I have to admit when I recently saw Democratic Representative Jared Moskowitz of Florida being talked about to head FEMA I didn’t know what to think. Frankly I don’t know that much about him other than he’s a Democrat from Florida. Sure, I knew about his work helping pass gun reform in the wake of the mass murder at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School (from which he graduated), and that he’d had a successful stint heading his state’s Emergency/Disaster agency. I also knew he was the first, and as far as I know only Democrat to sign on to Elon Musk’s DOGE crap. In other words a mixed record.
From what I can tell while serving in DeSantis’ administration as the state level FEMA Director he did an okay job. His efforts speeded up what had been an initial sluggish response to a major hurricane (Michael) and he did okay, especially given it was under DeSantis with making vaccines available to special populations during Covid. He also made a name raising hell about chicanery with 3-M not delivering N-95 masks and instead delivering them overseas to countries that paid more than Florida had contracted for. (kickbacks to Trump and another Jared as in Kushner anyone?) Still, Moskowitz is clearly qualified for the position of Director of FEMA.
Now, one would think given how this sorry excuse for a transition is going being qualified for an important position would DIS-qualify a candidate in Trump’s eyes. Still, with Moskowitz having become buddies with Musk I can see how Trump might like the idea. It could also help Trumpy claim the mantle of “bipartisanship” as Presidents have been known to appoint someone of the opposite Party to their Cabinet. So there was that. Add in that Republicans, especially in the House have been on Trump’s case about plucking members of THEIR razor thin majority for the new administration and one could see why Trumpy would want to ‘even it out some’ by yanking a Democrat out of the House.
The point is that it seems Moskowitz was under real, bona fide consideration to head up FEMA. Now, as The Daily Beast reports he’s gone and poured cold water on the whole thing. The linked article says CNN had three unnamed sources confirming Moskowitz was firmly in the mix for the job. Now Moskowitz has shut it all down:
“I appreciate the speculation but I am staying in Congress and running for re-election,” he wrote on X. “It’s an honor to serve the people of Florida’s 23rd district.”
“To be clear, nothing was ever offered,” he added in a separate post.
I got a kick out of that separate ‘clarification’ that nothing had been offered. In fact it offers a bit of intrigue. Moskowitz had to know before the public floating of his name he was under consideration. He could have quietly said ‘no thanks’ and this whole thing would never have become a ‘news story.’ However he let it brew for a bit and might well have made himself a target of Trumpy’s ire for publicly rejecting serving the Mango Messiah. Of course, Moskowitz isn’t exactly Democrat’s favorite Congress Critter either having said he’ll serve on DOGE. Maybe a public blowing off of a Trump appointment to a top job is his way of getting back into his Party’s good graces. As I said, there could be some (more than a little) intrigue in all this.
In any case we have what would have been a Democrat that would have been the highest ranking one in the new administration giving a firm NO to the idea. Stay tuned to see whether and if so how Trumpy reacts. He’s not going to like getting slapped upside the head like this.
You are right that Moskowitz is a mixed bag, but his sarcastic trolling of James Comer always losing track of those “perfect” witnesses for Biden’s impeachment was pretty funny!
Damn, seems like he would have been orwtty damn good in the position, even with his spotty record. He got pretty major things done.
Is it possible he’s on the DOGE group to work.against what Soon wants?? Playing Devil’s Advocate?