The Trump administration has tapped rapper Nicki Minaj to serve as one of the celebrity judges for the Small Business Administration’s Million Dollar Pitch Competition. Minaj will join entrepreneur and real estate investor Grant Cardone, Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia, and actor Dean Cain, who will host the competition’s Sept. 18 finale in…
Page A13From§Eachthe early bird edition — 1 September 2026
Trump names pastor as CDC tobacco adviser, launches Nicki Minaj on White House Shark Tank
The CDC, once a bastion of epidemiological rigor, now welcomes a pastor as its tobacco health adviser. Meanwhile, the White House launches Nicki Minaj as the star of a Shark Tank-style show, presumably to pitch policy in the format of competitive entrepreneurship. These are not isolated quirks: they are patterns. The experts are swapped out for personalities, the game structure replaces the institutional process, and the actual stakes—lungs, lives, public health—are left in the wings. In the era of spectacle, the prize is your body, and the contestants are the faces you recognize. If the experts matter, they are not being asked. The fold is the receipt: the CDC's adviser's credentials are spiritual, not epidemiological; policy becomes entertainment. This is not a break from routine; it is the establishment of a new one. The only question left is whose health is the prize, and who is in the audience. The show will go on, but the experts are not invited. The game is the institution, and the stakes are literal.
“This is the part where they stop even pretending the experts matter. You get a pastor handling public health, and a rapper pitching policy on prime time, all while the actual scientists get booted to the bench. The big institutions are just game shows now, and the prize is your lungs.”
“Look, the administration is just thinking outside the box. Why limit ourselves to so-called 'experts' when creative thinkers can bring new perspectives? Besides, Shark Tank is a proven format—wait, was that for policy? I meant, for innovation. That's not what I meant to say.”
The receipts
President Trump on Tuesday announced the selection of Pastor Darrell Scott, a longtime supporter of his, to be the tobacco health adviser for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Trump announced Scott's new role on Truth Social, citing his longtime advocacy for "America’s Underserved Communities." "For far too long…
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.