President-elect Donald Trump said Thursday he will nominate former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to lead the Justice Department, turning to a longtime ally after his first choice, Matt Gaetz, withdrew his name from consideration amid scrutiny over sex trafficking allegations.
Bondi has been an outspoken defender of Trump. She was one of his lawyers during his first impeachment trial when he was accused — but not convicted — of abusing his power as he tried to condition U.S. military assistance to Ukraine on that country investigating then-former Vice President Joe Biden. And she was among a group of Republicans who showed up to support Trump at his New York hush money criminal trial that ended in May with a conviction on 34 felony counts.
“For too long, the partisan Department of Justice has been weaponized against me and other Republicans - Not anymore,” Trump said in a social media post. “Pam will refocus the DOJ to its intended purpose of fighting Crime, and Making America Safe Again.”
Gaetz stepped aside amid continued fallout over a federal sex trafficking investigation that cast doubt on his ability to be confirmed as the nation’s chief federal law enforcement officer. Gaetz vehemently denied the allegations, but his nomination stunned many career lawyers inside the Justice Department. Gaetz, who passed the bar but barely worked as a lawyer, had very little relevant experience for the job. Bondi comes with years of legal work under her belt and that other trait Trump prizes above all: loyalty.
The hasty withdrawal by Gaetz and quick pivot to Bondi were the latest examples of Trump’s tumultuous decision-making as he rushes out nominations — some of questionable character and credentials — at a breakneck pace without the government vetting that is typical of presidential transitions. It’s an omen that despite running his most organized campaign for the White House this year, his return to the Oval Office might feature the same sort of drama that permeated his first term.
Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” that the transition team had backups in mind for his controversial nominees should they fail to get confirmed.
Still, even in Trump’s world, things moved fast. Trump had been seeking to capitalize on his decisive election win to force Senate Republicans to accept provocative selections like Gaetz. The decision could heighten scrutiny on other controversial Trump nominees, including Pentagon pick Pete Hegseth, who faces sexual assault allegations that he denies.
“While the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance Transition,” Gaetz said in a statement one day after meeting with senators to win their support.
“There is no time to waste on a needlessly protracted Washington scuffle, thus I’ll be withdrawing my name from consideration to serve as Attorney General. Trump’s DOJ must be in place and ready on Day 1,” he added.
Trump, in a social media post, said: “I greatly appreciate the recent efforts of Matt Gaetz in seeking approval to be Attorney General. He was doing very well but, at the same time, did not want to be a distraction for the Administration, for which he has much respect. Matt has a wonderful future, and I look forward to watching all of the great things he will do!”
Bondi is a well-known figure in Trump’s circle and has been a chair at the America First Policy Institute, a think tank set up by former Trump administration staffers. She’s been a vocal critic of the criminal cases against Trump. In one recent radio appearance, she called Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith and other prosecutors who have charged Trump “horrible” people she said were trying to make names for themselves by “going after Donald Trump and weaponizing our legal system.”
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham predicted in a social media post that Bondi “will be confirmed quickly,” calling her selection a “grand slam, touchdown, hole in one, ace, hat trick, slam dunk, Olympic gold medal pick.”
If confirmed by the Republican-led Senate, Bondi would instantly become one of the most closely watched members of Trump’s Cabinet given the Republican’s threat to pursue retribution against perceived adversaries and concern among Democrats that he will look to bend the Justice Department to his will. A recent Supreme Court opinion not only conferred broad immunity on former presidents but also affirmed a president’s exclusive authority over the Justice Department’s investigative functions.
As president, he demanded investigations into political opponents like Hillary Clinton and sought to use the law enforcement powers of the Justice Department to advance his own interests, including in trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Bondi would inherit a Justice Department expected to pivot sharply on civil rights, corporate enforcement, and the prosecutions of hundreds of Trump supporters charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol — defendants whom Trump has pledged to pardon.
It’s unlikely that Bondi would be confirmed in time to overlap with Smith, who brought two federal indictments against Trump that are both expected to wind down before the incoming president takes office. Special counsels are expected to produce reports on their work that historically are made public, but it remains unclear when such a document might be released.
Bondi was accused by a Massachusetts attorney of bribery over a $25,000 campaign contribution she received from Trump in 2013. Bondi asked for the donation near the same time that her office was being asked about a New York investigation of alleged fraud at Trump University. In 2017, that complaint was found to have lacked enough evidence to move forward.
In 2013, while serving as Florida attorney general, she publicly apologized for asking that the execution of a man convicted of murder be delayed because it conflicted with a campaign fundraiser. She said she was wrong and sorry for requesting that then-Gov. Rick Scott pushed back the execution of Marshall Lee Gore by three weeks.
While Gaetz sought to lock down Senate support this week, concern over the sex trafficking allegations showed no signs of abating.
In recent days, an attorney for two women said his clients told House Ethics Committee investigators that Gaetz paid them for sex on multiple occasions beginning in 2017 when Gaetz was a Florida congressman. One of the women testified she saw Gaetz having sex with a 17-year-old at a party in Florida in 2017, according to the attorney, Joel Leppard.
Gaetz’s political future is uncertain. In a social media post, pointed at the incoming vice president, Gaetz wrote: “I look forward to continuing the fight to save our country. Just maybe from a different post.”
From sweeping tariffs to big tax cuts, President-elect Donald Trump has an ambitious economic agenda. One group, however, could stand in his way: the bond vigilantes.
Bond prices have dropped sharply since Trump's election as investors worry that his economic policies will reignite inflation and lead to surging fiscal deficits. And that matters.
The U.S. bond market is the biggest in the world, and all kinds of interest rates are tied to how the market performs. When bonds drop, it can hurt the U.S. by making it much more expensive for the government to borrow money. And it affects regular Americans, too, by jacking up the cost of loans, from mortgages to car payments. A lot of people also hold bonds in their investment or retirement portfolios so they could face potential losses.
So when bond prices are in freefall or drop for a prolonged time, all kinds of alarm bells go off — and the sell-off can quickly spread. The turmoil can become powerful enough to bring down governments.
That gives bond investors big influence — and they can use to it to try to hold governments accountable and force them to reverse their economic policies. The market even has a term for investors who exert pressure in this manner: bond vigilantes.
Here's how bond markets work — and why you'll need to pay attention to bond vigilantes as Trump gears up for a new term.
Understanding bonds
Bonds are essentially like loans. The government needs to borrow money to function and to afford all of its spending. So it sells bonds to a wide range of investors, from banks to other countries to individual people.
Uncle Sam promises to pay these investors back — with interest. In market talk, the interest is called the bond yield.
Changes in bond prices affect the interest due on that bond. It's a simple rule: Bond prices and yields move opposite from each other. When bond prices rise, their yields fall, meaning investors are happy to accept lower interest payments.
But when bond prices fall, their yields rise, since investors demand more interest as compensation.
A surge in yields can be a big problem
The U.S bond market is an integral part of the country's financial system because banks and other institutions use bond yields — especially the one for the 10-year government debt — as a benchmark to help them price all kinds of loans, from mortgages to the interest rates on credit cards or car loans.
So when bond prices are falling and yields are rising, it can make borrowing more expensive. The recent rise in bond yields, for example, has helped push the 30-year mortgage rate up sharply to 6.78% from just above 6% in late September.
This affects not just average people but the U.S. government, too. Every year the U.S. sells trillions of dollars in bonds to investors to be able to afford its spending. And when bond yields surge, investors will demand more interest, making it much more expensive for the government to borrow money.
Those rising interest payments can make the country's deficits even worse. In the last fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, the budget deficit hit $1.8 trillion — the third highest in U.S. history.
Right now, yields are surging
Stocks and cryptocurrencies have risen because those investors see a lot to like in Trump's promise to boost economic growth. His promise to lower taxes, for example, could help boost corporate profits and spur more investments.
But bond investors have reacted with alarm. The 10-year government bond, for example, has dropped since the election, sending its yield sharply higher.
Debt investors have two main concerns. First, Trump's promises to keep a broad set of tax cuts passed in 2017 during his first administration and to introduce new ones — like exempting taxes on tipped income — could lead to even bigger fiscal deficits. The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Budget has estimated that Trump's plans could increase the national debt by $7.75 trillion over the next decade or so.
Bond investors are also alarmed at another big Trump promise: sweeping tariffs. The U.S. imports far more than it exports, and many economists warn tariffs could raise the price of everything from tech gadgets to shoes as companies pass on those costs to consumers.
Rising yields couldn't come at a worse time
Higher prices for goods could exacerbate inflation at just about the worst time.
The Federal Reserve has spent months wrestling inflation rates down. Consumer prices rose 2.6% in October from a year ago — down substantially from the decades-high peak of 9.1% in June 2022.
Lower inflation allowed the Fed to start cutting interest rates in September. But policymakers will need to pause or reduce those rate cuts if Trump reignites inflation by implementing the policies he's promised.
The Fed is also likely to be concerned if the country experiences surging debt levels. In a speech at Spelman College in December 2023, for example, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said "The federal budget is on an unsustainable path."
Trump could face one issue: Bond vigilantes could strike
When bond investors get spooked they can become vigilantes — and they can extract a cost on leaders and governments around the world.
Take what happened in the U.K. in 2022.
When the administration of then-Prime Minister Liz Truss unveiled a budget that would sharply cut taxes without a clear plan for how to pay for them, bond vigilantes revolted.
They sold off U.K. government bonds, while the pound sank, leading to market turmoil and negative headlines. Truss had to backtrack a few weeks later by reversing the tax cuts and firing her finance minister. Truss resigned soon after, infamously having been outlasted by a lettuce.
The idea that bond vigilantes could take down a Trump administration is far-fetched, given that the U.S. bond market is magnitudes bigger than the U.K.'s. But bond investors can still extract a heavy toll. Should they sell off or cut their debt purchases, it could create market turmoil in other parts of Wall Street, like stock markets, and spark a financial storm.
That could make it harder for Trump to accomplish his goals. He'd have to force his government to defend his economic policies — and justify whether they are worth the potential damage to the country's finances.
On Monday night, Christian Pulisic, the US men’s national soccer team star, scored in a match against Jamaica and promptly jogged over to the corner flag. After a jumping fist pump, the red, white, and blue bedecked central midfielder did what’s become known as the “Trump Dance,” laughing as he wiggled his arms and hips.
This dance is more than just “fun.” It’s a symbol of shifts in power and policy.
In a post-game interview, Pulisic—a multi-millionaire who is a registered Republican—was questioned about his celebration, and disavowed that it carried any deeper meaning: “It’s not a political dance. It was just for fun.”
No matter what Pulisic intended, there’s no denying he’s part of a larger wave of athletes, from the NFL to the collegiate level, who in the wake of Trump’s 2024 win have been imitating the president-elect’s dance, which he is known to perform along to “YMCA.”
In discussing the trend, Fox News liberal commentator Jessica Tarlov identified hypocrisy in contrast to the national stick-to-sports outrages that followed political statements by stars like Colin Kaepernick and LeBron James: “I guess we’ve gotten to the portion of the Trump era where we have moved past shut up and dribble, and now it is fantastic for athletes to talk about their politics.”
There’s no doubt some athletes are doing the dance as a show of support for Trump and his agenda. Take San Francisco 49ers pass-rusher Nick Bosa, who, a week before the election, wore a “Make America Great Again” hat during a post-game appearance. He was eventually docked $11,255 for breaking rules barring displaying written messages on the field, but, as the Wall Street Journal reported, the NFL delayed the fine until after Election Day in hopes of avoiding controversy or retribution from Trump. The following Sunday, Bosa did Trump’s dance in celebration of a sack; a video went viral after being shared by Sean Hannity on social media.
Trump’s election win is visible beyond American athletes. Players from the English football club Barnsley F.C—founded in 1887 and now playing in the third tier of professional British soccer—celebrated a goal with the dance. The display was broadcast to the world by the team’s social media managers, who shared a video backed up by the sounds of the YMCA. And this month’s attacks in Amsterdam on Israeli soccer fans were kicked off after at least one supporter of Maccabi Tel-Aviv, the visiting team, was photographed hoisting a Trump banner.
As Trump’s win reverberates in American culture and across the world, his reelection has confirmed his status as a global right-wing figure. In that sense, symbols that are associated with him will always speak to shifts in power and policy. When they crop up in sports, it’s hard to argue they are simply “just for fun.”