Skip to content

Pete Hegseth’s future may not be in an E-ring office after all

Looks like maybe the jig is up for Pete Hegseth, who possesses the unique combination of being both the biggest asshole and the most aggressively unqualified nominee in history to run the Defense Department:

Any port in a storm, but it's telling that Trump's gripe appears to be only that Hegseth might have misled him, not that Hegseth is an unqualified asshole. But I guess Trump knew that all along and considered it a plus.

50 thoughts on “Pete Hegseth’s future may not be in an E-ring office after all

  1. iamr4man

    According to the Wall Street Journal Trump is considering DeSatis for the job. Does Trump just have a hat that he puts names in and draws from it at random?

      1. iamr4man

        DeSantis seems like a weird pick to me, and I have my doubts. He hasn’t sufficiently kissed the ring (or whatever) yet and that seems to be the main qualification for everything. To be honest, I kind of thought he’d go for Tuberville. He’s a full on Trump lunatic and he know’s defense with his football experience, right?

        1. Bardi

          Would Tuberville, considering the Supreme Court's lack of self-ethics, be able to vote for/against his own "nomination"?

      1. Jasper_in_Boston

        So bascailly the #1 criteria to be Defense Secretary is to be vocally anti-woke. Good to know....

        I detest DeSantis's politics and worldview, but he's conventionally qualified to run a large bureaucracy like the Pentagon: Ivy League lawyer, multiple terms in Congress, big state governor, former military officer. He's the kind of establishmentarian figure that Republicans have traditionally slotted in for major cabinet posts like SecDef. A little light on national security expertise, I fear, but that's really about the best we're going to get from the Trump administration. He's manifestly more qualified than Hogsdeath.

        I'll frankly admit to having something of a "pass the popcorn" attitude with some of Trump's cabinet nominations—the ones that can't cause too much of a crisis (that would imperil the country). The "own goal" potential for Trump to harm the GOP is substantial...

        But national security really is different. For that reason I hope that Tulsi soon joins the Fox News himbo on the ash heap of cabinet history.

        1. Yehouda

          " He's manifestly more qualified than Hogsdeath."

          The main difference is that DeSantis has his own standing as politician independently of Trump, and can actually (and probably will) put some breaks on Trump fascism. Hogsdeath does not have standing outside MAGA, and will go without resistance with anything Trump wants to do.

          1. Jasper_in_Boston

            Agreed, and in general, one would hope DeSantis has enough government experience or basic judgment to keep one eye on his own political future; and thus this factor might (might!) act as a break on carrying out the God-Emperor's more deranged flights of fancy.

            I don't want to pull my punches: I deem Ron DeSantis to have been a pretty atrocious political leader in myriad ways. But I don't think he's a MAGA/Q-Anon crazy (I'm relieved Michael Flynn hasn't resurfaced, I should add). But I don't think the same can be said of Hegseth.

            1. Joseph Harbin

              Mostly concur with this thread. Besides issues of national security, there's immigration. Trump plans on using US troops for mass deportations, which raises grave concerns. I don't like DeSantis and don't trust him, but I'd like to think his experience (and desire to be politically viable in the future) will steer him away from the more dangerous and illegal schemes that Trump has cooked up.

    1. Yehouda

      "Does Trump just have a hat that he puts names in and draws from it at random?"

      It sounds to me like a plausible result of negotiations between Trump's people (not Trump himlsef) and Republican senators. The Lara Trump bit is probably where Trump himself came in..

    2. lawnorder

      No, it's obvious that Trump is naming cabinet and agency head nominations for the sole purpose of making liberal heads explode. There is simply no other plausible explanation for why he has chosen so many grossly unqualified people.

    3. KJK

      Would enjoy seeing DeathSantis resign his office and take the job, then get kicked to the curb by Trump within a year for not kissing his ass enough. That could be enough to fully destroy his political career in MAGA land.

  2. Justin

    I’ll be really disappointed if the trump regime gets past this gang of nazis and we have competent government instead!

      1. Justin

        Opposition is already suppressed. If trump and republicans in congress can cut taxes, kill social welfare programs, cut those pesky regulations on safety and the environment, etc. it will be unfortunate but they were given the power to do so by voters in one form or another. I won’t like it, but then I didn’t vote for him.

        “And citizens, regardless of how they voted, need now to check their attitudes. This is no longer a post-electoral moment. It is a pre-catastrophic moment. Trump voters are caught in the notion that Trump must be doing the right thing if Harris voters are upset. But Harris voters are upset now because they love their country. And Harris voters will have to get past the idea that Trump voters should reap what they have sown. Yes, some of them did vote to burn it all down. But if it all burns down, we burn too.”

        Not sure I agree that “we burn too”, but there isn’t much I can do about it now.

  3. emh1969

    "Any port in a storm, but it's telling that Trump's gripe appears to be only that Hegseth might have misled him, not that Hegseth is an unqualified asshole. "

    Not sure what you expect, Kevin. If if Trump could admit to himself that he screwed up (which I have doubts about), he would clearly never admit it publicly.

    1. DaBunny

      This actually seems pretty normal. The cardinal sin any nominee (hell, any potential employee) can commit is lying to the new boss.

    2. Bardi

      " Trump's gripe appears to be only that Hegseth might have misled him"
      Pulease. donnie always has excuses that place the blame on others. Read any book dealing with gangsters.

  4. D_Ohrk_E1

    I'm disappointed that there are just enough GOP senators who are anti-MAGA to stop the country from seeing the full effects of MAGA.

    If MAGA wants to see what it's like to burn the whole house down, let them. When the horrors are front and center, those MAGA will go back to their low-propensity lives with their tails tucked between their legs. And the Schadenfreude, of all the people who sat on the sidelines because of their single-issue stance, will be glorious.

    1. Jasper_in_Boston

      You've said this before, but again, national security really is different. Let's hope the Schadenfreude mainly flows from the clusterfucks of less critical cabinet posts. I want Trump to suffer political losses as much as anybody, but not at the expense of some horrendous disaster that takes a terrible toll on the country.

      Let a MAGA crank fuck things up at Interior or Education or Transportation or Commerce. But if a crisis were to break out over the Balkans, say, or the South China Sea, I'd hope his Orangeness has a few adults in the room to save us from a catastrophe. Hogsbreath practically screams "existential crisis."

      1. D_Ohrk_E1

        I'm not so sure SecDef is the most important link in the NatSec chain, though. NatSec advisor and the NSC have direct inputs to policy, whereas SecDef's role is mostly in carrying out POTUS' policies that are shaped by Nat Sec advisor and the NSC. And below SecDef is a layer of very competent generals, etc.

      2. Austin

        I don’t know. Losing a state or 10 due to invasion or nuking from a crazy SecDef pissing off the wrong people worldwide might be useful to the rest of us left in the remaining US trying to implement rational government policies for more than 4-8 years at a time. Would depend heavily on which states were lost and whether the rest of the country stayed together afterwards. I doubt many people in blue America would miss the Dakotas or Alaska for example.

    2. MrPug

      Why do you think there are just enough GOP Senators who will stop these nominations? I've seen very little evidence of that. So far, one nominee has been stopped before there was a vote and that was largely because he was a creep, but more importantly, because every hates his fucking guts. Hegseth seems likely to drop out, also before a vote. But, I'd wager a lot of money that all of the nominees who come up for votes will get near or total unanimous support from GOP Senators. I saw yesterday that even the very reasonable Tillis is OK with K$S for FBI director.

      So, I think you'll (mostly) get your wish.

  5. rick_jones

    Any port in a storm, but it's telling that Trump's gripe appears to be only that Hegseth might have misled him, not that Hegseth is an unqualified asshole. But I guess Trump knew that all along and considered it a plus.

    While I suspect Hegseth isn't the only one to have been not-entirely-forthcoming with the king-in-waiting-elect, that is likely the only reason to use which does not cast aspersions on any of his other nominees.

  6. Fortheloveofdog

    Is the reality starting to dawn on you that the election panic you bought into might not have been an accurate prediction of how the government works?

    1. aldoushickman

      Dude isn't even sworn in yet. Let's not breathe any sighs of relief just because (some of) the farcically unqualified people Trump announced intentions to nominate might not end up in the posts Trump wanted them for.

    2. Joel

      No. The reality is that the clusterfuck that awaits us was accurately predicted and that government will no longer work after Trump takes office.

      But thanks for asking.

  7. J. Frank Parnell

    Trump isn’t bothered by the womanizing, he regards it as what real men do. Likewise looting the organizations he worked for and running them into the ground. But the uncontrolled drinking is something else entirely. Only pathetic losers like his brother Fred Jr drink too much.

    1. cephalopod

      Exactly. And that's why Rudy Giuliani has also been tossed aside.

      Abuse of others (sexual/financial) is viewed by him as being strong. Addiction is viewed as weakness.

  8. LeeDennis

    +1
    Also, "he only does it to annoy, because he knows it teases."
    Derecho Don pulls out of his MAGA hat whatever name will cause most apoplexy among the enemy within. He's proud of the result.
    He's been oppositional like this since at least the age of 5 (see Haberman's "Confidence Man.") Mama Trump probably tut-tutted, Daddy Fred likely patted him on the back.

  9. Altoid

    Is it coincidence, or just interesting, that Hegseth's confirmation case is being blown away by the shitstorm of true news about him, at around the same time the transition office itself finally knuckled under and agreed to have the current FBI do the background checks on nominees (as opposed to waiting for Patel's lapdog FBI to "clear" them)?

    Cranking in the Gaetz fiasco and the DEA guy's withdrawal yesterday, I'm inclined to read all this as an extremely intense pressure campaign by a Senate faction and probably by some of the more traditional megabucks GOP donor class who don't want to see a complete breakdown of government function and party presentability/credibility. But then I've been known to show some Pollyanna tendencies.

    1. Austin

      Really hard for the GOP donor class to enjoy their riches if the country collapses or is invaded/nuked or has the rule of law completely gone. Yes they can personally afford to escape the ruin. But a lot of their wealth is either in land-based property which can’t be moved or in the stock market, bonds, and other ephemeral things that depend on the US still existing and functioning like a developed country. And physically escaping isn’t much condolence either in a world in which Putin can just have someone push you out a window, as is the common cause of death for Moscow billionaires now.

      1. Larry Jones

        ...things that depend on the US still existing and functioning like a developed country.

        Putin, Chavez, Kim and their cronies are doing quite well, thank you, while their countries are not acting like developed nations. The 0.1% will always be OK.

  10. Salamander

    It's entirely possible that the Convicted Felon doesn't know anybody competent enough to run a Cabinet-level or similar position. It's a cinch that nobody he knows could pass an FBI security screen.

  11. akapneogy

    " .... Trump's gripe appears to be only that Hegseth might have misled him, not that Hegseth is an unqualified asshole. "

    He is looking for a team of enforcer Capos, not a Team of Rivals.

    1. Salamander

      As others have noted, the surprise red flag on Heggie could have been his heavy drinking. The Felon is reportedly a teetotaler, based on loathing for his older brother, Fred Junior, who drank himself to death.

      This might also explain why Rudy is no longer palling around with the soon to be Felon in Chief.

      1. akapneogy

        True. But in what universe does being a lush trump assaulting women? Those are Trump's crooked standards. We need not go further into them than dismissing them as irrelevant criteria imposed by a sick man. The relevant thing is that Trump is trying to impose his demented will through enforcers.

  12. pjcamp1905

    Hegseth is now loudly proclaiming that he will never back down. That means he's toast in a matter of days, if not hours.

Comments are closed.