President Donald Trump has never been one to project anything other than total self-confidence in his performance, but in recent weeks it’s been plain to see that he is desperately flailing at his job, that he’s feeling the heat from dwindling options and disastrous poll numbers — and that no one is coming to his rescue.
Enter the craven careerists of his administration, who in their dear leader’s time of need have elevated their public displays of adulation into new echelons of sycophancy, with little consideration for their own dignity.
As the president fumbles around looking for a “victory” off-ramp to his illegal and failing war of choice with Iran, as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents dither beside airport security lines that stretch for hours while the Department of Homeland Security remains partially shut down, as the national average for a gallon of gas approaches $4, and as a new Reuters/Ipsos poll shows Trump’s approval rating on handling the economy has fallen to a sub-Biden low of 29% — the lickspittles of the Trump administration have added an extra layer of obsequiousness to their hosannas for the president.
At an event in Memphis on Monday touting the administration’s “Making America Safe Again” initiatives, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller extolled the president’s accomplishments for several minutes before dramatically concluding, “What President Trump has done on border security and public safety is a national miracle that will be studied not only for generations, but for centuries to come. Thank you, President Trump.”
So fawning was the performance that Trump offered it up as a challenge to FBI Director Kash Patel: “See if you can top that!” The president added, “I don’t know, that’s a tough one, Kash.”
But Patel didn’t miss a beat. Conceding that Miller’s profile in flattery would be “tough” to top, the ex-podcaster and Team USA hockey fan told his boss that until he returned to power, “we didn’t have a commander in chief who backed the blue, who resourced the blue … who did whatever it takes to safeguard every single life.” (Patel said this to the president who pardoned more than 600 people convicted of assaulting law enforcement officers at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.) Patel added, “You have put on a show for the world. You have allowed us to go out there and capture gangbangers, rapists, murderers, drug dealers at record historic levels. And for me, a first-generation Indian American kid whose parents fled genocide in East Africa to become the ninth director of the FBI, I’m living the wildest dream you could possibly imagine, sir. But it’s thanks to you.” Ever since Trump started a war with Iran, putting in motion events now far beyond his control, his haplessness has left him looking a little needy. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who got his Cabinet position after years of cheerleading Trump on Fox News, delivered some especially unctuous praise of his own in a press briefing last week: “The world, the Middle East, our ungrateful allies in Europe, even segments of our own press should be saying one thing to President Trump: ‘Thank you. Thank you for the courage to stop this terror state from holding the world hostage.’” And, of course, there’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio — whom Trump once derided as “Little Marco” in a primary debate but who’s now, in Trump’s telling, “the greatest secretary of state in history.” Trump has been gifting $145 dress shoes to his favorite officials after guessing their shoe size, prompting one White House official to reportedly remark, “It’s hysterical because everybody’s afraid not to wear them.” It got even more hysterical when Rubio went out in public wearing a pair of the shoes that were clearly too big — an image that said more about Rubio’s subservience to the president than words ever could. Trump’s weakness for flattery and his insatiable thirst for praise are well documented, as is the blind devotion he enjoys from much of his MAGA following. But ever since Trump started a war with Iran, putting in motion events now far beyond his control, his haplessness has left him looking a little needy. That might explain the dramatic uptick in aggressive brownnosing by some of the highest-ranking members of his administration.
Anthony L. Fisher is a senior editor and opinion columnist for MS NOW, often covering free speech, civil liberties and extremism. He was previously the senior opinion editor for The Daily Beast and a politics columnist for Business Insider. 
Not to be outdone, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr, who’s been known to sport a gold Trump-head lapel pin, said on a podcast last week that Trump “is simply the political colossus of our time. There’s nothing like him. He is, you know, the alpha in every single room, in every single place all across the world.”
