Michelle Cottle: A mild defense of Lara Trump

Sen. Lara Trump.

Let us contemplate those words as we unpack the latest burst of nepotism being pursued by Donald Trump, who has reportedly been lobbying Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida to appoint the president-elect’s daughter-in-law to the Senate seat being vacated by Marco Rubio.

Using politics and government to enhance and enrich the family brand is standard practice for the House of Trump. If you believe Jared Kushner’s private equity firm would have been given all that overseas investment money to play with absent his daddy-in-law’s political juice, I have a gold-plated Trump Bible to sell you, once owned by Jesus himself.

Now, with Javanka having lost interest in the public sector, Trump has moved on to the B- and C-list family members for his encore term: Ivanka’s father-in-law, Charles Kushner, is on deck to be the ambassador to France. Tiffany’s father-in-law, Massad Boulos, will be a special adviser on the Middle East. Heck, even Kimberly Guilfoyle, whose engagement to Don Jr. is rumored to have hit the skids, has been nominated to be the ambassador to Greece. Terrifying in diplomatic terms. And yet, as breakup gifts go, that would be pretty sweet.

Lara Trump being tapped for the Senate feels a smidge different, if only because the Trump family tree would start entwining with other branches of government. By now, we’re used to certain ambassadorships and administration posts being doled out as thank-you treats to big donors and other loyalists. But the Senate is an independent power center, where serious legislation rises and falls and lifetime appointments to the judiciary are confirmed. Doesn’t Donald Trump’s trying to install some aimless family member with no experience in public service or elected office threaten to devalue the coin? Meh.

While the Senate is a venerable institution largely populated by at least semiserious people, the chamber also has a rich history of nepotism and of welcoming members far more embarrassing than Lara Trump (even factoring in her unforgivable stab at being a pop singer). Her appointment would be less of a novel affront than a throwback and hardly beyond the pale. So I come not to mock the president’s daughter-in-law but to defend her. Sort of.

Once upon a time, the best way for a woman to make it to either chamber of Congress was as the freshly minted widow of a member who died in office. Since the 1930s, seven women have been appointed to serve out the Senate terms of their late husbands, according to the Center for American Women and Politics. Over on the House side, 39 women have won special elections to succeed their late husbands. And we’re not talking ancient history. In 2021, Julia Letlow won a special election to fill the seat of her spouse, who died of complications of COVID-19 just days before being sworn in.

On occasion, lawmakers’ children get in on the action as well, and death is not the only path forward. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who has served Alaska for more than two decades, was appointed to the chamber in 2002 by her father, Frank Murkowski, who had just been elected governor, to serve out the final two years of the term that he had just vacated.

It seems that for all its cynicism, the American electorate can be quite sentimental about politics as a family business – or, alternatively, pretty lazy. I mean, one Bush, Cheney or Kennedy is as good as the next, am I right?

Precedent aside, these are perilous times, abroad and at home. And Donald Trump’s authoritarian inclinations, not to mention the House’s having been overrun with zealots and conspiracy cranks, arguably increase the need for thoughtful, experienced, qualified leaders in the Senate.

Fair enough. But before anyone gets super sniffy about Lara Trump’s fitness for high office, I feel I should remind everyone of Tommy Tuberville of Alabama.

Whether defending white supremacists or blockading hundreds of military promotions for months, Tuberville has not exactly covered himself in glory. And when it comes to sycophancy, it’s hard to imagine Trump would be much more pliant than the gentleman from Alabama, who recently declared that it is not Republican senators’ job to vet Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks. So much for “advice and consent.”

But no need to dogpile Tuberville. When it comes to jelly-spined Trump toadies, he is not alone in the Senate. Josh Hawley? Ron Johnson? Mike Lee? In so many ways, the coin has already been devalued.

One comforting data point is that whoever fills Rubio’s seat will face a special election in 2026. This would give Lara Trump a shorter timeline for making mischief than most of Donald Trump’s executive-branch picks. After a couple of years, it would be up to the voters of Florida to decide whether her tenure should be extended. Is it annoying that she would enjoy the unearned advantage of incumbency? Sure. Then again, if voters sour on him as quickly as they did last time, her last name could just as easily cut in the other direction.

Indeed, considering some of the other characters to whom Trump wants to hand over the keys of government this term – Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel, Robert Kennedy Jr., Pete Hegseth – the possibility of a Sen. Lara Trump is low on my list of things to gripe about. The upper chamber has experience handling way weirder and worse.

And honestly, I’m just grateful Don Jr.’s love life seems to be in flux. Otherwise, we might be facing down the specter of a Sen. Guilfoyle.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.