“I do have a Nazi streak in me from time to time, I will admit it,” he wrote last year in a text message group chat with Republican strategists and influencers.
Regardless, at least at the time of publication, Ingrassia remains the White House’s liaison with the Department of Homeland Security after being moved in February from the Department of Justice following problems with Attorney General Pam Bondi’s chief of staff. The White House did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
Ingrassia’s withdrawal — Trump’s 49th this year — comes after the hiring, firing, and rehiring of Marko Elez, the Department of Government Efficiency staffer under Elon Musk who had administrator-level access to U.S. Treasury payment systems that dispersed more than $5.45 trillion last fiscal year before he was terminated.
“I would not mind at all if Gaza and Israel were both wiped off the face of the Earth,” Elez wrote in 2024 on a now-deleted anonymous social media account. “Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool.”
Elez was reinstated a day later after Vice President JD Vance defended him on his own social media account, despite Elez also saying, “Normalize Indian hate.” Notably, Vance’s wife, Usha Vance, is the country’s first Asian American and Hindu American second lady. Trump expressed his support for Elez in a later press conference.
Republican strategist Charlie Black conceded that Trump keeping Ingrassia in the White House has created a political optics problem for his administration. “But they don’t mind taking heat for their loyalists,” the founding chairman of Prime Policy Group told the Washington Examiner. “[They] are already under pressure from the press.”
To that end, Republican strategist Alex Conant contended that if Democrats continued to underscore Ingrassia, “eventually the president might be annoyed by the distraction and make a change.”
“But the Democrats haven’t shown any ability to keep sustained attention on anything since Trump’s term began,” the former communications director for Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign told the Washington Examiner. “Between the shutdown, upcoming elections, and Trump’s daily announcements, it seems unlikely that this will stay at the top of the news for long.”
Republican strategist Doug Heye was similarly uncertain whether Trump would relent to pressure related to Ingrassia; however, he had concerns about the White House’s employment process. “It sure seems, ‘Have you ever praised the Nazis?’ now has to be a part of the political job application process,” the former Republican National Committee communications director told the Washington Examiner.
Democratic strategist Jim Manley said, “In any other administration, someone like this would have a less than zero chance of continuing to serve after withdrawing his name from consideration to be confirmed by the Senate.”
“But the Trump folks don’t play by the same rules as everyone else, and they sure as heck don’t care about the optics of a guy like Ingrassia continuing to serve the president,” the former communications director for the late Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) told the Washington Examiner. “I mean, they have a real problem here — if they fire him for holding extremist views, then a whole bunch of others are going to come under fire as well for holding the same extremist views.”
Vance just last week defended the Young Republicans New York chapter’s group chat — which involved state leaders and at least one Trump administration aide — that included questionable comments such as, “I love Hitler.”
“The reality is that kids do stupid things, especially young boys,” Vance said during an episode of The Charlie Kirk Show taped at the White House after Trump posthumously awarded Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom. “They tell edgy, offensive jokes. That’s what kids do. And I really don’t want us to grow up in a country where a kid telling a stupid joke — telling a very offensive, stupid joke — is cause to ruin their lives.”
The other optics issue created for Trump by Ingrassia’s withdrawal is the administration’s recent embrace of cancel culture. Vance, for example, last month implored people to report anyone welcoming Kirk’s death to their respective employers. The State Department has canceled visas for the same reason as well.
At the same time, President Ronald Reagan biographer Craig Shirley compared Ingrassia to the Democratic nominee to become Virginia’s next attorney general, Jay Jones. Jones sent text messages in 2022 to a Virginia Republican lawmaker about shooting then-state House Speaker Todd Gilbert and wishing death upon his children.
“The despicable and actionable comments of Jones in the VA AG race gives political cover to almost everybody,” the former Republican strategist told the Washington Examiner. “The Left is losing at everything, and deep down they know our ideas are better than their ideas, which has led to their mindlessness, including opposing everybody and everything, regardless.”
Democrats have simultaneously encountered another optics issue, this one with Maine Democratic U.S. Senate primary candidate Graham Platner, who has had to cover up a Nazi symbol tattoo.
Ingrassia’s withdrawal also comes after Trump has found administration positions for other nominees whom the Senate would not have confirmed.
Ed Martin, Trump’s former interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, is another nominee who did not have enough support to be confirmed by the Senate, withdrawing his candidacy in May after Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) announced he would not endorse him over comments regarding Jan. 6. Days later, Martin announced he would become the Justice Department’s pardon attorney, a position through which he has investigated the Biden administration’s pardons and former President Joe Biden’s use of an autopen.
The day before Martin’s withdrawal, Trump’s original nominee to become the U.S. Surgeon General, Janette Nesheiwat, withdrew her candidacy after conservative activist Laura Loomer emphasized discrepancies with her medical education. Nesheiwat claimed to have been educated at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, instead of the American University of the Caribbean.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/white-house/3860139/senate-confirmation-scarred-trump-nominees-other-homes-administration/
