It would feel awkward to stand in Pete Hegseth’s shoes. Imagine doing the rounds of emergency interviews right now — with his own mother defending him on Fox News while he sits down with Megyn Kelly on her (superb and news-making) podcast — to defend your nomination as well as your good name. Meanwhile, out of the corner of your eye, all you see is one headline after another from a media that have already whizzed on past you in a buzzing rush to gossip excitedly about who your replacement will be.
The situation may in fact be that dire for Hegseth. Like it or not, his minimal qualifications for secretary of defense already placed him on difficult footing with a Senate that wants to please Trump, yes, but would also like not to see America’s world position crumble because of an inexperienced hand at the Pentagon during a global crisis. The subsequent revelations about Hegseth’s private life — some of them the unworthy province of a scurrilous whisper campaign but others quite real and sordid indeed — have only provided additional, more defensible cover for many senators whose reservations arise from a far queasier discomfort with the man’s inappropriateness for one of the single most complicated, high-stress, and mission-critical jobs in America. (A veteran Senate staffer friend offered a historical analogy: “He’s John Tower 2.0, except a worse deal in every way because Tower could actually have run DOD.”)
My friend was pessimistic about his chances. Erick Erickson — a man who speaks regularly with actual lawmakers — has also said as much. Although he personally believes in Hegseth’s changed character over the years, “the reality is this: He does not have the votes, and there are those in the Senate who don’t want to publicly oppose him and those on the transition team who want Hegseth to realize he needs to withdraw.”
The matter is not decided yet, not until Hegseth either formally withdraws, publicly clears the confirmation bar with the GOP caucus, or takes a disputed nomination all the way to the Senate confirmation hearings in the new year. (I rank these possibilities in descending order of plausibility.) Until then, I would offer this advice: (1) If you are a reader, then ignore all the wild speculation as to who will come next; (2) If you are Ron DeSantis and you happen to be reading this, then just walk away. Say no. Don’t risk it — you already know how it will end if you say yes.