Welp. We’re here again. Every day president-elect Donald Trump announces new members of his administration and we think “well, this can’t get any worse.” And then the next day he appoints Surgeon General Ivermectin and Secretary of Agriculture Murder Hornet.
Trump’s nominees are almost universally unqualified for their positions, but there is something else an alarming number of them have in common with the man who is appointing them: sex scandals.
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Even after the withdrawal (ew) of Matt Gaetz’s nomination, Trump’s cabinet is stuffed with sex scandals in much the same way my grandmother’s was stuffed with Precious Moments figurines and those hard candies shaped like strawberries that grow there organically. No one has ever purchased those candies. They are native to the Nana.
Now let’s get an important caveat out of the way: I’m using the term “sex scandal” to refer to a spectrum of bad behavior—from the merely disgusting to the horrifyingly criminal. We’re all smart enough to know that affairs are different than sexual assaults, and actions that are legal (but gross) should not be met with the same consequences as those that are crimes.
But pretty much all of them used to be disqualifying for a senior role in the White House. Here’s just how much the landscape has now changed:
Kristi Noem
Department of Homeland Security
The South Dakota governor is thusfar the only member of the cabinet who considers “Where The Red Fern Grows” a romcom.
Noem, 52, is perhaps best known for shooting her dog Cricket for being bad at hunting, and shooting a goat because, I dunno, she was in the mood?
But Noem also has a sex scandal: The long-married, “family values” Republican is rumored to have had an affair with Trump aide Corey Lewandowski.
According to the New York Post, the two weren’t exactly subtle while together, with Noem allegedly sitting on Lewandowski’s lap at public events. As one of Post’s sources put it pretty succinctly: “He’s 100% banging her.”
(“The allegation of an affair is false,” a spokesperson for Noem subsequently told Sioux Falls Live.)
Elon Musk
Department of Government Efficiency
It’s always an adventure to see Elon Musk take charge of something and then run it into the ground—even if that something is made-up. I just wish it didn’t have to be our entire system of government.
In addition to literally every other weird thing about him, Musk is extremely into having babies. He has at least twelve, which, fine, I guess? But he may have gone too far when, according to The New York Times, he started offering his sperm to “friends and acquaintances.” I imagine it went something like this:
FRIEND: Hi friend!
MUSK: Can I offer you some of my semen?
FRIEND: Now we are acquaintances.
Does offering your sperm to everyone you’ve ever met count as a sex scandal? I say yes. But if you disagree, there’s something more insidious: In 2022, Business Insider reported that Musk’s SpaceX had in 2018 paid a flight attendant who worked on the company’s corporate jet a $250,000 settlement after she leveled a claim of sexual misconduct against Musk.
Musk exposed his penis to her, she alleged, and asked for an “erotic massage.”
Neither Musk nor a legal representative for SpaceX responded to Business Insider’s request for comment at the time. He later claimed his planes didn’t have flight attendants.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Department of Health and Human Services
RFK Jr. has had basically every kind of scandal. Dead bear in Central Park? Check. Decapitated whale on the car roof? Sure. Brain worm? Absolutely. But the man also has a full array of sex scandals.
RFK Jr. sexted with an engaged reporter while married. He kept the numbers of 43 “mistresses” in his cell phone. And in far more serious allegations, his family babysitter recently accused him of groping her in the 1990s. After she went public, the former presidential candidate sent her a text message saying he didn’t remember the incidents but “if I hurt you, it was inadvertent. I feel badly for doing so.”
Linda McMahon
Secretary of Education
If there’s one department it would be really nice to keep free from sex scandals, it’s education. But nope!
Trump’s pick to lead the department, Linda McMahon, is best known as the former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment. And McMahon is facing some pretty significant allegations related to her leadership of the company. Last month she and her husband were named in a lawsuit alleging they knew about—and ignored—child sexual abuse committed by one of their announcers. (McMahon’s lawyer has called the lawsuit “baseless.)
Sure, why not put a woman accused of enabling child sexual abuse in charge of schools? Up is down. Down is up. Nickelback is probably a good band now.
Pete Hegseth
Secretary of Defense
Finally, in what is likely the most serious allegation, Fox News host Pete Hegseth has been accused of raping a woman in a hotel room in 2017. The woman filed a police complaint and submitted a rape kit exam; according to the police report, she claimed she remembered “saying ‘no’ a lot” during the encounter.
Hegseth denies the allegations, and has said the sexual encounter was consensual. No charges were filed.
He does not, however, deny paying the woman a financial settlement, which he claims he did to keep the story quiet—so as not to risk losing his job.
Matt Gaetz
Attorney General
Yes, Gaetz warrants a mention even after he gave up the ghost and turned to Cameo. Until he resigned from his position in Congress, Matt Gaetz was under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for various potential offenses. Last week, Republicans on the committee blocked release of the investigation’s apparently unfinished report—at least for now.
(Gaetz has denied the allegations, and an investigation undertaken by the Department of Justice did not result in any charges filed.)
Parts of the Ethics Committee’s investigation have been leaked though, and the details are not the kind of thing you’d want the chief law enforcement officer of the Federal Government to have hanging over his head.
For example: Joel Leppard, a lawyer for two women that testified before the committee, claims the former representative paid the women for sex.
According to ABC News, Gaetz made Venmo payments totaling over $10,000 to two women. He also paid for them to travel to New York for sex—and to see the Broadway show, Pretty Woman. And, while the allegations themselves aren’t funny, hiring prostitutes and forcing them to see Pretty Woman? A bit of a hat on a hat, in my opinion.
I’d love to say that this list is comprehensive, but I’m not sure it is. After all, we haven’t even mentioned Dr. Oz telling people it’s all good to bone their second cousins. Or Transportation nominee Sean Duffy’s sexploits on The Real World. There is no time!
Here’s the problem: when you elect Donald Trump President of the United States, suddenly nothing is disqualifying. Had affairs? You’d have to add a porn star to the mix to even keep up. Sexual assault allegations? Sure, but how many?
In this administration, the only thing you could do to distinguish yourself from all your fellow cabinet members is to actually be good at your job.
