How does “Secretary of Defense Ron DeSantis” sound to you? Or if you’re not sold on that, how about “Secretary of Defense Joni Ernst” or “Secretary of Defense Bill Hagerty”? The fact that the media is full of buzz about alternatives to Pete Hegseth is an indication of how quickly the outlook for the Hegseth nomination is darkening.
In a Triangulated Pick, the Square May Head to the Pentagon, Coming Full Circle
The contention that Pete Hegseth’s nomination to be the next secretary of defense is in trouble is not just media wish-casting, or a direct rerun of the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation hearings, as some Hegseth defenders contend. Trump stuck by Kavanaugh; he’s apparently not so willing to stick with Hegseth.
The Wall Street Journal reports a bombshell this morning:
President-elect Donald Trump is considering Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as a possible replacement for Pete Hegseth, his pick to run the Pentagon, according to people familiar with the discussions, amid Republican senators’ concerns over mounting allegations about the former Fox News host’s personal life.Picking DeSantis, a 2024 GOP primary rival for the presidency, would amount to a stunning turn for Trump. But he would also find in the governor a well-known conservative with a service record who shares Trump’s — and Hegseth’s — view on culling what they see as “woke” policies in the military.Trump allies increasingly think Hegseth might not survive further scrutiny, according to people close to the president-elect’s team, which considers the next 48 hours to be crucial to his fate.
CNN reported, “A senior Trump administration source told CNN’s Jake Tapper late Tuesday night, ‘Tomorrow is going to be absolutely critical.’ The source suggested that Hegseth hadn’t been forthcoming with the Trump team about his past behavior involving women and alcohol.” (You may recall that last month, the Journal editorial board — generally supportive of the Trump agenda when it comes to defense and national security — asked why Trump and his team were blindsided by Hegseth’s past settled allegation of sexual assault.)
Back on November 15, this blog stated, “Right now, barring some revelation of scandal or a disastrous confirmation hearing, Pete Hegseth will probably be confirmed as secretary of Defense.” But in the past three weeks or so, it’s been almost nothing but revelations of scandals.
Jane Mayer, writing in the New Yorker:
A previously undisclosed whistle-blower report on Hegseth’s tenure as the president of Concerned Veterans for America, from 2013 until 2016, describes him as being repeatedly intoxicated while acting in his official capacity — to the point of needing to be carried out of the organization’s events. The detailed seven-page report — which was compiled by multiple former C.V.A. employees and sent to the organization’s senior management in February, 2015 — states that, at one point, Hegseth had to be restrained while drunk from joining the dancers on the stage of a Louisiana strip club, where he had brought his team.The report also says that Hegseth, who was married at the time, and other members of his management team sexually pursued the organization’s female staffers, whom they divided into two groups — the “party girls” and the “not party girls.” In addition, the report asserts that, under Hegseth’s leadership, the organization became a hostile workplace that ignored serious accusations of impropriety, including an allegation made by a female employee that another employee on Hegseth’s staff had attempted to sexually assault her at the Louisiana strip club. In a separate letter of complaint, which was sent to the organization in late 2015, a different former employee described Hegseth being at a bar in the early-morning hours of May 29, 2015, while on an official tour through Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, drunkenly chanting “Kill All Muslims! Kill All Muslims!”
Usually, a note from your mother gets you out of something; a scathing 2018 note from Penelope Hegseth, the nominee’s mother, may play a role in getting him out of the nomination. The New York Times, Friday:
The mother of Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick for secretary of defense, wrote him an email in 2018 saying he had routinely mistreated women for years and displayed a lack of character.“On behalf of all the women (and I know it’s many) you have abused in some way, I say . . . get some help and take an honest look at yourself,” Penelope Hegseth wrote, stating that she still loved him.She also wrote: “I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around and uses women for his own power and ego. You are that man (and have been for years) and as your mother, it pains me and embarrasses me to say that, but it is the sad, sad truth.”Mrs. Hegseth, in a phone interview with The New York Times on Friday, said that she had sent her son an immediate follow-up email at the time apologizing for what she had written. She said she had fired off the original email “in anger, with emotion” at a time when he and his wife were going through a very difficult divorce.
Tuesday, NBC News reported, “Three current and seven former Fox employees, all of whom asked not to be named because of fear of retaliation” said Hegseth “drank in ways that concerned his colleagues.” A transition source told CNN, “There are significant concerns more accusations are going to come out from his time at Fox News.”
While Democrats can talk about their priorities for torpedoing these nominations, in the end it is Senate Republicans, and in one case the MAGA grassroots, who are blocking the confirmation of them. Yesterday, Chad Chronister, the Florida sheriff Trump named to head the Drug Enforcement Administration, said he was withdrawing his nomination. “Over the past several days, as the gravity of this very important responsibility set in, I’ve concluded that I must respectfully withdraw from consideration. There is more work to be done for the citizens of Hillsborough County and a lot of initiatives I am committed to fulfilling.”
Way back in March 2020, as the Covid-19 pandemic took hold and the country started enacting restrictions on public gatherings, pastor Rodney Howard-Browne of the River Church in Tampa held services and instructed attendees to hold hands. “If you can’t receive communion because you’re afraid of getting infected, you don’t understand what the table of the Lord is about.” A few days later, Howard-Browne was arrested and charged for unlawful assembly and violation of public-health-emergency rules by . . . Hillsborough County sheriff Chad Chronister. Chronister said the pastor “intentionally and repeatedly chose to disregard the orders set in place by our president, our governor, the CDC and the Hillsborough County Emergency Policy Group” and “his reckless disregard for human life put hundreds of people from his congregation at risk and thousands of residents who may interact with them this week.”
Back to Hegseth. The Washington Post:
“We absolutely cannot have a Secretary of Defense that gets drunk on a regular basis . . . I got to know that he’s got that problem licked,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-North Dakota), who plans to meet with Hegseth soon. “I’ve seen public statements to that effect and if he reassures me that’s the case then I’m satisfied with it.”One Senate Republican, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations, said that Hegseth would have a “hard time” getting confirmed and described some members as “wild cards.”“These are controversial appointments,” the senator said, adding that Hegseth ranked among the toughest Trump nominees to make it through the Senate.
NBC News:
Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, who sits on the Armed Services Committee would not commit to supporting Hegseth’s nomination and said she planned to grill the former cable news host about news accounts of his alleged alcohol abuse, mistreatment of woman and financial mismanagement.“We’re just going to have a really frank and thorough conversation,” Ernst said of Hegseth’s nomination process.
Note that when Hegseth was named, Ernst initially reacted, “I think he is going to be a very strong secretary of defense.”
ABC News:
“I think some of these articles are very disturbing. He obviously has a chance to defend himself here, but some of this stuff is — it’s going to be difficult. Time will tell,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee.“Well, these allegations that have come up just in the last 12 to 14 hours are a surprise to all of us, and so yes, he does need to address those because this was not something of which we were aware, nor was President Trump aware of them,” said Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., who met with Hegseth on Monday night with a group of senators.“I have read all the articles, I have seen all the allegations. And Mr. Hegseth is going to have to address it,” Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said.“I want to know if they’re true, and I want to hear his side of the story. And he’s going to have to address them,” Kennedy added.
And Maine Republican senator Susan Collins, speaking to CNN:
“I believe that we need an FBI background check to evaluate the allegations, we need to have the normal committee process of questionnaires and questionnaires about his background and a public hearing,” Collins said.
Remember, assuming all Senate Democrats oppose a Trump nominee, that nominee can lose three Senate Republicans and be confirmed on a 51-50 vote with incoming Vice President JD Vance breaking the tie. At least six senators — Cramer, Ernst, Graham, Lummis, Kennedy, and Collins — all sound at least wary about the nomination now. And while Alaska Republican senator Lisa Murkowski hasn’t addressed the latest allegations, she initially expressed surprise at the selection, telling reporters, “The names that I’ve heard for secretary of defense have not included him.”
One defender of Hegseth wrote, “2018, Pete Hegseth rededicated his life to Christ. Show me he had an affair after that date and I’ll change my mind. God forgives when a person changes his heart and repents, why doesn’t man give a person the same grace?”
Senators might be more willing to overlook allegations of womanizing, public drunkenness, and misuse of funds if Hegseth were older, and the misbehavior was in the more distant past. But 2018 wasn’t that long ago; Trump was in the second year of his first presidential term.
As for the potential alternatives, CNN reports that current senators Ernst and Bill Hagerty of Tennessee are also being mentioned as options, as well as DeSantis. (Senators almost always confirm one of their own.) Unlike a vacancy in the U.S. House of Representatives, a Senate vacancy is usually replaced quickly, and Iowa governor Kim Reynolds or Tennessee governor Bill Lee would almost certainly name some pro-Trump conservative Republican to fill the seat until the next election.
Under Florida law, if DeSantis were to resign as governor, Lieutenant Governor Jeanette M. Nuñez would serve for the remaining 25 months in DeSantis’s term. Under the Florida state constitution, governors can serve more than two terms, but not more than two consecutively.
