The Record · the enablers

He didn’t do it alone.

A record that stops at Donald Trump tells only half the story. What he has done took a cabinet to carry out, a Senate to confirm, and a party to wave through. These are the people who made it possible, held to the same standard as the rest of this record: their own words and their documented acts, sourced, with special weight on the receipts that are hardest to dismiss, the things they said before they decided to go along.

First, they warned you

Before they served him, they told the country who he was. These are their own words, since deleted, walked back, or simply left behind.

Before he was Vice President
“America’s Hitler.”
J.D. Vance · Vice President
Before he was Secretary of State
“A con artist.”
Marco Rubio · Secretary of State
Before he served him
“A pathological liar.”
Ted Cruz · U.S. Senator, Texas
Before he ran the health department
“Barely human… probably a sociopath.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. · Secretary of Health and Human Services
As a 2020 candidate against him
“Corrupt. Unfit.”
Tulsi Gabbard · Former Director of National Intelligence
Before he fell in line
“Unelectable. He needs to step aside.”
Mike Lee · U.S. Senator, Utah
Then they carried it out

Others never pretended otherwise. Their case is the record itself, what they have said and done in office.

As Secretary of Defense
He shared U.S. attack plans in a group chat. Twice.
Pete Hegseth · Secretary of Defense
The architect of mass deportation
“Without deportation you have no nation… no future.”
Stephen Miller · White House Deputy Chief of Staff
In her own memoir
“I hated that dog.”
Kristi Noem · Former Secretary of Homeland Security
At his confirmation hearing
“I’m his lawyer. Was his lawyer. Now I’m the deputy attorney general.”
Todd Blanche · Acting Attorney General
As FBI Director
He wrote an enemies list, swore he wouldn’t use it, then used it.
Kash Patel · Director of the FBI
On the 2020 election
He rallied 126 Republicans behind a bid to overturn it.
Mike Johnson · Speaker of the House
His own record
Indicted nine years. Impeached by his own party.
Ken Paxton · Attorney General of Texas
As Treasury Secretary
“The United States has never been more secure.”
Scott Bessent · Secretary of the Treasury
On the drilling agenda
“America’s big stick… for world peace.”
Doug Burgum · Secretary of the Interior
Taking a second cabinet job
“Time to take over space. Let’s launch.”
Sean Duffy · Secretary of Transportation