Brett Ratner, the film director dropped by Warner Bros in 2017 following sexual misconduct allegations he denies, boarded Air Force One this week as part of the presidential entourage heading to China for a summit with Xi Jinping. His stated purpose: scouting locations for Rush Hour 4, the action franchise that happens to be among Trump's favorite movies.
The choice of travel companion is, on its surface, bewildering. Ratner's career in Hollywood essentially ended after years of detailed accusations. Yet his presence on the presidential aircraft illuminates something essential about how the current administration operates: the deliberate elevation of unsuitable figures serves as a kind of political performance art.
Trump has made a pattern of resurrecting people from professional exile. Pete Hegseth, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and now Ratner all arrived in Trump's circle after being largely discredited elsewhere. The through line is less about their qualifications and more about their capacity to provoke. Having the director of a Rush Hour movie scout locations aboard Air Force One during high-stakes diplomacy is precisely the sort of gesture Trump enjoys: a middle finger to people who object to unconventional moves, wrapped in enough humor to make pushback seem like missing the joke.
The Ratner invitation echoes other recent appointments that seem designed primarily to unsettle the political establishment. Trump's additions to the Kennedy Center board included his chief of staff Susie Wiles and her mother, Cheri Summerall. He appointed Charles Kushner, a convicted felon and Jared Kushner's father, as ambassador to France. Linda McMahon, a former wrestling executive, became secretary of education despite glaring inexperience for a role overseeing millions of American schoolchildren's futures.
The pattern extends back further. Dennis Rodman, plucked from reality television obscurity, appointed himself a self-directed envoy to North Korea, conducting what he called basketball diplomacy. Each move carried the same theatrical quality: a deliberate deployment of unsuitable figures to accomplish Trump's preferred brand of disruption.
Ratner's documentary about Melania, for which Amazon paid $40 million, underperformed dramatically at release. The acquisition price alone suggests the Trump family's capacity to absorb financial disappointment through wealthy backers. His presence on Air Force One represents less a serious diplomatic choice and more another chapter in a broader strategy of installing people partly for the scandal they carry.
There remains at least one cautionary example. Before Trump, Rudy Giuliani maintained a reputation as a competent public official and appeared fundamentally sound. His documented descent into disrepute and legal jeopardy offers a warning about the corrosive effect of association with this administration. When Giuliani recently entered intensive care in Florida, obituary writers prepared accounts of his transformation from local hero to a figure of ignominy. He has since recovered, but the narrative of his decline stands as a sobering counterpoint to those currently rushing to attach themselves to Trump's orbit.
Author James Rodriguez: "Trump's willingness to put a disgraced director on Air Force One for a China trip isn't a security oversight or an accident, it's the whole point."
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