MaddowBlog-AG Pam Bondi performed for an audience of one, who was predictably impressed

[LetMyPeopleVote]

The attorney general set her credibility on fire because she was desperate to make Donald Trump happy. It worked.

Pam Bondi set her credibility on fire because she was desperate to please her audience of one, who’s complained that she’s “weak and an ineffective enforcer of his agenda.”

Evidently, her ridiculous theatrics worked like a charm.
www.ms.now/rachel-maddo...

— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2026-02-12T20:14:06.262Z

https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/ag-pam-bondi-performed-for-an-audience-of-one-who-was-predictably-impressed

It was against this backdrop that the attorney general appeared before the House Judiciary Committee for a televised hearing on Wednesday, where she had a vested interest in being as combative, unprofessional and belligerent as possible in order to satisfy her audience of one.

And so she did exactly that.

Link to tweet

....A NOTUS report described the event as “a contender” for “the ugliest House hearing ever.”

Bondi refused to answer questions. She smeared members with prepared, prewritten insults. She shouted angrily at those who pressed her on issues she wanted to avoid. She talked over members. She even suggested one Jewish member, who lost family in the Nazi Holocaust, of being antisemitic.

In one especially memorable instance, the attorney general even insisted that committee members stop asking questions related to the Justice Department and start talking about the stock market.

Bondi: "They are talking about Epstein today. This has been around since the Obama administration…The DOW is over ,000 right now…Americans' 401 (k) s and retirement savings are booming. That's what we should be talking about."

— The Bulwark (@thebulwark.com) 2026-02-11T16:20:07.764Z

....It was the whole point of the mind-numbing theatrics. The attorney general didn’t need to impress voters, who don’t elect Cabinet secretaries, and she didn’t need to impress members of Congress, who’ve already confirmed her and lack the votes to throw her out of office. She did, however, need to impress the man who sees her as “weak and an ineffective enforcer of his agenda.”

So she acted the way Trump wanted her to act — and it worked.

“AG Pam Bondi, under intense fire from the Trump Deranged Radical Left Lunatics, was fantastic at yesterday’s Hearing,” the president wrote to his social media platform the morning after she humiliated herself.

For the attorney general, that one sentence represented a mission-accomplished moment.

I have seen reports that trump may not have been happy. https://www.democraticunderground.com/100221016206

[cbabe]

1. I waited for her to pull out her compact mirror and touch up her lipstick.

[Wiz Imp]

2. Come on Steve Benen, you're smarter than this

“AG Pam Bondi, under intense fire from the Trump Deranged Radical Left Lunatics, was fantastic at yesterday’s Hearing,” the president wrote to his social media platform the morning after she humiliated herself.

It's completely obvious that he was going to say that no matter what (unless she directly implicated him in wrongdoing). I'm sure that post was written before the hearing even started.

Pretty much the entirety of the public thought her appearance was a disaster and reports indicated that Trump realizes that and is not happy. Sure he was happy about her behavior and childish insults, but the results were terrible for Trump, and even as stupid as Trump is, he's still smart enough to recognize that.