Bobby and Tulsi: Subtraction by Addition

By BRUCE LOWITT

Announcing that “the worm has turned,” former president and current felon Donald Trump named former rival and current mental case Robert F. Kennedy Jr. co-chair of his transition team, presumably to help him deal with his eventual transition from Mar-a-Lago to a federal facility.

Additionally, Trump added former Democratic congresswoman and current Fox News contributor Tulsi Gabbard to the transition team “as another co-chair.” but probably more as someone who can set up his future living quarters the way he’s gotten used to in his gold-plated 126-room home in Palm Beach, Florida.

Kennedy and Gabbard are joining the former president’s sons, Don Jr., and Eric, and GOP vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance as “honorary chairs” of the transition team.

“By ‘honorary’,” Trump campaign senior advisor Brian Hughes said, “we mean that we’ll get them off our backs for a while. Bobby and Tulsi have been hanging around for weeks, nagging us about what kind of cabinet jobs they can get. This appointment will keep them busy and out of our hair for the next seventy days.”

Chris LaCivita, co-chair of Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, said he suggested adding Kennedy and Gabbard to the transition team “just in case,” declining to explain what that case might be. But he said recent GOP polling showed Trump trailing Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in all seven swing states plus Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Kennedy ended his independent run for president Friday and endorsed Trump’s candidacy, saying he’d been told by his chief brainworm “to stop wasting my money and his time and let him get back to dining on my cerebellum.”

Gabbard, vice chair of the Democratic National Committee (2013-2016), was briefly a Democratic candidate for president in 2020 before dropping out of the race when she reportedly had more support in Moscow than any U.S. city. She left the Democratic Party in 2022.

Jaime Harrison, chair of the DNC, told reporters Tuesday he had invited Kennedy and Gabbard to join their team “to speak at our campaign rallies as examples of how weird politicians can be when things don’t go their way. We thought it’d be a good idea, but now we think what they’ve agreed to do with Trump is actually far better – for us.”