Congressional Cowards is a weekly series highlighting the worst Donald Trump defenders on Capitol Hill, who refuse to criticize him—no matter how disgraceful or lawless his actions.
President Donald Trump has been inching the United States toward becoming an authoritarian state since he put his hand on the Bible and took the oath of office for a second time back in January.
But the inching turned into a full-on slide this week, as Trump took tangible steps toward weaponizing the Department of Justice to jail his perceived enemies and silence those with views that differ from his own.
There were fewer comments than usual this week, as Congress is in recess and thus lawmakers are not on Capitol Hill, and safe from reporters asking them to comment on Trump’s impeachable actions.
But the Republican lawmakers who did comment this week cheered Trump's actions.
Following reports that Trump's newly minted U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia will seek an indictment against former FBI Director James Comey—even though career prosecutors said they do not believe probable cause exists to charge him with a crime—multiple GOP lawmakers applauded.
"James Comey betrayed our nation. He meddled in the 2016 election, concealed the baseless Trump-Russia probe, abused FISA with the Steele dossier, leaked classified memos to spark the Mueller witch hunt, and lied to Congress. The DOJ should indict him. Justice must be served," Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) wrote in a post on X.
Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL) went a step further, saying on Fox Business, "In my opinion he should be charged with treason."
Van Orden later said he was excited about the possibility of DOJ officials resigning in protest over a possible Comey indictment, saying that it would be "Outstanding."
"In SEAL training we call this 'self selection,'" Van Orden wrote.
Meanwhile, other Republicans continued to applaud Trump for trying to force ABC to pull comedian Jimmy Kimmel from the airwaves.
“It is reasonable for the FCC commissioner to say what he basically said, which is when he said, 'You can do this the easy way or the hard way, either back off, Disney ... or you’re going to deal with the fact that you’re going to have licenses,'" Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) told right-wing hack Glenn Beck.
They also refused to say Trump should rule out a third term—which the Constitution explicitly prohibits.
“Trump 2028. I hope this never ends,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told Fox News’ Sean Hannity.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) refused to condemn Graham for cheering on a blatantly unconstitutional action.
“Well, I didn't see—I know Lindsey said that before—and I think he generally expects a, you know, a pretty lighthearted response when he says it,” Thune said.
Less scary but embarrassing nonetheless were the Republicans who defended Trump's moronic speech to the United Nations on Tuesday, with others joining Trump's attacks against the organization over the failure of an escalator that Trump and first lady Melania Trump attempted to ride.
Thune called Trump's embarrassing speech that diminished the United States on the world stage "Straight talk from the president."
"He puts out the unvarnished truth," Thune said of Trump's idiotic remarks.
"President Trump commanded respect at the UN, while Biden's wandering turned America into a global punchline," Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) wrote in a post on X, which is the absolute opposite of reality. "It's great to have leadership that doesn't apologize for American strength once again!"
Meanwhile, Steube called for an "investigation" into the escalator situation at the U.N., saying that it “could not be a coincidence" that the escalator stopped right when Trump was on it.
Never underestimate Republicans' ability to debase themselves in subservience to Dear Leader.
The United Nations, a collaborative global dream built into reality out of the ashes of World War II, marks its 80th anniversary this month. There’s little to celebrate.
Its clout on the world stage is diminished. Facing major funding cuts from the United States and others, it has been forced to shed jobs and start tackling long-delayed reforms. Its longtime credo of “multilateralism" is under siege. Its most powerful body, the Security Council, has been blocked from taking action to end the two major wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
Four generations after its founding, as it tries to chart a new path for its future, a question hangs over the institution and the nearly 150,000 people it employs and oversees: Can the United Nations remain relevant in an increasingly contentious and fragmented world?
With its dream of collaboration drifting, can it even survive?
An act of optimism created it
When the United Nations was born in San Francisco on June 26, 1945, the overriding goal of the 50 participants who signed the U.N. Charter was stated in its first words: “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.”
Earlier this year, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres sounded that same theme: “Eight decades later, one can draw a direct line between the creation of the United Nations and the prevention of a third world war.”
There has been no such war — thus far. But conflicts still rage.
They continue not only in Gaza and Ukraine but Sudan, eastern Congo, Haiti and Myanmar – to name a few – and, most recently, Iran and Israel. The needs of tens of millions of people caught up in fighting and trapped in poverty have increased even as rich donor nations, not just the United States, are reducing their aid budgets.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks in Nov. 2024 during a plenary session at the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit in Baku, Azerbaijan.
The U.N. General Assembly is planning a commemoration on the 80th anniversary on June 26. This week an exhibition on the San Francisco meeting opened at U.N. headquarters with a rare centerpiece — the original U.N. Charter, on loan from the U.S. National Archives in Washington.
But the mood in the halls of the U.N. headquarters in New York is grim.
“It’s not something to celebrate,” Kazakhstan’s U.N. Ambassador Kairat Umarov said of the upcoming anniversary.
“This should be united nations — not disunited,” he said. “Collectively, we can do a lot,” but today “we cannot agree on many things, so we agree to disagree.”
A changing world accommodated a changing UN
In a different world of land-line telephones, radios and propeller planes, the U.N. Charter was signed by just 50 nations — mainly from Latin America and Europe, with half a dozen from the Mideast, and just a few from Asia and Africa.
Over the decades, its membership has nearly quadrupled to 193 member nations, with 54 African countries now the largest bloc followed by the 54 from Asia and the Pacific. And the world has changed dramatically with the advent of computers and satellites, becoming what the late former Secretary-General Kofi Annan called a “global village.”
The U.N. system has also expanded enormously from its origins, which focused on peace and security, economic and social issues, justice and trusteeships for colonies.
Today, the map of the U.N. system looks like a multi-headed octopus with many tentacles — and miniature tentacles sprouting from those. In 2023, its secretariat and numerous funds, agencies and entities dealing with everything from children and refugees to peacekeeping and human rights had over 133,000 staff worldwide.
U.N. peacekeepers patrol on the Lebanese side of the Lebanese-Israeli border in the southern village of Kfar Kila, with the Israeli town of Metula in the background in Oct. 2023.
Kishore Mahbubani, who served twice as Singapore’s U.N. ambassador, credited the United Nations with thus far preventing World War III. While there are still wars, deaths have continued a long-term decline “and the world is still, overall, a much more peaceful place,” he said.
“And many small states still live in peace, not having to worry about the neighbors occupying them,” said Mahbubani, a respected geopolitical analyst.
Mahbubani and others also point to successes in the 71 U.N. peacekeeping operations since 1948, including in Angola, Cambodia, Sierra Leone (which is currently a member of the Security Council) and Liberia (which will join in January).
There is also wide praise for specialized U.N. agencies, especially those dealing with hunger, refugees and children as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is the U.N’s nuclear watchdog, and the International Telecommunications Union. Among numerous responsibilities, it allocates the global radio spectrum and satellite orbits and brings digital connectivity to millions.
As Guterres told the Security Council earlier this year, “The United Nations remains the essential, one-of-a-kind meeting ground to advance peace, sustainable development and human rights.”
What actually gets done at the UN?
Every September, world leaders get a global platform at the General Assembly. And every day their ambassadors and diplomats meet to debate issues from conflicts to climate change to the fight for gender equality and quality education. Sometimes, such talks produce little or no results. At others, achievements get overlooked or ignored by the broader world community, far from the hubs of diplomacy.
And the Security Council is the only place where Russia and Ukraine regularly face off over the ongoing war following Russia’s 2022 invasion — and where the Palestinian and Israeli ambassadors frequently confront each other.
The United Nations Security Council meets in June 2023.
Despite its successes and achievements over past decades, Singapore’s Mahbubani called the U.N. today “a very sad place,” lamenting that Guterres had failed “to inspire humanity” as the late Pope Francis did. “But,” Mahbubani said, “it should celebrate the fact it is alive and not dead.”
John Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who was national security adviser during Trump’s first term, was also critical of the state of the U.N. in 2025. “It’s probably in the worst shape it’s been in since it was founded,” said Bolton, now an outspoken Trump critic.
He pointed to gridlock in the Security Council on key issues. He blames rising international tensions that divide the council’s five veto-wielding powers – with Russia and China facing off against U.S., Britain and France on many global challenges.
Richard Gowan, U.N. director of the International Crisis Group, a think tank, said the United Nations has bounced from crisis to crisis since the 1990s. With the gloomy geopolitical picture and U.S. funding cuts impacting humanitarian operations, he said this “is not just another blow-up that will blow over."
"Everyone seems to be resigned to the fact that you’re going to have a smaller U.N. in a few years’ time," Gowan said. "And that is partially because virtually every member state has other priorities.”
What happens in the UN's next chapter?
Guterres has launched several major reform efforts, getting approval from U.N. member nations last September for a “Pact for the Future” – a blueprint to bring the world together to tackle 21st-century challenges. Gowan said Guterres’ successor, who will be elected next year and take over in 2027, will have to shrink the organization. But many cuts, consolidations and changes will require approval of the divided U.N. membership. Possible radical reforms include merging U.N. aid and development agencies to avoid duplication.
Don’t forget, says Gowan, that a huge amount of diplomatic business — much of it having nothing to do with the United Nations — gets done because it is in New York, a place to have those conversations.
“If you were to close the U.N., there would also be a lot of intelligence people and spies who would be deeply disappointed. Because it’s a wonderful place to cultivate your contacts,” Gowan said. “Americans may not realize that having the U.N. in New York is a bonanza for us spying on other nations. So we shouldn’t let that go.”
Flagpoles in front of the United Nations building in Geneva, Switzerland.
Ian Bremmer, who heads the Eurasia Group, a political risk and consulting firm, said the Trump administration’s attempts to undermine the United Nations — which the United States conceived in 1945 — will make China more important. With Trump exiting from the World Health Organization, the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees known as UNRWA and cutting humanitarian funding, he said, China will become “the most influential and the most deep-pocketed” in those agencies.
Bremmer, who calls himself a close adviser to Guterres, insisted the United Nations remains relevant — “with no caveats.”
“It’s a relatively poorly resourced organization. It has no military capabilities. It has no autonomous foreign policy,” Bremmer said. “But its legitimacy and its credibility in speaking for 8 billion people on this little planet of ours is unique."
He added: "The important thing is that as long as the great powers decide not to leave the United Nations, every day that they stay is a vote of confidence in the U.N."
Expansion of the U.N. Security Council is probably the most fertile area for potential change. Decades of discussions have failed to agree on how to enlarge the 15-member council to reflect the global realities of the 21st century, though there is wide agreement that Africa and Latin America deserve permanent seats.
Singapore’s Mahbubani said he believes the United Nations “will definitely survive.” The “genius” of its founders, he said, was to give the big powers after World War II a veto in the Security Council, preventing the global body from dying as its predecessor, the League of Nations, did. That survival, Mahbubani believes, will continue: “It will," he said, "outlast us all."
President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Rep. Elise Stefanik to serve as his ambassador to the United Nations.
“Elise is an incredibly strong, tough, and smart America First fighter,” Trump said in a statement Monday announcing his pick.
Nikki Haley, who challenged Trump for the GOP nomination, was among those who previously held the role in his first term.
Stefanik, 40, who serves as House Republican Conference Chair, has long been one of Trump's most loyal allies in the House, and was among those discussed as a potential vice presidential choice.
Born and raised in upstate New York, Stefanik graduated from Harvard and worked in former President George W. Bush’s White House on the domestic policy council and in the chief of staff’s office.
In 2014, at 30, she became the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, representing upstate New York. She later became the youngest woman to serve in House leadership.
Stefanik was known early in her tenure as a more moderate conservative voice. But she soon attached herself to the former president, quietly remaking her image into that of a staunch MAGA ally — and seeing her power ascend.
She became the House Republican Conference Chair in 2021.
Stefanik spent years positioning herself as one of Trump’s most trusted allies and confidants on the Hill. She endorsed him in the 2024 race before he had even launched his bid, and aggressively campaigned on his behalf during the GOP primary.
She saw her profile rise after her aggressive questioning of a trio of university presidents over anti-Semitism on campus led to two of their resignations — a performance Trump repeatedly praised.
She also defended him vigorously in both of his impeachment trials and railed against his four criminal indictments, including filing an ethics complaint in New York against the judge who heard his civil fraud case.