It must have been that new, branded scent (plus a thousand other offenses), because in last week’s competition, Donald Trump had no competition to speak of: he won 56.3 percent of your vote. Kristi Noem, the Secretary of Photo Ops & Nominal Security, was a distant second (19.8 percent). The rest of a strong field—Elon Musk, Eric Trump, Elise Stefanik, et al.—trailed badly, although we haven’t heard the last of them. Because, after all, it isn’t every week that someone can launch Trump Fragrances—“all about Winning, Strength, and Success”—and ride that giddy olfactory crest to victory.
Who will be our next top stinker? Let’s get to it. But first:
“We have a PERFECT Administration.... We are saving our Country and, MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.”
—Donald trump
The nominees in this week’s edition of the Attention-Whore Index Poll are …
1.
MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE
Although this A.W.I. perennial has been flying under the tin-foil radar lately—apart from occasionally weighing in ominously on foreign policy (“MAGA did not vote for more weapons to Ukraine”)—don’t ever count her out, not as long as the endlessly debunked chemtrails conspiracy theory persists. “Call me crazy, I don’t care,” she posted on X. (Consider it done.) “But I’ll go ahead and say it. Weather modification and geoengineering is deadly and dangerous. And guess what, they can’t prove it’s not.” (We wonder who “they” are this time. You might recall that in the past, for Greene, “they” were Jewish bankers wielding space lasers to start California wildfires.) Just in case, the Florida representative is introducing a bill prohibiting “the injection, release, or dispersion of chemicals or substances into the atmosphere for the express purpose of altering weather, temperature, climate, or sunlight intensity.” In other words: soon, we can all emerge from our bunkers.
2.
DONALD TRUMP
Speaking of conspiracy theories, even body blows to education, foreign aid, and public broadcasting, threats to fire Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell (his very presence “surprised” the president, whose “pleasure and … honor” it had been to nominate Powell), and Trump’s painful breakup with soulmate Vladimir Putin couldn’t distract from Jeffrey Epstein. After years spent working the faithful into a lather about an alleged (Biden-directed, naturally) cover-up, it turns out that “the conspiracy theories just aren’t true, never have been.” So says Kash Patel, who once claimed that an Epstein “black book” was “under direct control of the director of the F.B.I.” This was before he became the director of the F.B.I. Attorney General Pam Bondi (see below) similarly reversed herself.
MAGA turned on Trump—they want the Epstein files released, precisely what Trump and his cronies had long been (publicly, anyway) screeching for—and he finally ordered the release of some of them, though only after The Wall Street Journal had reported on his bawdy hand-drawn birthday card to Epstein. (Trump, predictably, claimed, “I never wrote a picture in my life” and threatened to sue.) He’d already turned on MAGA, calling them “weaklings” whose support he no longer wanted, blaming “Fake News” and “the Lunatic Left” for the “Jeffrey Epstein Hoax,” saying that “my PAST supporters have bought into this ‘bullsh*t,’ hook, line, and sinker. They haven’t learned their lesson, and probably never will.” Actually, it sounds as if, just maybe, they finally have.
3.
PAM BONDI
The beleaguered attorney general is catching it from all sides. In February, discussing that Epstein “client list” on Fox News, she said, “It’s sitting on my desk right now to review. That’s been a directive by President Trump.” Last week, however, Bondi’s Justice Department released a memo saying that a “systematic review revealed no incriminating ‘client list.’ There was also no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions. We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.” Cue the right-wing outrage: Elon Musk, for one, posted an “Official Jeffrey Epstein Pedophile Arrest Counter: 0000.” No matter. When the president and the attorney general both attended a FIFA match in New Jersey last weekend, Trump, significantly, leaned over and gave Bondi his ultimate, tiny imprimatur: a stunted thumbs-up.
4.
THE WINDSORS
Photographic evidence of a meeting at the Royal Over-Seas League, a private London club, between Prince Harry’s and King Charles’s communications representatives raised speculation about a potential father-son détente. “A channel of communication is now open for the first time in years,” one source told the Daily Mail. Still, according to The Telegraph, “Team Sussex is understood to be frustrated after details of a ‘peace summit’ were revealed in a newspaper, denying it was behind the leak,” which might have “jeopardised the fragile peace operation.” But surely no one can expect as instantaneous an end to hostilities as Trump’s “day one” achievement with Ukraine and Russia.
5.
LAMINE YAMAL
The young Barcelona soccer star was better off drawing attention for his heroics on the field than for the sort of actions that result in New York Post headlines such as “Soccer Phenom Lamine Yamal’s Glitzy 18th Birthday Party Turns into Dwarf Scandal.” O.K., if we must. “The Spanish government has demanded an investigation” into the 200-guest party on a private estate, reported the Daily Mail, after reports that “‘dwarves were exploited’ and women with ‘specific breast measurements paid to attend’” what was described as a “mafia-themed bash.” Spain’s Association for People with Achondroplasia and Other Skeletal Dysplasia has threatened legal action, and if an investigation determines that Yamal’s party violated a law that “prohibits shows that mock or denigrate people with disabilities,” he could be subject to a fine. Yamal just signed a contract for approximately $34 million per season.
6.
KRISTI NOEM
“False reporting, fake news,” said the Homeland Security chief about a New York Times report that her insistence on personally approving contracts resulted in understaffing and thousands of unanswered calls to FEMA following the catastrophic Texas floods. Noem, who has been on the defensive regarding the government’s response, said at a Cabinet meeting in March that “we’re going to eliminate FEMA” but is now backpedaling. “I think the president recognizes that FEMA should not exist the way that it always has been,” she clarified on NBC’s Meet the Press. But she didn’t backpedal on ICE’s tactics or on Florida’s “Alligator Alcatraz” migrant-detention center, which Democratic lawmakers have described as inhumane. “I wouldn’t call them jail cells,” Noem asserted. “I would call them a facility where they are held and that are secure facilities.” For some reason, in a recent Gallup poll, 62 percent of Americans disapproved of how the Trump administration is handling immigration.
7.
TED CRUZ
At least Noem, unlike Texas’s bipartisanly reviled senator, wasn’t vacationing in Greece when the floods hit. Fair enough: Cruz had planned, and already left on, a trip (unlike the time he hastily decamped to Cancún with his family after his state was struck by a devastating winter storm). But The Guardian noted that before flying to Athens, “Cruz inserted language into the Republicans’ ‘big beautiful’ reconciliation bill … that rescinded the remaining $56m in unobligated funds from a $150m program intended to ‘accelerate advances and improvements in research, observation systems, modeling, forecasting, assessments, and dissemination of information to the public’ around weather forecasting.” Whoops. And, the Daily Beast reported, 24 hours after the floods hit—despite claims that he was returning home “as fast as humanly possible”—Cruz was still strolling around the Acropolis and peering at the Parthenon. In shorts.
8.
LIZ TRUSS
You remember Britain’s pop-up prime minister (2022–2022)? She’s popped up again, as a signatory on a letter to the U.K. government and the British Museum threatening legal action over any plans to return the Elgin Marbles to Greece. “This movement to remove the Marbles … is politically orchestrated, heavily financed, and increasingly shrouded in secrecy,” reads the letter, which was published by the hard-right Great British PAC. “We reserve the right to seek legal advice on how best to protect the interests of the British public.” Please. The Marbles should be returned to the Parthenon. But in exchange, Greece should be required to send the British Museum Ted Cruz.
George Kalogerakis, a Writer at Large at AIR MAIL, worked at Spy, Vanity Fair, and The New York Times, where he was deputy op-ed editor. He is a co-author of Spy: The Funny Years and a co-editor of Disunion: A History of the Civil War
