Throughout the 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump and his surrogates repeatedly claimed that his promised immigration crackdown would target “the worst of the worst”: drug dealers, gang members, rapists, and murders. Candidate Trump further vowed to bring inflation down and invoked a new “golden age” for America. In December 2025, we know better.
Trump’s golden age begins and ends with a gaudy Oval Office and a newly refurbished Lincoln bathroom. And despite the president’s claims to the contrary, Americans are struggling in the Trump economy. The commander-in-sleep has delivered on his promise of mass deportation, deploying ICE and CBP agents using Gestapo-like tactics to separate families, brutalize communities and undermine local economies.
For Trump and his enablers, the grift never ends. Nor does their disdain for the separation of powers and the rule of law. They aren’t simply deplorables, as Hillary Clinton famously put it back in 2016. It’s Trump, his cabinet and his advisers—not the immigrant communities they terrorize daily—who are the worst of the worst.
Here they are, in descending order of despicable.
Karoline Leavitt
The White House press secretary’s fondness for berating journalists is second only to her steadfast sycophancy for the felon-in-chief. Perhaps the press secretary’s most shameless defense of the pathological liar came earlier last month when Trump posted, then deleted, a deepfake video promoting one of QAnon’s more impenetrable conspiracy theories: that militaries around the world possess otherworldly medbed technology, that cures diseases and reverses aging.
Leavitt said it was “quite refreshing” that the President uses his social media accounts in such a responsible fashion. Without a hint of irony, Leavitt added, “He’s incredibly transparent, as you all know.”
Scott Bessent
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently told Fox Business—with a straight face no less—“we have brought inflation down.” Notwithstanding a wave of mega-layoffs under Trump 2.0, Bessent posted on X that “Jobs are booming, inflation is falling.” The treasury secretary added that he believes the American economy was on the cusp of a “golden age.” Where have I heard that one before?
As the longest government shutdown in US history concluded last month, it remains to be seen if the economy can recover quickly. Unsurprisingly, given his tax bracket, Bessent is optimistic. Ahead of the House vote on reopening the government, he claimed the economy is poised for a rebound and confidently told Americans, “You are going to feel it.” No doubt.
Pete Hegseth
When he’s not posting video of extra judicial killings in the Caribbean—and giving a social media salute to his peaknik boss who threatens to attack Nigeria “with guns-a-blazing”—the former Fox & Friends Weekend co-host is burning bridges with his colleagues in the press corps.
Since assuming his role as defense secretary, now “secretary of war,” Hegseth has held but a pair of formal press briefings. That’s left him plenty of time to restrict reporters’ access to the Pentagon, investigate Department of Defense leaks to the news media and, perhaps most ominously, purge top brass across the US military.
Kristi Noem
Also known as “ICE Barbie,” the dog-slaying, cosplaying secretary of Homeland Security is camera-ready to serve as the chief recruitment officer for Trump’s goon squad—that’s Immigrations and Customers Enforcement to you and me. From the big city to the deep South, Noem’s made a reputation for herself as a cold-hearted apparatchik.
Just last month, Mississippi Free Press reported that ICE agents stranded a teenager on I-20 after apprehending the young man’s father, who at last report is facing deportation to … who knows where. Not to be out done by masked agents conducting made-for-TV raids across the country, lawyers for the rogue agency refuse to identify themselves in public hearings. Like her boss, Noem lies like a rug, repeatedly denying the unlawful detention of American citizens.
JD Vance
Following other states across the nation, Mississippi stepped into the breach left by the Trump administration’s cruel elimination of SNAP benefits during the government shutdown. True to form, Vice President JD Vance—whose disdain for his Appalachian roots is hard to miss—described a court ruling ordering the Trump administration to restore SNAP funding “absurd.”
Speaking of absurd, consider Vance’s hypocritical response to racist, sexist, antisemitic chatter among Young Republicans. The chilling group chat—between what can charitably be described as grown-ass men—even had GOP stalwarts squirming. Not so Mr. Vance, who lamented the “pearl clutching,” adding, “The reality is that kids do stupid things, especially young boys. They tell edgy, offensive jokes … that’s what kids do.” Clearly, JD doesn’t follow the President’s social media feed.
Pam Bondi
Like many of her colleagues at the Department of Justice (DOJ), the attorney general served as Trump’s personal attorney. Unsurprisingly, Bondi and company are taking their marching orders from the president. Their mission: weaponize the Justice Department to prosecute Trump’s political opponents, including former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James and Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA)—and that’s the shortlist. Of course, former staff who crossed him are not immune from Trump’s retribution campaign—looking at you John Bolton!
Bondi’s reputation will rest on the outcome of the Epstein saga. In the early days of Trump 2.0, Bondi declared that the Epstein client list was “sitting on my desk.” But once the boss learned his name appears in that material, she stonewalled. In the meantime, the nation’s top law enforcement officer, and avowed Trump loyalist, is reshaping the DOJ in the President’s own twisted image.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Once upon a time, Kennedy was a respected environmental lawyer. That was then, this is now. The health and human services secretary runs roughshod over medical science in pursuit of his own conspiracy-laden quest to “Make America Healthy Again.” As if.
Under Kennedy’s watch, chaos and confusion reign over the once orderly, world renowned Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. When he isn’t undermining public confidence in vaccines, Kennedy makes unsubstantiated claims about Tylenol’s links to autism and—you can’t make this stuff up—suggesting that infants who receive Tylenol after circumcision are twice as likely to develop autism.
Stephen Miller
Straight out of central casting, Trump’s deputy chief of staff personifies the president’s dark vision for immigrants, dissidents and activists. By some accounts, Miller is the driving force behind National Guard troops descending on American cities, and the brutal ICE raids that make our streets the stuff of nightmares.
Miller’s virulent anti-immigrant rhetoric and unhinged rants about radicals, communists and his favorite boogeyman, Antifa, make him an A-lister in conservative media. But despite his cartoonishly evil demeanor, Miller’s influence on the president cannot be overstated. His policy prescriptions embolden Trump to deploy the U.S. military on American soil to terrorize immigrant communities and criminalize dissent.
Donald J. Trump
The president’s “Day One” agenda included ending the war in Ukraine, reducing inflation and releasing Jeffrey Epstein’s client list. None of it has come to pass. Instead, on his first day back in office, Trump pardoned insurrectionists who, at his bidding, attacked the U.S. Capitol, assaulted police officers and threatened to hang his own vice president.
Of course, the story doesn’t end there. Nor does it end well. But if there’s ever a fitting metaphor for Trump 2.0 it is this: taking a wrecking ball to the East Wing of the White House. When he’s not napping during press conferences or lining his own pockets, the man-child who would be king assaults the norms, laws, and institutions that have shaped our imperfect union. Food for thought in the year ahead, as we mark 250 years of government of the people, by the people and for the people.
Russ Vought
The director of the Office of Management and Budget isn’t a household name—but he ought to be. The architect of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for gutting the federal workforce, enshrining the unitary presidency and securing one-party rule, Vought surpasses the late Dick Cheney as a “shadow president.”
During the 2024 campaign, Trump denied any knowledge of Project 2025. But since day one, that 900-page roadmap to autocracy has been Trump’s playbook. It’s not for nothing that Trump gleefully refers to Vought as Darth Vader and posts his likeness as the Grim Reaper.
Dishonorable Mention: Chief Justice John Roberts.
The Roberts court enables and emboldens the would-be dictator, all while gutting hard-won voting rights, creating an open invitation to authoritarian rule. When Trump spoke earlier this year to a joint session of Congress, he stage whispered to the chief justice, “Thank you, again. I won’t forget it.” Neither should we.
This MFP Voices opinion essay reflects the personal opinion of its author(s). The column does not necessarily represent the views of the Mississippi Free Press, its staff or board members. To submit an opinion for the MFP Voices section, send up to 1,200 words and sources fact-checking the included information to voices@mississippifreepress.org. We welcome a wide variety of viewpoints.