Baseball players, if they're fortunate enough to play 20 years in the Big Leagues, are first-ballot Hall of Famers if they can put the ball in play and reach base safely 3 times out of 10. They're considered among the greatest of all time if they get close to averaging three-and-a-half times out of 10. Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees put up all-world numbers in a season for the ages this past year. Shohei Ohtani, after commiting treason against the Los Angeles Angels to join the Dodgers in the National League, became the first member of the 50-50 club - hitting over 50 home runs and stealing 50 bases. Yet they both were essentially non-factors in the World Series. Throwing a spoke happens to the best of them sometimes. 

Donald Trump has announced nominations for 12 key positions thus far in his forthcoming administration - Chief of Staff (Susie Wiles), Ambassador to Israel (Mike Huckabee), National Security Advisor (Michael Waltz), Secretary of State (Marco Rubio), Department of Defense (Pete Hegseth), Homeland Security (Kristi Noem), CIA (John Ratcliffe), Efficiency Czars (Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy), Direction of National Intelligence (Tulsi Gabbard), United Nations Ambassador (Elise Stefanik), and now Attorney General (Matt Gaetz). 

Looking at my scorecard, out of these 12 at-bats, 8 balls have left the yard. I award twin 2-run dingers for Musk and Ramaswamy, and a couple of grand slams for Rubio and Waltz. I think the Hegseth pick is a double off the wall that might end up being legged out into a triple. The Noem pick is a sacrifice fly. I'm open to instant replay on this, but it's yet to be determined whether the Gabbard pick is a hit or an error. In short, it's been a remarkable 7-day stretch. If Trump were playing, he'd be named unanimously player of the week. And that can be so even including hitting into an unassisted triple play to cost his team a game one day, which brings me to the Matt Gaetz pick.

I fully realize that in my column earlier in the week, I said it's Go time, and that if necessary, recess appointments could be made to get Trump's team in and on the job as soon as possible to not waste one day of the new term. For those that worry that such a stance runs afoul of the Constitution, my position would of course have limitations. If a nominee garners obvious support with the majority party, and the only thing slowing the process is the minority party using process maneuvers to run out the clock, I'm all for the recess appointment to speed up the process. That would require both House and Senate approval to call a recess, though. If, however, the nominee does not enjoy majority support, or that support is very much in question, the fast-track goes out the window, as it should, and the hearing process must ensue. 

There are three public reactions to all of Trump's nominations. There are positive endorsements, statements of opposition, or radio silence. Technically, in Washington, there's a fourth angle - publicly claiming you support someone while doing everything in your power covertly to sabotage the nomination and hope you don't get blood on your hands if the nomination is eventually scuttled. 

South Dakota Senator John Thune, as I expected, won the three-person contest for Majority Leader yesterday, besting John Cornyn of Texas and Rick Scott of Florida. In a press conference yesterday, Thune said he would do everything in his power to get nominations through the confirmation process as soon as possible. Senator Scott ran a more public campaign than the other two, playing up his closeness to the Trump camp, promising to ram through his nominees and fast-tracking the President's ambitious agenda for the next four years. Here is a sequence of tweets by Senator Scott from this week alone. 

100% agree. I will do whatever it takes to get your nominations through as quickly as possible. https://t.co/GlrHx2zJXh

— Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) November 10, 2024

A day later, on Veterans Day.

The American people gave Republicans a clear mandate to enact President Trump’s agenda.

I’ve spent my career making a plan and ensuring it gets done, and this is no different. It’s time to secure our borders, confirm Trump’s nominees and Make America Great Again! pic.twitter.com/84oF8BfYFJ

— Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) November 11, 2024

A day later, on the 12th.

To Make America Great Again it’s going to take Senate Republicans working together with President Trump starting on Day 1.

I’m 100% committed to getting President Trump’s nominees confirmed and agenda accomplished. pic.twitter.com/R2GITMxA9f

— Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) November 12, 2024

Yesterday, after losing the Leadership vote and after the Gaetz nomination, notice the subtle shift in his rhetoric. 

I may have lost the vote, but I am optimistic. I ran for leader with one mission: to fundamentally change how the Senate operates and upend the status quo so we can actually start representing the voters who put us here. When I announced, I said that we are in a moment where we…

— Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) November 13, 2024

He hopes and plans to work with Senator Thune to enact Donald Trump's agenda. Nothing in this two paragraph statement was there anything about fast-tracking nominees. 

The Senate Judiciary Committee is currently made up of 20 members - 11 Democrats, 9 Republicans. That most likely will invert in January when the GOP gets the gavel. Although the future makeup of the committee has not yet been made public, it is likely that Missouri's Eric Schmitt and Indiana's Todd Young could join Lindsey Graham, Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Marsha Blackburn, Mike Lee, John Kennedy, Chuck Grassley, and Thom Tillis. Most of these members have made public statements about some of the other nominations made by Donald Trump hus far. As to the Gaetz pick specifically, Marsha Blackburn is the only member who has openly endorsed it. 

.@realDonaldTrump is keeping his promise to root out the Deep State.

As Attorney General, that's what @mattgaetz will do.

— Marsha Blackburn (@VoteMarsha) November 14, 2024

Josh Hawley was ambushed in the tunnels below the Senate. Here's his response to the Gaetz pick.

Sen. Josh Hawley on Gaetz for AG: “My presumption is to support all the president’s nominees.” pic.twitter.com/1o3TL1bz30

— Kristen Eskow (@KristenEskow) November 13, 2024

He's got an open mind with all Trump nominees, and he's looking forward to the hearing. That's far different from open endorsement of this particular nominee. There's wiggle room in this answer. I guarantee you he doesn't have the same position towards his colleague, Marco Rubio. I haven't done a head count, but I'd be amazed if Rubio doesn't get at least 85 votes or better on the floor to confirm him as Secretary of State. 

Thom Tillis isn't sold. 

Tillis on Gaetz: “i'm all about counting votes, and i would think that he's probably got some work cutout for him … We're not going to get a single Democrat”

— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) November 13, 2024

Lindsey Graham has said he gives Trump a lot of deference, but Gaetz has a lot of work ahead of him in a confirmation hearing, and will face tough questions. 

Other voices, like Senators Cotton, Lee, Cruz, Schmitt, Grassley, and Kennedy, have been absolutely silent on the Gaetz pick. To be fair to Senator Cotton, he has remained silent on every one of Trump's picks, even Marco Rubio, who's a good friend of his. That's probably a smart tactical move to keep from being cornered on a potential bad pick. 

Otherwise, the silence of most of the Republicans on Judiciary is not promising, and you can't claim that all of these members are not true conservatives. If the pick had been someone like former Solicitor General Paul Clement, or Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, or any number of people equally-motivated to gut the 5th floor of the Department of Justice, the kudos from the Republicans on Senate Judiciary would have been widespread.

The member to watch is Chuck Grassley. If he, maybe along with Lindsey Graham, make a trip to see President-Elect Trump in the next few days or weeks, you'll know the Gaetz nomination is indeed in real trouble. Grassley has always been supportive of Trump, is a legend in Iowa, putting up numbers equaling the President-Elect, and is one of the most respected members in the upper chamber on either side of the aisle. No one doesn't love and revere Chuck Grassley. If he, as is reported, was blindsided by the pick, that's an unforced error on Team Trump's part. It just is.

I'm all for entertaining the idea of this move being 4-D chess. The theory goes that Trump rewards the loyalty of Gaetz by picking him as AG. Gaetz can't afford to have the Ethics Committee report that's due Friday come out, so he resigns from Congress immediately, hopefully bottling that up forever. The House is overjoyed to be rid of the architect and ringleader of the Knucklehead Caucus that sent the House leadership into chaos last year, costing Kevin McCarthy his Speakership and eventually, his seat in Congress. And if Gaetz doesn't get confirmed in the end, Trump's hands are clean, because he can claim he was loyal to people loyal to him, and blames the Senate for not cooperating. 

As for taking the Ethics Committee report off the table, I'm not at all convinced that's going to work. The Senate Judiciary Committee could, and probably will require the report, along with the FBI full field background check, before a confirmation hearing would even be scheduled. Sure, the House might otherwise push back on that demand, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a lot of people willing to go to the mat in the House of Representatives to defend Matt Gaetz. They'd most likely turn the report over. It's entirely possible the nomination could blow up before a hearing date is even scheduled.

My problem with this whole 4-D chess theory is that it's totally unnecessary. We had as close to party unity between the incoming administration and the House and Senate Republicans as there's been in years. There will be hard feelings now, regardless of how this nomination ends up, which didn't have to happen. 

53 Republicans will be the majority in the United States Senate when they reconvene in early January. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski are more than likely out on the Gaetz nomination. Markwayne Mullin is certainly no fan of Gaetz, has said so recently, but is hedging his bet until after the confirmation hearings. Lindsey Graham is certainly no fan. Thom Tillis is skeptical. There will be others if Gaetz doesn't dazzle in front of Senate Judiciary. He only has three strikes, and there seem to be two against him already before he makes his first visit to Judiciary members to campaign for the job. 

I'm hopeful this is a speed bump, not a traffic fatality. If this nomination fails, which I believe it will, there are a ton of out-of-the-box people out there from which Donald Trump could accomplish his goal of draining the swamp that is the 5th floor of the Department of Justice. I mentioned former Solicitor General Paul Clement. There are few people more qualified who know the building intimately and whom needs to leave the 5th floor by the close of business his first day on the job. Senator John Kennedy would be a fabulous pick. Ted Cruz would be an inspired choice. I also mentioned Jason Miyares, the brilliant Latino Attorney General of Virginia, who would be a home run. There are bunches of state attorneys general in the Republican ranks from which to choose. We have a deep bench of brilliant legal minds that would agree with Trump 90-plus percent of the time on what has to happen to clean up DOJ. 

Let's hope that the President quickly recovers after this miss and keeps swinging for the fences, because he's connecting a lot more than he's missing. But like Babe Ruth, or Reggie Jackson, or Aaron Judge, when he swings and misses, the turbulence created from the bat speed alone lowers the air temperature five degrees. 

My biggest regret with this pick is that we're now committed to wasting at least three months before getting someone in the DOJ to begin the clean up that's so desperately needed. That's three months we really don't have to waste.