Announcing 2025’s Golden Duke Winners
The anarchic no-man’s land between the holidays and New Year’s is the perfect time to announce the winners of the 17th Annual Golden Duke Awards, TPM’s annual toast to the toads who have taken venality and absurdity to new heights.
In 2025, the first year of Donald Trump’s second term, those who specialize in political corruption, brazen capitulation, and brazen betrayals of the public trust have had ample opportunity to shine. And they shined.
Earlier this month, we asked you to vote for the Golden Duke Awards nominees in five different categories to help us celebrate the Best Of of 2025. The competition was tough in some categories. In others…well, every time Donald Trump’s name was mentioned, you, the readers, couldn’t help it.
My colleagues Josh Marshall and Kate Riga announced this year’s Golden Duke Awards winners on the podcast this week, which you can listen to here or watch below. You can also scroll down further to see some excerpts from the discussion. Thank you to everyone who participated in the 17th edition of the Golden Dukes and, fingers crossed, your favorite psychopath won!
Happy Golden Dukes to you and yours.
Best Scandal – General Interest
The nominees: Trump’s $300 million White House ballroom, Kristi Noem’s grisly photo ops, podcaster Dan Bongino’s failed conspiracy theory, Eric Adams’ entire mayoral administration.
The winner: Trump’s $300 million White House Ballroom takes the prize for, as one reader put it, the most visually “on the nose” corruption of Trump’s second term and “raw gold-plated ballroom indulgence financed by shady crypto guys.” Trump’s ballroom won with 62% of the vote.
Finalists: They were practically on par with Noem’s grisly photo ops. winning 17.3% of the vote against the corrupt candidate of Eric Adams for mayor of New York with 17.2% of the vote.
“Not everyone can have good taste.”
Kate Riga
The sockets*:
Kate: “I mean, Trump is a good choice in terms of the size of the scandal. I think in terms of raw dollars, it will be the biggest. And it’s funny because Noem’s is not really what I think you would consider a scandal in normal terms. It’s more like…”
Josh: “A hideous sight. »
Meritorious achievement in fraud
The nominees: Winnie Greco let the chips fall where they may, Mike Huckabee of Relaxium, Tom ‘Cashbag’ Homan, Shady Memecoin of the Trump family.
The winner: Shady Memecoin, from the Trump family, won with 60% of the vote. The blatant nature of the crimes is what made it the readers’ first choice. As TPM reporter Layla A. Jones said in her nomination, “much of the $800 million her sons have raised this year for the family business conglomerate has come from 1) selling memecoins actually called $TRUMP to 2) foreign investors, several of whom told Reuters they hoped to curry favor with the president because 3) Trump has openly sought to deregulate large-scale crypto speed. an open-air scam.
Finalist: Tom “Cashbag” Homan with 30% of the vote. As one reader said in his nomination, “Homan’s simple but cheeky approach – an old schoolbag and just 50,000 *in cash* – was a reminder of days gone by.”
“Grifty, but stupid and weird.”
Kate Riga
The sockets*:
Josh, on the inevitability of a Trump victory in this category: “It’s kind of like… if you’re picking up acting awards at your high school. And Robert De Niro was in the room, somehow, like, okay, he’s going to win. I mean, come on. You have to focus on the runner-up at that point, right? Because it’s De Niro and that’s it.”
Best Support Ax Man
The nominees: Housing enforcer Bill Pulte, DOJ arms czar Ed Martin, perplexed prosecutor Lindsey Halligan, Trumponomics enabler Scott Bessent.
The winner: With 29.8 percent of the vote, Bill Pulte – “the 37-year-old scion of a major homebuilding family installed simultaneously as the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, where he is free to dig into the personal mortgage records of prominent Democrats,” as David Kurtz put it – wins.
Finalists: This was by far the closest category. Second place goes to Ed Martin (28%), followed by Scott Bessent (21.5%) and Lindsey Halligan in last place (20.7%).
“There’s a kind of respect for the hustle here.”
Kate Riga
The sockets*:
Kate: “It’s just, like, it’s kind of funny to have this rabid pit bull who – the best assignment he can get is in this little random housing office. And he says, ‘Don’t worry, sir, I’m going to weaponize everything at my disposal.’ And it just involves these poor bastards reviewing the mortgage documents, looking for errors. This is all a bit comical.
Josh: “It’s true, it’s so hard. … Like you’re in different places in life and you’re doing the best you can in your position in life, and you’re trying to do more than what people think you can do.”
“A lot of these Trump appointees, because they have an inner darkness, must be aging them prematurely.”
Josh Marshall
The greatest failure of journalism
The nominees: SignalGate, Olivia Nuzzi hikes the Appalachian Trail, The New York Times vs. Zohran Mamdani, Lindsey Halligan can’t get out of the case.
The winner: NYT against Zohran won with 37.2% of the votes.
Finalist: SignalGate comes in second with 34.3% of the votes.
“Left to the altar more than a way here.”
Josh Marshall
The sockets*:
Kate: “Okay. And the winner is. Oh NYT versus Zohran. What! What! What!”
Josh: “What! »
Kate: “With a whopping 37.2% of the vote? What?”
Josh: “What?
The most blatant kisses
The nominees: Mike Braun bends the knee, Columbia accepts Trump’s terms of engagement, Tim Cook and his golden idol, Bill Cassidy believes in bullshit.
The winner: Colombia won with 43.6% of the votes. As TPM reader Elizabeth described it in her memoir, Columbia should receive due recognition because it demonstrated “the worst capitulation to absurdities and the most grotesque complacency on the part of an institution of higher learning.”
Finalist: Bill Cassidy “for his misfortune, his cowardice and his degradation which would be comical if the consequences were not so serious”, as TPM reader BW said.
“Columbia. What the fuck?”
Kate Riga
The sockets*:
Kate: “Columbia…the epitome of academic capitulation and getting absolutely nothing in return.”
* Lightly edited for clarity.
