Hillary Clinton pulled no punches on Friday, calling out the Trump administration for being both dangerously incompetent and downright foolish. In an op-ed for the New York Times, she slammed the government’s handling of the Signal chat leak and the ongoing push to slash the federal workforce. Clinton warned that if this continues, Trump’s approach will leave the U.S. weak, isolated, and vulnerable.
Clinton’s article, that has been given the headline: “How much dumber will this get?”, is blunt. She opens with, “It’s not the hypocrisy that bothers me; it’s the stupidity.” She kicks off with the Signal scandal, where a key U.S. journalist was mistakenly added to a secure group chat of top Trump officials. Inside the chat, discussions about military operations—like an airstrike on Houthi militants in Yemen—were openly shared. Even worse, some members celebrated the deadly results with emojis.
The former secretary of state and Democratic presidential candidate writes, “Top Trump administration officials put our troops in jeopardy by sharing military plans on a commercial messaging app and unwittingly invited a journalist into the chat. That’s dangerous. And it’s just dumb.”
This, she argues, is just the latest example of the Trump administration making reckless mistakes that hurt the country’s strength and security.
She also takes aim at the administration’s efforts to shrink the federal workforce, led by tech mogul Elon Musk. While she doesn’t name Musk directly, she criticizes the dismantling of crucial government programs like USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development). USAID, created by President John F. Kennedy, is designed to spread American influence globally through humanitarian aid and human rights work, offering an alternative to military might.
Clinton writes, “In a dangerous and complex world, it’s not enough to be strong. You must also be smart. As secretary of state during the Obama administration, I argued for smart power… integrating the hard power of our military with the soft power of our diplomacy, development assistance, economic might, and cultural influence.”
She argues that when these tools work together, America remains a global superpower. Trump’s approach, she says, is “dumb power,” using only brute force and leaving the U.S. “blind and blundering, feeble and friendless.”
Clinton also criticizes Trump and his supporters for valuing “swagger” over competence, pointing to their attacks on diversity policies in the military as a prime example of misplaced priorities.
She concludes that the administration seems lost and is putting the country in real danger. Clinton warns, “If there’s a grand strategy at work here, I don’t know what it is… He’s gambling with the national security of the United States. If this continues, a group chat foul will be the least of our concerns, and all the fist and flag emojis in the world won’t save us.”
Clinton’s essay paints a grim picture of an administration that is failing at both leadership and common sense—endangering America’s global standing and security.
