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It seems all but certain that Pete Hesgeth’s nomination to lead the Pentagon is doomed. Yesterday he was reduced to promising not to drink on the job if he’s confirmed for Defense Secretary. You may not like him, but don’t deny him this: he’s going to have the best story ever when he introduces himself at his first meeting and explains what brought him to AA. It’s probably best to refer to Hegseth on Thursday afternoon as one of the “post-nominated.” Trump is already sounding out Ron DeSantis for the job. But he’s happy to let Hesgeth twist in the wind a bit longer. And in a paradoxical kind of way I appreciate his doing that. This of course will be Trump’s second top-tier nominee to go down in flames, and the third overall.
Has this gone well for Hesgeth? I don’t mean in terms of getting the job. I mean in the general sense of reputation, dignity, etc. I’d say it’s gone … well, pretty badly? Kind of the fate of everyone and everything who locks up with Trump.
DeSantis is much like Marco Rubio, a generally clownish figure, if somewhat more malevolent, but in the overall ballpark of the kinds of people who get these jobs. He’s served in Congress. He’s been governor of the one the country’s most populous states. Given the type of people Trump often hires for these jobs, the country could do so much worse.
So does it matter that Hesgeth goes down the tubes?
It does.
All political power is unitary. A president isn’t weak domestically but powerful on foreign policy — powerful on health care policy but hanging by a thread on interest rates. It’s all of a piece. The damage a president takes anywhere affects him or her everywhere. So having these absurd nominations go down in flames actually does matter. It’s not just the same as if Trump had nominated DeSantis or Pam Bondi in the first place.
That brings us to a broader point. If the political opposition is most worried about what a President will do on issue X, that doesn’t mean the opposition should necessarily focus its attacks on issue X. They may ignore issue X entirely. Maybe issue X is actually popular. Maybe nobody cares about issue X. So no one will pay attention. An opposition will focus its attacks on the President’s most vulnerable points because that is where his or her power can be reduced most effectively. And all political power is unitary.
It’s mostly a fool’s game trying to figure out just what Trump was trying to achieve nominating this group of clowns for most of the top Cabinet positions. Simple loyalty was a big factor, people who won’t flinch from doing whatever Trump says. They’re also all good on TV, or, at least, what Trump thinks is good on TV. But really it was a power play. It’s Caligula appointing his horse to the Senate. The absurdity is the point. I can do anything. Make the Republican Senate line up and approve a roster of manifestly unqualified nominees. But they’re going down one after another.
They’re doing it in a particular GOP senator way — all through winks and shadows, pregnant sighs. As far as I know, no Republican senator said they wouldn’t vote for Matt Gaetz, just as none has said so about Hegseth. On the pod Kate and I recorded this afternoon, we noted that if this were Biden’s or Harris’ transition, watching the top nominees go down in flames would be treated like the presidency itself was DOA. But not having a fancy Times or Politico columnist say it doesn’t make it any less so. Trump’s ability to just dictate isn’t quite panning out. And that matters.