Peter Thiel slams ‘not very smart’ White House officials, warns

When PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel warns that the White House has “not very smart” officials, you don’t wave it off as another Silicon Valley billionaire being dramatic. Thiel is about as close to a Trump ally as the tech world has produced, and he’s not talking about policy disagreements. He’s talking about raw personnel quality. The people around the president can lose him the next election just as easily as the opposition can. That should worry every Republican who understands how little margin we have.

Thiel’s specific warning is that this talent gap could open the door for a democratic socialist takeover. That sounds hyperbolic until you remember how close we came in 2020. The left keeps offering bigger promises and we keep giving them openings by fumbling the basics. It doesn’t matter if the agenda is America First if the people executing it can’t get a permit pulled or a memo sent. Competence is a conservative value, or at least it used to be, and there’s nothing conservative about staffing a movement with empty suits.

The president himself deserves credit for the big calls, but even the best captain needs a crew that can tie a knot. Since Thiel isn’t running for anything and didn’t air this in an interview with the enemy press, this feels like a friend telling the truth. We should listen. Smart allies don’t fix what they love by flattering it. And if we keep ignoring that advice, the only thing we’ll be left to govern is our disappointment.