Snapshot: Pete Hegseth Is Just What Trump Wants
Hegseth's unfitness to serve as Secretary of Defense was on full display yesterday
Pete Hegseth is not qualified to lead the Department of Defense. That was on obvious display yesterday at his Senate confirmation hearing.
It was embarrassing for our country when Democrats asked him actual questions about his qualifications. This is the guy who’s run (and mismanaged) two tiny veterans groups and now is in line to run the largest bureaucracy in our government, with an annual budget of $850 billion that employs nearly 3 million men and women.
This is the guy who couldn’t name a single country that’s part of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), which represents 650 million people and will be one of the points of focus for international negotiations. Pressed by Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth, Hegseth mentioned Japan, South Korea and Australia. ASEAN is currently comprised of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. “I suggest you do a little homework,” Duckworth said, doubting whether Hegseth has the “breadth and depth of knowledge” required to do the job.
But as much as the Democrats stripped away Hegseth’s arrogant, macho veneer to illustrate his lack of traditional qualifications—and that particularly included questioning his documented record of drunkenness, sexual abuse and hostility toward women and female combat soldiers—it was painfully clear that the unqualified Hegseth’s main purpose was to smile and nod as the Republicans waxed rhapsodic about him and to push back with aggression or sneer silently when Democrats dared to doubt Donald Trump’s insulting pick to run our military.
“Anonymous smears,” he spewed over and over, ignoring the Democratic questioners who said they in fact had names, even though the FBI’s ostensible background check failed to question many of the principal sources who witnessed Hegseth’s drunkenness and abusive behavior. Recall that Hegseth’s own mother had written (and later recanted in the white-hot light of politics) that her son “belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around and uses women for his own power and ego.”
The fact that Hegseth is on wife number three and has seven children is no reason to doubt him, not after he informed the senators that he has experienced “redemption” from Jesus Christ. Apparently, that was supposed to be enough to close the book on his personal failings, even after he gaslighted in his opening statement that he is “an open book.” Never mind the danger he represents to national security.
No, the former Fox & Friends weekend co-host was there with his square jaw, his groomed hair thick with product, and a stars and stripes handkerchief jutting from his jacket pocket to deny or ignore any suggestion that he couldn’t do this job. Most ominously, that included his refusal to say that he would carry out illegal orders if Donald Trump asked him to do them. He didn’t deny that he would shoot protestors in the leg if given the order by Trump. He didn’t deny that he would invade Greenland, a territory of NATO ally Denmark, if given the order by his Commander-in-Chief. It was clear that he had already decided that fealty to Trump was his highest duty.
As recently as November, Hegseth has said, “we should not have women in combat roles. It hasn’t made us more effective. Hasn’t made us more lethal. Has made fighting more complicated.” And yesterday, while not exactly walking this back, he chose to emphasize that the real problem is the military lowering its standards to accommodate women. Never mind the mad fact that the military would be grotesquely lowering its standards to let a man as unqualified as him serve as its secretary.
Pete Hegseth is the kind of guy that appeals to Trump, who mirrors his own failings and preferences. All the talk yesterday by kowtowing Republican senators that he is a “change agent” who will help remake the military (and end “wokeness”) could not hide the fact that Hegseth is just the kind of angry, arrogant, retrogressive man who Trump admires. And there did not appear to be one Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, including Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, who’s going to say no to what Trump wants.
Please consider becoming a paid subscriber for $50 a year or just $5 a month, if you’re not already. This helps sustain and expand the work of America, America, keeps nearly all the content free for everyone and gives you full access to the comment sections. That has never been more important.
It made me physically nauseous. he’s just simply so incompetent that my only hope is he will bungle the job so badly that he will be begging to quit before 6 months pass. Much like Trump - neither of them could pass a standard HS history or geography … or algebra … any actual test of knowledge. O’Donnell said it well last night when he pointed out how Trump’s “gift” to this country has been to lower the standards of every single metric that exists in the United States.
I am in disbelief that we voted this convicted felon into office. When as Jack Smith clearly showed us; he would otherwise be in jail and unable to nominate vulgar nitwits like good old Pete.
I’m sending emails to my senators and especially to Joni Ernst encouraging her to look closely at Pete Hegseth’s nomination for Sec. of Def. If she decided he didn’t have the qualifications for the job, that would probably be a turning point. She was unbelievably lenient yesterday. Perhaps an outpouring of dissent would make a difference.