“Donald Trump is a master of picking appointees for very senior positions who never would have gotten those jobs under anyone else,” the staff writer Susan B. Glasser says.
The Washington Roundtable—with the staff writers Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos—discusses this week’s confirmation hearings for Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense and Pam Bondi as Attorney General, and the potential for a “shock and awe” campaign in the first days of Donald Trump’s second term. Plus, as billionaires from many industries gather around the dais on Inauguration Day, what should we make of President Biden’s warning, in the waning days of his Administration, about “an oligarchy taking shape in America”?
This segment was originally published January 17, 2025, in The New Yorker’s Political Scene podcast.