It’s Not Just the Sex
The real scandal of Trump’s nominees is what they’ll do on the job.
Believe it or not, they’re still counting ballots out in the Golden State: Out in the San Joaquin Valley, Democrat Adam Gray just locked up a razor-tight 13th-district victory over GOP incumbent Rep. John Duarte. Only took them a month to figure it out! Happy Wednesday.
For Pete Hegseth, the Taxi’s Waitin’
by William Kristol
You don’t forget the songs of your youth.
And so this morning, as dawn broke in Northern Virginia, “Leaving on a Jet Plane” emerged from nowhere and lodged unbidden in my mind.
All my bags are packed
I’m ready to go
I’m standin’ here outside your door
I hate to wake you up to say goodbye.
But the dawn is breakin’
It’s early morn
The taxi’s waitin’
He’s blowin’ his horn . . .
The mental image that accompanied these lines for me this morning was that of a taxi waiting outside of Mar-a-Lago for Pete Hegseth, his bags packed, after being informed he’s no longer Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense.
You’re thinking that looping a former Fox News host into my memory of Peter, Paul, and Mary’s recording of a John Denver song isn’t maybe entirely healthy? That I’m a bit obsessed with the challenge of the incoming Trump administration? That perhaps I could use some time off?
I’ll raise it with the suits at The Bulwark. [Editor’s note: No. Bill will not be taking time off.]
But in any case, I do think Hegseth’s bags are packed, and that his nomination won’t survive the week.
Yesterday, on Capitol Hill, Trump loyalist Sen. Lindsey Graham commented that some of the reports about Hegseth are “concerning,” and that his confirmation for the Pentagon post is “going to be difficult.” Sen. Joni Ernst, who serves on the Armed Services Committee and whose backing would be necessary for Hegseth to be confirmed, refused to commit to supporting him.
And then last night, Marc Caputo, citing four sources briefed on the matter, reported that Trump and Ron DeSantis had discussed the possibility of the Florida Governor replacing Hegseth as the nominee. “Right now [Hegseth] looks like a goner,” one Trump adviser told Caputo.
So in my mind’s eye, Hegseth’s taxi is waiting. And as we wave goodbye, we say—contrary to the spirit of the song—good riddance.
It’s good that Matt Gaetz had to withdraw. It’s good that Hegseth may have to as well.
But one should also note that what will have brought them down is primarily their atrocious personal behavior. There’s been less focus on how unbelievably unqualified they are for the jobs for which they were nominated. And there’s been much less attention to the danger of the policies they’ve embraced and that they would actually pursue in those powerful positions.
At some point, we do need to get to the real discussion about the damage these nominees would cause and the danger they’d pose.
And the person for whom that discussion is most necessary is Kash Patel, nominated to be FBI director. He’s on record as wanting to use the FBI to go after political opponents. As he proved, especially after November 3, 2020, that he respects neither our Constitution nor our rule of law.
Patel would use the FBI to carry out Trump’s professed agenda of political retribution. The FBI is a powerful agency, and oversight of it is difficult, both from within the government and from outside.
Senators should listen to serious people who served with Patel in the White House in the first Trump administration.
Charles Kupperman, a deputy national security adviser in Trump’s first term, told the Wall Street Journal that Patel is “untrustworthy” and that “he’s absolutely unqualified for this job.” He added that it would be “an absolute disgrace to American citizens to even consider an individual of this nature.”
But Republican senators, including those who should know better—like Ernst and Thom Tillis of North Carolina—have so far sounded surprisingly positive about Patel and his prospects.
That could change. After all, senators were open to Hegseth a couple of weeks ago, and that changed.
To take on Patel, senators will need to challenge not just his personal behavior but his agenda for radically politicizing federal law enforcement. But of course, that’s Trump’s agenda. And it’s not clear how many Republican senators are willing to fight even someone as dangerous as Patel when that fight would mean directly challenging one of Trump’s core ambitions for his second term.
Burgess Everett of Semafor reported yesterday that the common sentiment among Republican senators with whom he spoke was that (in Burgess’s words) “Trump should have an FBI director he trusts.”
Actually, no. The FBI director works for the American people and takes an oath to the Constitution, not to Trump. The American people need an FBI director they can trust to uphold the law. Patel isn’t that person.
Obviously, even if Patel is sent off on his own jet plane, other threats to the rule of law will be back again. In fact, they’ll be a constant theme of the next four years. But we’ll be in a much better place to limit the damage if the Senate doesn’t just stop at Gaetz and Hegseth but draws the line at Patel.
A Middle-East Powder Keg
by Will Selber
On Sunday, Syrian opposition forces took Aleppo, Syria’s second-most populous city, shattering a ceasefire that had brought a semblance of order to the country’s thirteen-year civil war. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a U.S.-designated terrorist group with deep ties to Al Qaeda, led the successful assault. HTS’s successful operation shook stagnant battlefield lines between the Turkish-supported Syrian National Army (SNA), the Assad regime, and the U.S.-sponsored Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces, which are not truly democratic.
On Monday, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s forces fortified defensive lines in central Syria to prevent opposition forces from advancing to Damascus in southern Syria. As of Tuesday, the HTS and SNA continued to solidify their hold on Syria’s northern city, pushing back the American-supported SDF in the process.
This is yet another powder keg that the U.S government—and incoming Trump administration—will have to deal with in the Middle East.
U.S. forces have been in Syria in small numbers since 2014. Currently, 900 American soldiers, primarily special operation forces, are deployed in eastern and northeastern Syria and routinely conduct kinetic strikes in Syria. While the Biden administration tried mightily to end America’s presence in Iraq, the prospects of further reducing American influence in the region are now even dimmer.
On Monday, Assad’s patrons, Russia and Iran, pledged to ramp up support for him. And support seems to be on the way, as hundreds of members of Iraqi militias crossed into Syria to bolster Assad. But they alone will not help Assad staunch the bleeding. He needs more firepower and resources. That’s unlikely to happen since Russia and Iran have their hands full in Lebanon and Ukraine. Their inattention weakened Assad’s resource-strapped forces, which his many enemies aptly exploited.
After thirteen years of war, no good guys are left on the Syrian battlefield. Every faction, even the ones the United States supports, is drenched in blood. Over the next few weeks, the HTS and SNA will likely spar with both the SDF and Assad as they try to maximize their battlefield momentum before the United States, Russia, and Iran broker another truce to stabilize a long-fragmented society. Biden’s attempts to woo Assad out of Russia’s orbit, whatever their initial likelihood of success, are finished after this humiliating setback. Should the Assad regime continue to lose ground, it will almost certainly use chemical weapons, as it did in 2018, causing then-President Trump to order airstrikes.
With less than two months until the inauguration, the Middle East teeters on the precipice. It may tip over before Trump takes office.
Quick Hits
SIX HOURS OF CHAOS: If you had “attempted dictatorial coup in South Korea” left on your 2024 bingo card, congratulations. Less than 24 hours ago, President Yoon Suk Yoel took to the airwaves for an unexpected announcement declaring martial law in the country. He accused the political opposition, which controls the parliament, of sympathizing with North Korea. Lawmakers responded swiftly, converging on parliament overnight—climbing walls and clashing with troops to do so—and voting 190-0 to overturn Yoon’s declaration as protests swirled outside. Just six hours after his announcement, Yoon backed off, and now appears utterly isolated: His own party has largely abandoned him, his entire cabinet has offered to resign, impeachment seems likely, and even a charge of treason is on the table.
We’re the farthest thing from expert east Asia analysts, so we won’t try to draw sweeping conclusions from any of this. But we know this: If you’re gonna play the martial law card, you gotta fully commit! More seriously, this serves a reminder: Democracy is a fragile thing, and you can’t know how strong its institutions are until they’re tested. We’ve been tested. And, sadly, our Congress didn’t unanimously smack down a president who attempted a coup. Instead, his party gave him a pass and rallied right back to his side.
TRUMP BLINKS ON BACKGROUND CHECKS: After lengthy stonewalling, the Trump transition has finally signed an agreement permitting F.B.I. background checks of the president’s incoming team—but as the New York Times notes, “the announcement did not say whether Mr. Trump would require his appointees to undergo the process or was simply allowing the F.B.I. to begin looking at those who are willing to submit to its scrutiny.”
The agreement has been a sticking point as Team Trump continues to castigate the bureau as a hotbed of revanchist Deep State agitation, with some of Trump’s nominees “opposed to submitting themselves to an F.B.I. check until the bureau is revamped by his chosen director,” Semafor reports. What could go wrong?
A LONG LOOK IN THE MIRROR: How did Democrats go from perennially competing in Florida to giving the Sunshine State up for red—and might the same failure be repeating itself nationally? On the site today, longtime Florida Democratic strategist Steve Schale sounds the alarm that Democrats “no longer have anything remotely close to a long-term winning coalition”:
Going forward, the map is going to change. The “Blue Wall” states in the industrial Midwest will likely not be enough to reach 270 Electoral Votes after the 2030 census. To build any kind of sustainable majority to elect a president, our coalition must evolve. We must win states we traditionally lose, meaning we must do a better job of listening to, and eventually persuading voters whose world views are different than the coastal leaders of our party. . . .
I have no doubt Trump will over-read his narrow mandate and overreach. It’s a tradition among most presidents. This is an opportunity for my side to redefine our values for voters who have stopped listening. Get this right, and we set ourselves up nicely for the next decade. Get this wrong, and we could be in the wilderness for a very long time.
Cheap Shots
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Just once I’d like to see someone write about just how completely fucked up it is that Donald has said he’ll replace the FBI director he himself chose during his first term before that term is finished. Chris Wray still has 3 years left in his position. In Donald’s first term, an entire Special Counsel was installed to address the fact that he fired the head of the FBI. Now we just talk about this like it’s perfectly normal. WTAF!?!?
So glad you're saying that because I think the sex stories are getting too much air/text. Better clickbait than the details about how astonishingly unqualified these people are. (My daughter, two years out of law school and working as a prosecutor, pointed out that she had more relevant experience than Matt Gaetz.). Your Morning Shots are the only newsletters I open immediately - I simply can't wait. So I guess I'm with your editor: no rest for the weary just yet. Thank you, thank you.