How many boot licks does it take to get to the center of President Donald Trump’s heart? You would have to ask the president’s rising vassal star, Marc Thiessen.
Thiessen, a Washington Post columnist, Fox News contributor, and Iran hawk who worked in the Bush Administration and defended the failed invasion of Iraq, has in recent months ingratiated himself with the president. Axios reported in April that Thiessen, along with hawks Gen. (Ret.) Jack Keane and Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham were “consulting” with the president and pushing him to re-ignite the kinetic war against Iran to break the stalemate. (N.B., this appears to be happening.) (RELATED: Horsemen Of The Neocon Apocalypse Reportedly Whispering In Trump’s Ear)
A new Semafor report published Sunday night shed more light on Thiessen’s rise to becoming one of Trump’s most beloved towel boys. Thiessen has reportedly bragged that his pro-Ukraine columns are shaping the president’s view of the Russia-Ukraine war; Thiessen was invited to a White House dinner with the president, who complimented his wife’s attractiveness; and he has apparently annoyed some of his WaPo colleagues for using his column as a “Dear Donald, You Are A Genius” soapbox.
“[S]ome inside the paper have rolled their eyes at Thiessen columns they feel are pandering,” Semafor reported. “Within the office, one Post insider said, some staff would groan that Thiessen’s columns were being written not for readers broadly, but for one reader in particular.”
WASHINGTON – SEPTEMBER 13: In this handout from the White House, U.S. President George W. Bush (2nd L) goes over a speech with his speech writing staff Marc Thiessen (L), Bill McGurn (R) and Christopher Michel in the Oval Office September 13, 2007 in Washington, DC. Bush will make a prime-time speech September 13 and is expected to announce plans for troop withdrawals from Iraq. (Photo by Eric Draper/White House via Getty Images)
To get a sense of how many times Thiessen had to lick Trump’s boots, Semafor cited about eight egregious examples from his columns and tweets.
In 2025, Thiessen said that Trump deserves the Nobel Peace Prize and argued that Trump should help Ukraine build a border wall as a buffer with Russia because Trump just loves those walls. More recently, Thiessen praised Trump as a “genius” for blockading Iran’s blockade, and wrote that the president can win the war “if, like Kipling’s great man, he continues to keep his head while all around him others are losing theirs.”
Eight boot licks seems a bit low to me. I would reckon you need about quadruple that amount of licks, and to also smile and fake-laugh when the president says your wife is hot.
In all seriousness, I, for one, am horrified that a DC swamp creature who got it so wrong with Iraq is now advising the president on another Middle East war. Only in Washington, D.C., do so many ruling class elites manage to fail upwards and cozily into the laps of people as powerful as the commander-in-chief. If the president is taking advice from a neocon cheerleader, who was waving the WMD pom poms before the Iraq invasion, to heart, God help us all.