The Trump Sh*t Show Arrives in D.C.
Pete Hegseth, Elon Musk, and Trump himself. Buckle up.
An important event happening at an awkward time for us to write about it: Senate Republicans will have their secret-ballot vote this morning to elect Mitch McConnell’s successor as majority leader. More on this tomorrow, we suspect! Happy Wednesday.
For Pete’s Sake
by William Kristol
In 2018, Donald Trump’s brain, Steve Bannon, told the writer Michael Lewis, “The Democrats don’t matter. The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.”
They’ve done it for a decade, and it’s largely worked. Now, one week after Trump’s election to a second term, they’re doing it again, only this time they’re flooding the zone with appointments that—let’s just say—stink up the joint.
It’s disorienting, as it’s intended to be. You feel like you’re playing one of those whack-a-mole boardwalk games at Funland in Rehoboth. Ultimately you’ve accomplished little, except occasionally winning some cheap stuffed animal as a consolation prize.
But sometimes in politics you have to start with small prizes and build up to bigger victories. And even though the bulk of Trump’s embarrassing and unqualified appointments will get confirmed, his intention to nominate Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense gives defenders of good government and the rule of law a chance for a win.
It would not be for a small prize either. Secretary of defense is an important job.
Could Hegseth’s nomination be defeated? Many Republican senators have dealt with Hegseth, and they know he’s beyond unqualified for the position. Has there actually been a single statement from a Republican senator actually praising the choice? I’m not aware of one.
Now of course that’s different from actually opposing a nomination by the party’s Dear Leader, and we’ll see how many Republicans have the nerve to do that.
But still, Democrats and good government organizations and veterans groups should make such opposition from some Republican senators easier. I’m confident there’s zero chance that incoming Armed Services Committee chair, Sen. Roger Wicker, would think Hegseth an appropriate, or even a defensible, selection. Nor would Armed Service Committee members Sens. Tom Cotton or Dan Sullivan. Will they say publicly what they know privately? We’ll see. But it will be easier for them to do so if there’s thorough research into Hegseth’s background and the public marshaling of evidence for Hegseth’s radical unfitness for the position.
Because he really is unfit.
I knew Pete Hegseth fifteen years ago when he was a young, pro-Iraq war veteran, moving in Weekly Standard/Project for a New American Century circles. He seemed to be an effective proponent of neoconservative foreign policy, and some of us wanted to think well of him and give him a hand on a promising career. I even weighed in (ineffectually) on his behalf when he ran for the Republican nomination for senator in Minnesota—against, as I recall, a Ron Paul–supporting America First type.
But as sometimes happens, my judgment and that of others was mistaken. Hegseth turned out to be personally untrustworthy, intellectually shallow, and politically opportunistic. He moved on and was encouraged to move on out of our world, and ended up in the orbit of Fox News and Trumpist sycophancy, where he fit in well.
The general reaction of others who knew him back when is summarized in a text I got last night. This is from someone who’s seen it all, who has a cynical view of politics, and who expects the corridors of power to be populated by opportunists and phonies. He’s not the type to get upset about second- or third-raters being appointed to high office. But still, he couldn’t quite believe this nomination. Under the subject line “Good Christ,” my friend wrote simply: “I wouldn’t let this creep dog-sit for me. Now he’s going to be the Secretary of Defense?”
But don’t believe me, or my dog-loving friend. Let’s just have a full exploration and public scrutiny of Hegseth’s background, and let people make up their own minds based on the evidence as to whether he should be in charge of the United States military.
Another friend emailed last night wondering if we should make a fuss about Hegseth. Wouldn’t it be better to have an incompetent showman rather than a more able Trumpist as secretary of defense? Wouldn’t the first perhaps be able to do less damage than the second?
It’s not a ridiculous position.
But Hegseth would be an ultra-loyalist, and would go along with everything Trump and his apparatchiks in the White House want. He would enable all of Trump’s plans to politicize and degrade our military, about which we’ve already seen a glimpse. It’s impossible to imagine him raising any objection regarding the host of things Trump plans to do, from using the military to round up immigrants to intervening to promote politically aligned general officers.
History suggests that shallow opportunists who have become mindless loyalists can be as dangerous as more impressive ideologues in helping effectuate the authoritarian project.
So it’s worth having this fight. It could prevent a really bad secretary of defense from taking office. But it also could establish the principle, early on in this second and far more dangerous Trump term that lies ahead, that the opposition will fight. And that it can win.
Norms for Me, But Not for Thee
by Andrew Egger
President Joe Biden will host Donald Trump at the White House today. It’s a traditional, largely symbolic gesture honoring the smooth and peaceful transfer of power—the old president going out of his way to legitimize the next one’s victory and help him get up to speed.
Trump denied Biden that courtesy four years ago amid his attempts to overturn and discredit the election results, and he’s spent the years since denouncing Biden as an illegitimate usurper and occasionally suggesting he should be in prison. Some people, including JVL, have argued that Biden’s reestablishment of those norms now could be a mistake: that the ordinary pomp should be denied to a convicted felon who tried to violently overthrow the government. But Biden was nevertheless determined that the norm would not deteriorate further under his watch.
“The American people deserve this,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters yesterday. “They deserve a peaceful transfer of power.”
But Biden is only one part of this meeting. Trump is the other. And though he lacks capacity for self reflection and embarrassment, he probably should have those in droves when he sits down next to the president today. The gathering is proof that everyone else who has sat in that office is capable of rising to the moment—except him. He is the petulant child president who whined and kicked and screamed until the adults in the room gave him his toy back.
Trump loves norms only when they’re playing to his benefit. And he’s not the only one. Melania Trump is not expected to accompany him for the traditional meeting with the outgoing first lady, Jill Biden.
“She ain’t going,” a source familiar with Melania’s decision told the New York Post. “Jill Biden’s husband authorized the FBI snooping through her underwear drawer. The Bidens are disgusting.”
(Just a quick reminder: This is ridiculous. The White House has said that President Biden had no prior knowledge of the FBI’s totally justified search of Mar-a-Lago, which recovered hundreds of classified documents Trump had removed from the White House upon leaving office and subsequently refused to return.)
CNN, citing other sources, suggested the snub would be due to a scheduling conflict—Melania, after all, is on a book tour for her recent memoir. Priorities! They also noted that some members of Team Trump are still wheedling the former and future first lady to show up. Maybe she will!
Either way, it’s a remarkable display of solipsism on Melania’s part—the same solipsism that led her to do things in Trump’s first term like declare herself “the most bullied person in the world” or wear a jacket emblazoned “I really don’t care, do u?” while visiting a holding facility for detained migrant children.
Whether Melania Trump shows or not, the entire day will have a surrealist element to it. Trump is slated to meet with House Republicans, too. And he’s bringing along his shadow president, Elon Musk—one of the government’s biggest contractors granted a direct audience with the people who write those checks.
The Biden visit itself will come after news that Special Counsel Jack Smith is ending his investigation into Trump’s role in the January 6th riots—an attempt to stop the peaceful transfer of power swept under the rug as an actual peaceful transfer of power takes place.
And so, we will have the ceremony of today: a demonstration that when the system is working as intended, our leaders put aside the differences of our ugly politics to unite around a shared commitment to the sovereignty of the people’s choices for who leads them. But it all should leave a bad taste in your mouth, too.
Quick Hits
AVENGERS ASSEMBLE: The hits keep coming! In addition to the Hegseth announcement, Trump yesterday unveiled the formation of his much-ballyhooed “Department of Government Efficiency” (or DOGE, for those of you who can’t get enough epic memes from ten years ago). Surprisingly, two heads for this advisory commission were announced: not only Elon Musk, as everybody expected, but also Vivek Ramaswamy, Trump’s former presidential primary opponent and second-favorite billionaire stooge.
We aren’t complaining about this one; we were sort of worried Ramaswamy was going to get a job that actually matters. (For one thing, he’ll no longer be badgering Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine to appoint him to JD Vance’s Senate seat.)
Trump also announced his selection of South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem as his Secretary of Homeland Security, which seems odd: Do the good people of Springfield, Ohio, really need yet another threat to the wellbeing of their pets?
IT’S CALLED JOB CREATION: Nobody’s licking their chops over Trump’s mass deportations plan like the private prisons industry, per ABC News:
On corporate earnings calls since Election Day, executives at the country’s top private prison firms have embraced Trump’s immigration agenda as a potential windfall if the federal government requires contractors to construct new detention facilities and provide additional support services for the unprecedented effort.
Geo Group founder George Zoley, whose company is the country’s largest private prison operator, told investors last week that Trump’s deportation plans represent a “potential sea change” for the industry.
“The Geo Group was built for this unique moment in our history and the opportunities that it will bring,” Zoley said.
YOU CAN’T FIRE ME, I QUIT: The New York Times reports this morning that special counsel Jack Smith “plans to finish his work and resign” before Trump, who has pledged to fire him within “two seconds,” returns to office:
As he prepares for his last act as special counsel, Mr. Smith’s ultimate audience will not be a jury, but the public.
Department regulations call for him to file a report summarizing his investigation and decisions—a document that may stand as the final accounting from a prosecutor who filed extensive charges against a former president but never got his cases to trial. . . .
The big question now, assuming Mr. Smith finishes the report on his current schedule, is whether Mr. Garland will release the findings before he leaves office, or defer the release to the Trump team, which might not make its contents public.
Don’t assume we’ve heard the last of Jack Smith, though. Republicans seem determined to keep him in the limelight to punish him for having the temerity to look into Trump’s alleged crimes:
On Friday, Republican lawmakers told Justice Department officials who had worked on the Trump cases to preserve all of their communications for investigators. That is a sure sign that a new balance of power in Washington will make Mr. Smith among those being hunted by congressional investigators and others.
Cheap Shots
Please stop using X.
Dear Bulwark friends, --- I live in North Carolina where we have two Republican senators. I have written to them about Trump's demand that he be allowed to do recess appointments. If you live in a state with one or two Republican senators, you need to write to them. Incapacitating the parliament is the first step in the fascist playbook. :)
This is what I wrote. You may want to be a little less aggressive.
Dear Senator Tillis,
Given our statewide results apart from the presidential ticket, I think it is safe to say that most North Carolinians will expect you to assert the constitutional role of the Senate in the vetting and confirmation of the major executive appointments. May I hear back from you on whether or not you will allow the Senate to adjourn so that Donald Trump can fill his senior executive positions through unchecked recess appointments. It is important for you to take a position on this matter.