Donald Trump has decided to nominate TV personality Dr. Mehmet Oz to serve as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator.

Trump issued a statement Tuesday announcing the move, saying, “There may be no Physician more qualified and capable than Dr. Oz to Make America Healthy Again.”

Oz ran for the Senate in 2022 in Pennsylvania, earning Trump’s endorsement against Democrat John Fetterman, but lost even after Fetterman suffered a stroke resulting in unfavorable media attention. Oz’s bumbling Senate campaign was full of gaffes, including the inconvenient fact that he was a resident of New Jersey and not the Keystone State.

Prior to all of that, Oz was best known for peddling “miracle” medical cures and quack diet solutions on daytime television, which ultimately led to him being dressed down at a congressional hearing. Oz has tried to explain all of this away by claiming that he is an entertainer, not a doctor, which certainly undercuts whatever credibility Trump thinks he will bring to this new government position.

Trump and Oz know each other at least going back to the president-elect’s first campaign, when he appeared on Oz’s TV show for a softball interview in 2016 and deflected questions about his own health while taking subtle jabs at his opponent Hillary Clinton’s health.

After listing Oz’s résumé, which obviously made no mention of his medical transgressions, Trump’s statement Tuesday closed with, “I have known Dr. Oz for many years, and I am confident he will fight to ensure everyone in America receives the best possible Healthcare, so our Country can be Great and Healthy Again!”

With Oz and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a noted anti-vaxxer and medical conspiracist, both taking on health care leadership positions in Trump’s administration, the next four years may lead to extensive damage to American public health.

JD Vance deleted his social media meltdown calling a Donald Trump ally a “mouth breathing imbecile” Tuesday, after she scolded him for not showing up to his job—and defied the president-elect in the process.

As the Senate Democrats race to approve President Joe Biden’s remaining judicial nominees, before they lose the majority at the beginning of next year, Republicans have become anxious that more Republican senators aren’t showing up to vote against the president’s picks.

Grace Chong, COO and CFO of Steve Bannon’s War Room, a far-right media company, posted on X Tuesday morning urging Vance and Senator Marco Rubio to “show up and do your one freakin job!!”

Shortly after that, Trump made a similar post on Truth Social. “The Democrats are trying to stack the Courts with Radical Left Judges on their way out the door. Republican Senators need to Show Up and Hold the Line—No more Judges confirmed before Inauguration Day,” Trump wrote.

Vance couldn’t take the heat.

“Grace Chong is a mouth breathing imbecile who attacks those of us in the fight rather than make herself useful,” Vance fumed in a post on X, less than 30 minutes after Trump’s post on Truth Social. “If I had shown up to the vote in question, the nominee would have succeeded 49-46 rather than 49-45. If every Republican had showed up, Fetterman would have come in and the Democrats still would have gotten their nominee across.

“I tend to think it’s more important to get an FBI director who will dismantle the deep state than it is for Republicans to lose a vote 49-46 rather than 49-45,” he wrote, also casually burying the news that the Trump administration will try to kick out Christopher Wray long before his term is up.

Within an hour, both Chong and Vance had deleted their posts—but it was too late. The vice president-elect had already demonstrated that while he may understand how math works, he doesn’t have the slightest idea how to lead his party. By Vance’s own logic, it makes no difference whether any of his Republican colleagues do their jobs and show up to vote either. It’s also entirely likely that Vance had the unhappy realization that his childish temper tantrum had undermined Trump’s explicit demands.

There’s a new bigot to know in Florida, and she wants to replace Matt Gaetz in Congress.

Florida Republican state House Representative Michelle Salzman announced her candidacy on X Tuesday, writing, “I am making my intentions to run for Congress by filing today I want to do what is best for our country and helping President Trump with the Make America Great Again Agenda!”

Gaetz resigned from Congress last week, hours after Trump picked him for his attorney general and just days before a House Ethics investigation into his alleged sexual misconduct was set to wrap up.

Salzman, while not facing allegations of sex trafficking and sexual misconduct, seems to be cut from the same cloth as Gaetz in other ways. The Republican state representative is known........

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