectors general across the government, the Bureau of Labor statistics chief and nearly the entirety of the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section. Civil servants who escaped the purges have left voluntarily, refusing to turn the might of the federal government against Trump’s “enemies” or to peddle anti-vax propaganda at the CDC or to hand IRS data on undocumented immigrants over to ICE.

The stability of a government job has evaporated, the appeal for the public servants who, administration in and administration out, kept the country functioning has dimmed, all by design. It’s a catastrophic problem and will be a massive undertaking for the next Democrat who takes back the Oval Office. But for the next 3.3 years, there’s one ironclad survival tactic (for those lucky enough to avoid the random and haphazard layoffs): Just do whatever Trump wants, all of the time.  

— Kate Riga

Here’s what else TPM has on tap this weekend:

• A bunch of big-name comedians are gearing up to help the kingdom of Saudi Arabia whitewash its government’s record of human rights abuses, murdering journalists and general authoritarian rule as part of the Riyadh Comedy Festival this month.
• Missouri’s Republican governor will make the state’s new “Missouri First” congressional map official this weekend, after the state legislature happily bowed to pressure from the White House to help President Trump rig the midterms for Republicans. The new map splits up the historically Dem Kansas City district, one of Missouri’s two U.S. House seats held by a Democrat.
• Democrat Adelita Grijalva, the daughter of Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) — who died of cancer in March — won a special election for his old seat this week, shrinking House Republicans’ tiny majority even further.

Let’s dig in.

Guffaws in the Gulf

In Saudi Arabia, if you do journalism or speak out against the government, you could get your ass killed. And, if you buy an approximately $26 ticket, you can laugh your ass off to some of the biggest names in comedy!

Starting on Thursday and going through October 8, the kingdom’s repressive regime and its capital city are playing host to the Riyadh Comedy Festival. This oil barrel of laughs will feature huge acts including: Dave Chappelle, Kevin Hart, Louis C.K., Pete Davidson, Bill Burr, Hannibal Burress, Whitney Cummings, Chris Tucker, and Andrew Schulz. 

These hilarious festivities are part of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s “Vision 2030” campaign, which, essentially, is a plan to use the country’s immense oil revenue to develop other businesses there, while also promoting modernization and cultural diversity. However, bin Salman’s supposed reforms have also come alongside mass executions and a brutal crackdown on dissent. 

Human Rights Watch issued statements on Tuesday that described the festival as a “whitewashing” of the country’s violent authoritarianism. The organization said the Saudi government’s comedy event could “deflect attention from its brutal repression of free speech and other pervasive human rights violations.” Earlier this month, Human Rights Watch urged the participating comedians to request a meeting with officials to raise concerns about these abuses. They did not receive a response. 

The whole dystopian spectacle is especially disturbing since many of these comedians are regulars on the so-called man-o-sphere podcast circuit where they style themselves as free speech absolutists. And, if any of them were somehow unaware of the fact Saudi Arabia is the polar opposite of a free speech haven, it all became abundantly clear when one participating comic, Tim Dillon, said he was pulled from the festival lineup after criticizing the kingdom’s government on a podcast. 

According to Dillon, the comedians were given staggering six and seven figure sums to crack jokes in Riyadh. Along with overlooking Saudi Arabia’s treatment of its own citizens, that cash was apparently enough to get these comics to see past the country’s extensive involvement with the 9/11 hijackers. That last bit makes the show especially awkward for Davidson, whose father was a firefighter who tragically and heroically died responding to the attacks.

Other comedians have blasted their colleagues for signing up for the festival, including Marc Maron, who noted the September 11th connection as he mocked the event.

“How do you even promote that? You know, like, from the folks that brought you 9/11, two weeks of laughter in the desert,” Maron quipped. “Don’t miss it!” 

If, in spite of all this, you are still interested in attending the Riyadh Comedy Festival, tickets are available on the Saudi Tourism Authority’s website. The page also includes an extensive series of FAQs with guidance for visitors including warnings about “public etiquette,” guidance encouraging women to “consider long sleeves and full-length skirts or pants, and a warning for LGBTQ travelers to “respect our culture” and “follow our local laws,” which punish same-sex activity with measures that have included prison sentences, deportation, flogging, and capital punishment. Hilarious fun! 

— Hunter Walker

Missouri GOP Guv Will Make Trump’s Midterm-Stealing New Map Official Sunday

Missouri Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe will sign a bill into law on Sunday that redraws some of the state’s congressional districts, a new map that will benefit Republicans. It’s part of the effort to acquiesce to President Donald Trump’s pressure campaign to compel red states to engage in mid-cycle redistricting ahead of the midterm elections. Kehoe’s announcement is the latest in Trump’s larger plan to lessen the chances that Republicans lose the House in 2026. 

The new congressional map, which Kehoe has described with an extremely MAGA name — “Missouri First” — will, as previously reported by TPM, change a Kansas City congressional district that is currently represented by Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, who was also the first Black mayor of Kansas City. 

The new gerrymandered map will now split Kansas City into three GOP-favoring congressional districts. 

“After a thorough bill review process with our team, I am prepared to officially sign the Missouri First Map into law,” Kehoe said in a press release on Thursday. “Missouri’s conservative, common-sense values should be truly represented at all levels of government, and the Missouri First Map delivers just that.”

Trump, in a post on Truth Social, has referred to Missouri’s gerrymandered map as a “new, much fairer, and much improved, Congressional Map.”

“Thank you very much to the Great State of Missouri for the Redistricting which will, hopefully, give us an additional Seat in Congress!” Trump wrote. 

— Khaya Himmelman

Adelita Grijalva Victory Shrinks GOP’s House Majority Further

Democrat Adelita Grijalva — daughter of the late Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) — won the Arizona special election this week, defeating Republican Daniel Butierez and formally replacing her father to represent the state’s 7th congressional district.

Raúl Grijalva lost a long battle with cancer in March.

Grijalva’s victory will effectively shrink the House GOP’s margin, shifting the numbers to 219 Republicans, 214 Democrats and 2 vacancies. That means House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) can only afford to lose two Republican votes in any party line vote. 

Besides the margin, Grijalva’s win is also crucial for House Democrats because the Arizona Democrat has said she will be the 218th member to sign the discharge petition to allow a floor vote to try to force the Department of Justice to release all records related to Jeffrey Epstein.

“I’m planning on traveling to Washington D.C. on Monday to join my Democratic colleagues in demanding that Republicans come to the negotiating table to prevent a government shutdown and vote on the release of the Epstein files,” Grijalva said in a statement Wednesday night.

Grijalva will first have to be sworn into office to sign the Epstein petition. As of now, the exact date of her swear-in is not set and will depend on when Speaker Johnson calls the House back into session. Johnson recessed the House last Friday until after the government funding deadline to try to strong-arm the Senate into either voting for the CR they passed or accepting a shutdown.

Meanwhile, White House officials and senior House Republicans are reportedly pressuring Reps. Nancy Mace (R-SC), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Lauren Boebert (R-CO) to remove their names from the petition. 

— Emine Yücel