I remain completely unimpressed with Trump (to put it politely), but I still play “what-if” games in my head just for the fun of it, thinking about how things could have been done differently.

Watching the Trump nominee information trickle out, it occurs to me that the better move may have been to keep everything secret until the last possible moment, and then announce the entire slate at once and demand an up-down vote. Tell each of the nominees that if they can't be trusted to keep their selection secret, then they can't be trusted to be on the team. Same with one or two backups for each spot.

First, both his allies and adversaries would be faced with information overload and have nowhere near the amount of time and effort available to pick apart each nominee as they are doing now. Not only has this failure knocked out some of his only good nominees like Gaetz, it has slowed the momentum of the entire MAGA movement and taken messaging outside of his control during the lame duck period.

Second, it allows Trump to bind all of the choices together and attacks on them individually would be perceived against attacks against the team and the MAGA movement as a whole. This massively raises the stakes for the establishment Republicans and helps Trump control the controlled opposition.

Third, because the nominees are presented as a slate with the stakes maximized, it gives Trump room for over-the-top retaliatory attacks against opposition in both parties. Senators are very comfortable demanding concessions for or shutting down individual nominees, because what is Trump going to do? In an all-or-nothing game he can threaten many of the senators, especially those in the GOP establishment, with immediate recall movements. This would also allow him to assert dominance at the beginning of his term and let his "side" know that they are either on the bus or they are under it.

As expected, though, Trump is neither a strategist nor a strong leader. He can talk tough, but when it comes to walking the walk he's more crippled than most - at least so far. His supporters will always see every one of his pathetic blunders as 420-D chess, but so far he's had several nominees blow up in his face over issues that even the most incompetent vetting process should have sussed onto before they were even called in for a meeting.

My theory on Trump's selection process right now is that his highest priority is finding people who are willing to be loyal to him, personally. This means recruiting younger people like Vance and Gaetz and complete swamp whores like Bondi. A candidate who actually was a strategic genius would have spent the last few years on this process instead of the last few months. But Trump is a typical sales CEO: say whatever you need to say to get the deal first, then figure it all out later.