One Wonders What Marco Rubio Thinks About This Abomination
Our country’s first ambassadors— then called ministers— were generally highly qualified statesmen, chosen for their diplomatic skill, legal expertise and intellectual stature.figures like Benjamin Franklin (France), John Adams (the Netherlands and later Great Britain) and Thomas Jefferson (France). They were deeply involved in shaping the nation's foreign policy and carried out complex negotiations during a time when America’s global position was precarious. The shift towards appointing less qualified ambassadors began with Trump’s favorite historical president Andrew Jackson, who introduced the spoils system, where government positions— including diplomatic posts— were awarded based on loyalty and political support rather than merit. This reflected Jackson’s broader populist rejection of elites and intellectuals, favoring “ordinary Americans” in government roles.
By the mid-19th century, ambassadorships increasingly became patronage positions awarded to political donors and cronies, although usually important postings, like to Britain for example, still went to experienced figures. In 1924, the Rogers Act created the U.S. Foreign Service, aiming to professionalize diplomacy, but still allowed presidents to appoint political ambassadors outside the Foreign Service but in 1946 the Foreign Service Act set rules to ensure that at least 70% of ambassadors were career diplomats, leaving 30% for “political” appointees— a standard that has been completely ignored by… Señor T, although Trump isn’t the only president make absurd appointments. Reagan, for example, appointed Shirley Temple ambassador first to Ghana and then to Czechoslovakia. (In his first term, only 56% of Trump’s ambassadors were from the Foreign Service, the lowest of any president since the Foreign Service Act was passed.)
Senators didn’t want their names on the record for confirming Trump’s unqualified nominees so all were confirmed by voice vote except for ambassadors to Israel (David Friedman, notorious Zionist, shyster and Trump’s former bankruptcy lawyer), Russia, Romania (swindler and Trump crony Adrian Zuckerman), UAE, Sweden (PayPal co-founder and billionaire Ken Howery), Luxembourg (Gingrich protege Randy Evans), Fiji (Joseph Cella, a slimy GOP political operative), New Zealand, Thailand, Jamaica, China, Slovenia, (Richard Grenell, a notorious fascist), the Vatican (Newt Gingrich’s most current wife), Saudi Arabia Japan and Ireland.
33 of Trump’s nominees for ambassador jobs were turned down, including crooked hereditary billionaire and crackpot conspiracy theorist Leandro Rizzuto, the current nominee to the Organization of America States and San Diego real estate crook and far right sex predator Doug Manchester who was turned down as ambassador to the Bahamas (which is thought was a U.S. colony).
Even the most prestigious posts are “sold” by presidents willing to demonstrate what corrupt scumbags they are— and that isn’t solely Trump. Bill Clinton was nearly as bad and Obama tried to appoint George Tsunis to Norway, but that failed during the confirmation process when admitted having never been to Norway and didn’t even know Norway was a constitutional monarchy. (Later Biden appointed him ambassador to Greece.)
But if this practice spans administrations, Trump took it to an extreme, not just in terms of numbers but also in how overtly unqualified some nominees have been— such as ambassadors with little to no understanding of the countries they were posted to.
The difference with Trump is how he weaponized these appointments to openly undermine traditional diplomacy, aligning with his broader attack on institutional norms. Instead of occasional cronyism, his picks often seemed deliberately provocative, treating ambassadorships as extensions of his brand rather than roles requiring tact and competence.
Yesterday, Robert Tait, reporting for The Guardian, wrote that Trump’s nominees “seem an unlikely, almost motley, crew of emissaries, highlighting Herschel Walker (Bahamas) and Jared’s father Charles Kushner (France), “a man the president-elect once pardoned for a felony conviction that the former Republican New Jersey governor Chris Christie, an ex-federal prosecutor, called ‘one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes’ he ever prosecuted. And to Greece, once a preserve of seasoned career diplomats, goes Kimberly Guilfoyle, until recently the romantic partner of Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, and a woman known more for her rumbustious media profile than her diplomatic acumen. The trio are among a flurry of ambassadorial nominees rolled out by Trump in recent weeks as he rushes to fill his administration at breakneck speed with envoys who will project his ‘America First’ ideology abroad.”
Their lack of credentials has prompted one experienced foreign policy analyst to label them a “diplomatic clown car”— and a deliberate affront to the countries hosting them.
Since last month’s election triumph, the president-elect has nominated ambassadors at a rate not recalled in recent memory— including five in a single day this week.
Some appear conspicuously unschooled in the diplomatic arts; others have business links which experts say risk conflicts of interest.
Unlike most countries, which fill ambassadors’ roles from the ranks of professional diplomats, it is customary for US presidents to reward allies and financial backers with ambassadorial jobs— with prize postings like London and Paris almost always going to friends of the man in the oval office.
But Trump has broken new ground with the sheer volume of ambassadorial nominations— and his lack of consideration of their professional suitability.
“It’s not unusual to see a lot of political appointee ambassadors named early in a presidency,” said Dennis Jett, an international relations professor at Pennsylvania State University and author of a book on the history of US ambassadors.
“But I don’t recall any president-elect announcing bunches of ambassadorships like this guy’s doing. They don’t usually dip down into the ambassadorial ranks until they actually are sitting in the White House.
“The other remarkable thing is how stunningly unqualified everyone is. I don’t see anyone there who I think, ‘Now there’s a highly qualified person.’
…Walker, Kushner and Guilfoyle are not the only apparently unsuited prospective envoys.
As ambassador to Nato— the military alliance which he has repeatedly disdained in public— Trump has nominated Matt Whitaker, an acting attorney general during his first presidency, whose background is in law enforcement.
For Turkey— a key Nato ally and a country playing a strategic role in the political fallout in Syria after the toppling of Bashar al-Assad— he has tapped his friend, Tom Barrack, a billionaire property magnate who chaired his 2017 inaugural committee. Barrack was acquitted in 2022 of charges of acting as an unregistered foreign agent for the United Arab Emirates during the first Trump administration and lying to the FBI.
Thomas Countryman, a former assistant secretary of state during Barack Obama’s presidency, said the nominations raised fears about the quality of US foreign policy in vital areas, as well as conflicts of interest.
“An unqualified person like Herschel Walker can only do so much damage in the Bahamas,” he said.
“But at a place like the permanent mission to Nato, having a person with zero diplomatic experience and almost no managerial experience negotiating some of the most difficult issues that Europe and the United States must face together is a recipe not just for misunderstanding, but for failure to reach the kind of consensus and compromise that obviously requires.”
On Barrack, he added: “I think that disentangling the private profit interests of Trump and Barrack from the professional work that Barrack would need to do in Ankara will be difficult, not least because of its non-transparency.”
Even before taking office, Trump has caused disruption by threatening to impose tariffs on the country’s closest neighbours, Mexico and Canada, where his rhetoric has provoked shockwaves. The prime minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, has faced calls to resign after being accused of failing to take a tough enough line, as Trump has taunted him by calling the country “a state” and Trudeau its “governor.”
…[T]he overall quality is the worst ever, according to Jett— who singled out Mike Huckabee, the nominee for ambassador to Israel as the poorest pick. Huckabee, an avowed Christian Zionist, has denied that the West Bank is under military occupation— a status broadly recognised by the international community— and seems an unlikely interlocutor for peace between the Israelis and Palestinians.
“These outrageously bad appointments are a feature of every president,” said Jett, a former ambassador to Mozambique and Peru. “But what’s amazing about Trump is that it’s almost like, ‘OK, who are the worst people we can come up with?’ We seem to be going out of our way to prove we are not a serious country.”
Compounding the problem, he said, is the US practice of, in effect, selling the most prestigious ambassadorships in return for campaign contributions— a custom that appears open to flagrant abuse given Trump’s transactional nature.
…Laura Kennedy, a former career ambassador who served under both Republican and Democratic administrations, said the onus is on the Senate to scrutinise nominees and reject those who are obviously unfit.
“What’s really crucial and has always been part of this business, is the Senate gives advice and consent,” she said. “My one real ask is that the Senate take its responsibility seriously, evaluate each candidate on its merits, and not be shy about withholding consent.”
Yet the Senate has not formally rejected an ambassadorial candidate since the 19th century, although senators commonly deploy informal delaying tactics to thwart nominees— as has happened with several of Biden’s choices.
But Joe Cirincione, a veteran Washington foreign policy analyst, dismissed the chances of a Senate pushback and instead condemned the Democrats— and particularly Biden— for failing to raise the alarm.
“We have a diplomatic clown car that’s about to be rolling up at the Capitol with all these idiots waiting to be confirmed— but where’s the outrage?” he said.
“Democrats have just rolled on their belly for the alpha dog— and Biden has disappeared. He should be issuing a warning. Every single one of these should be met with a firm critique that this is not acceptable.
“Both Republicans and Democrats are abandoning their traditional oversight role. They’re consenting in advance without any rigorous review of Trump’s nominees.”
Many of them are egregiously corrupt, like Tom Barrack and Charles Kushner and Bill White (Belgium), who paid a million dollar fine for his role in a massive state pension fund pay-to-play scandal. Welcome to the kakistocracy. Trump has announced it officially yet but he’s expected to name another crooked billionaire as ambassador to Italy, Tilman Fertitta, Trump and crony, CEO of Landry's and the owner of the NBA's Houston Rockets. He’s also a reality TV star (Billion Dollar Buyer) and the owner of the Golden Nugget Casino, Morton's Steakhouse, Bubba Gump Shrimp, Rainforest Cafe, the Palm Restaurant and Joe's Crab Shack.
So you're saying that trump is only a little worse than w et al... and that everyone since reagan has been violating the law... but trump is the one that is wrecking the diplomatic corps?