The Potemkin Pentagon Press
Stacking a briefing room with Trump stans might seem like good praxis for a guy like Pete Hegseth. But it can backfire, too.
Presidents—they’re just like the rest of us. Yesterday, Donald Trump had a deeply human experience: repeatedly dozing off throughout a meeting after burning the candle at both ends on an epic all-night social media binge. Unfortunately, that meeting was a televised cabinet gathering, and the content Trump snoozed through was a mountain of praise from his cabinet members of what a good job he’s doing saving America. It all made for some pretty funny viewing—and some headlines that the White House doesn’t love. Happy Wednesday.
MAGA Media Gets Its Moment
by Andrew Egger
Yesterday, Defense Department Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson took to the Pentagon briefing room for her first on-camera press briefing of the year. It’s a time of high controversy for the Defense Department, with Secretary Pete Hegseth under pressure about his involvement in a double-tap strike on an alleged drug-trafficking boat off the coast of Venezuela. So reporters made sure to hold Wilson’s feet to the fire with a barrage of probing questions. . . .
Ha! Just kidding! Wilson wasn’t speaking to the once-independent DoD press. She was addressing the motley crew of right-wing influencers and Trump-media reporters who were willing to sign on to the quasi-loyalty pledge hatched by Hegseth earlier this year.
That new-look Potemkin Pentagon press corps had come to D.C. this week for a ludicrous meet-and-greet event, where the Defense Department is letting them go through the motions of being real honest-to-God reporters—working out of the Pentagon press pen, wearing little PRESS badges, sitting in the briefing room—in exchange for them blasting out content about what a swell job Hegseth & Co. are doing and how the mean ol’ establishment media won’t give them any credit.
The result was yesterday’s “briefing,” where a rookie spokesperson for the world’s most powerful military made a towering procession of outrageous and ridiculous claims. Among them: that the Washington Post had fabricated its story that broke the news of the double-tap strike, that congressional Democrats who released a video reminding soldiers they had a duty not to follow unlawful orders had committed sedition, and that “every single boat that we strike saves 25,000 American lives.” Each of these claims received zero pushback from the folks asking the questions in the room.
That’s not to say there weren’t some good questions. While the questioners were content to give Wilson a pass on her smears of Democrats and the media, many struck a skeptical posture toward other elements of the White House’s foreign policy.
There was the strange spectacle of former Rep. Matt Gaetz—you could tell it was him by the “Representative Matt Gaetz” quarter-zip he was wearing—asking probing questions about the implications of Trump declaring Nicolás Maduro’s government in Venezuela a “narco-terrorist” regime: Is it the policy of the United States that everyone serving in Venezuela’s government or military is “definitionally” a narco-terrorist? A few minutes later, Laura Loomer had a sharp question of her own, asking Wilson to explain why the Defense Department was pushing ahead with closer military ties with Qatar at the exact same moment that the White House is preparing to designate the Muslim Brotherhood a foreign Islamic terrorist organization.
Wilson’s canned responses shed little light on either question. But they were a reminder that parts of MAGA have been anything but enthused about parts of Trump’s approach to his use of the military abroad. The odd irony of the current Pentagon press strategy may be that it’s the one part of Trump’s government that has taken pains to exclude all but the most MAGA-ish voices from its press pool, but it’s also the one part of Trump’s government these days that MAGA voices are finding their own reasons to criticize.
And those reasons keep growing. Trump, emboldened by the public’s collective shrug at his strikes on Venezuelan boats, suggested at a cabinet meeting yesterday that his campaign against Maduro and the drug trade may venture onto Venezuelan land soon enough. “We’re going to start doing those strikes on land, too,” he said. “You know, the land is much easier.”
Back at the Pentagon, Wilson was asked what the Defense Department’s posture was on congressional calls for regime change in Venezuela. She was again tight-lipped: “The Department of War stands behind the president 100 percent, and we will execute on the orders our commander-in-chief gives us, and we’re proud to do so,” she said. “And again any decision that is going to be made about certain military actions in the Western Hemisphere region will be the president’s alone.”
The Pentagon may have constructed the press corps of its dreams. But that doesn’t mean it’s getting good press.
The Coverup Begins to Unravel
by William Kristol
I’ll begin with some bad news on this cold and wintry-ish morning in Washington, D.C.: Lying sometimes works.
I wish this weren’t the case. It would be nice if lying were always to fail. But, as we’ve all been reminded over the past decade, a determined and shameless liar can do pretty well for himself. A peddler of simple but psychologically attractive lies can fool many of the people much of the time. And even when some of his lies are definitively exposed as falsehoods, a confident deceiver can stick to his guns, plunge ahead, and get a surprising number of people to continue to believe them—or at least to tolerate them.
That’s not good. As James Madison explains in Federalist No. 55, republican government “in a higher degree than any other form” presupposes the existence of “qualities in human nature which justify a certain portion of esteem and confidence.”
Well, if one of the vital qualities for republican government is a deep attachment to truth-telling and a reliable revulsion at dissembling, then we are in some trouble.
On the other hand, there’s good news: If lies often succeed, coverups frequently don’t. Lying can be pretty simple and easy. Coverups tend to be complicated and difficult. They require forethought and discipline on the part of their organizers. They often require enlisting the active cooperation—or at least the passive acquiescence—of lots of other people who were involved in the action being covered up. And so, they often fail.
Partial coverups—what Nixon aide John Ehrlichman called modified limited hangouts—are particularly difficult to pull off.
We’ve seen that with the Epstein scandal. The Trump administration would surely have been better off if they could have stuck to their original line that there was nothing more to see there and that they wouldn’t be releasing any material. But once they were forced down the slippery slope of providing some information, that’s when the trouble started.
We’re likely to see the same dynamic with the current war-crimes coverup. Trump and Hegseth might have been able to hold the line by insisting on an alleged necessity of secrecy for military decision-making when it came to striking an alleged drug-running boat in the Caribbean twice. They could have accompanied this stonewall with demagogic attacks on their critics, who supposedly want to weaken our military and coddle drug dealers.
But now that they’re trying to explain and rationalize what they did, they’re probably on a path to failure.
At yesterday’s cabinet meeting, Pete Hegseth couldn’t resist boasting that he had taken personal charge of the decision to blow up the alleged drug boat on September 2, explaining that he wanted to be “the one to make that call.”
Hegseth went on to explain that he’d watched the first strike live. But, he said, he’s a busy guy, so he “didn’t stick around” for an extra hour or two to see “all the sensitive sight exploitation.” Only later that day, he claims, did he learn that “the commander had made the . . . decision to ultimately sink the boat and eliminate the threat.”
Perhaps. But of course Hegseth would presumably still have been reachable after he left the room, by secure phone—or on Signal!—to discuss that second decision. Indeed, one would think the commander would have taken a minute to call or text him if were still what the military calls the “target management authority” for the engagement. Unless, of course, the commander felt no need to get back in contact with Hegseth because Hegseth had given an unequivocal order ahead of time to “kill everyone” on board.
Either way, the second strike is Hegseth’s responsibility. It’s a responsibility Hegseth obviously hadn’t wanted to publicize, as he never mentioned the second strike over the next months when discussing the operation, including when he boasted about it and showed video of the first strike only on Fox & Friends the next day.
But by discussing the sequence of events, Hegseth has made it much harder for the administration to resist demands from Congress for documents and records and sworn testimony from everyone invited. He’s already lifted the veil of secrecy.
So if the bad news is that lying can work, the good news is that coverups can unravel. Believers in our republican government and defenders of the honor of our military should be determined to unravel this one.
AROUND THE BULWARK
Those Obamacare Subsidies Aren’t Going to Extend Themselves… Unfortunately, lawmakers probably won’t end up extending them either, reports JOE PERTICONE in Press Pass.
Project 2025 Is Coming Back To Bite Trump… On the Flagship Pod, AMANDA CARPENTER joins TIM MILLER to talk about how embracing the project he pretended to know little about is hurting his presidency. Plus, OLIVIA NUZZI’s much-discussed new book is out and she joins the pod for some questions about it and the controversies swirling around her and RFK Jr.
RFK’s Anti-Vax Team Readies Its Next Moves… “Their game is, let’s really destabilize trust in the vaccine, and make people really anxious about it.” In The Breakdown, JONATHAN COHN talks to Demetre Daskalakis, a former top CDC senior scientist who resigned from the agency in protest.
Now Trump Is Threatening Naturalized Americans… He’s not just bashing refugees and illegal immigrants. He’s going after U.S. citizens born in other countries, writes WILL SALETAN.
As Putin Threatens Europe, Failure of Trump Peace Plan Laid Bare… We are seeing peace games from the Russian dictator, who can’t win but can’t afford to stop fighting, observes CATHY YOUNG.
For Trump, Even the National Guard Shooting Is About Immigration… And he won’t let the facts get in the way of his agenda, says MONA CHAREN.
Quick Hits
‘LET THEM GO BACK TO WHERE THEY CAME FROM’: It’s not exactly new news that Donald Trump, who famously launched his 2016 presidential campaign with a rant about Mexican migrants bringing drugs, crime, and rape to America, likes to traffic in racist tropes. Still, he outdid himself at yesterday’s cabinet meeting with a rant against Somali Americans that was so grotesque that even normally staid publications didn’t bother putting gloss on it. Here’s the New York Times:
President Trump unleashed a xenophobic tirade against Somali immigrants on Tuesday, calling them “garbage” he does not want in the United States in an outburst that captured the raw nativism that has animated his approach to immigration.
Even for Mr. Trump—who has a long history of insulting Black people, particularly those from African countries—his outburst was shocking in its unapologetic bigotry.
Take a moment to sip your coffee if you need to. Then keep reading:
“When they come from hell and they complain and do nothing but bitch, we don’t want them in our country. Let them go back to where they came from and fix it,” Mr. Trump added as Vice President JD Vance banged the table in encouragement.
He said Somalia “stinks and we don’t want them in our country.” He described Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, who came to the United States from Somalia as a refugee and became a citizen 25 years ago, as “garbage.”
“We could go one way or the other, and we’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country,” Mr. Trump said. “She’s garbage. Her friends are garbage. These aren’t people who work. These aren’t people who say, ‘Let’s go, come on, let’s make this place great.’”
Of course, it’s not just rhetoric. Trump last week singled out Somalis for revocation of Temporary Protected Status—a form of legal authorization for migrants fleeing armed conflict abroad—and is going after them this week in targeted ICE operations in Rep. Omar’s Minneapolis district.
STEFANIK UNCHAINED: House Speaker Mike Johnson has been having enough trouble keeping rank-and-file members of his tiny GOP majority in line this year. But this week, he found himself in the midst of his strangest intra-conference battle yet—after a onetime member of his own House leadership team decided to pick a very public fight with him.
Rep. Elise Stefanik, who is retiring from Congress to run for governor of New York, has been threatening to withhold her vote on next year’s National Defense Authorization Act unless it includes her provision requiring law enforcement to notify Congress before opening an investigation into candidates seeking federal office. And she’s been lashing out at the speaker, saying that the provision’s lack of inclusion in the current version of the bill is evidence that Johnson is “siding with Jamie Raskin against Trump Republicans to block this provision to protect the deep state.”
Asked about Stefanik’s accusations Tuesday, Johnson reacted with bemused irritation. “I don’t exactly know why Elise won’t just call me,” he said, telling reporters he’d texted her saying: “What are you talking about? This hasn’t even made it to my level.” Stefanik clapped back quickly. “Just more lies from the Speaker,” she fumed.
It’s hard to know how much Stefanik’s heart is in this fight—she’s a political chameleon who first built a brand as a new-look GOP moderate before making a hard and shameless pivot to Trump cheerleadery during his first term. But if anything, that makes the dustup more uncomfortable for Johnson. If Stefanik sees picking a fight with him as a good way to rev up the base, that’s a likely sign he’s starting to lose the trust of the MAGA faithful.
Cheap Shots
Senator Paul omitted the likeliest possibility: that the administration is both lying and incompetent.
I, too, noticed that the NYT did not mince words when reporting on Trumps rant about Somali’s. I felt relieved to see this as a top headline and bigotry and nativism labeled specifically and accurately.