Last night the Senate, with Vice President JD Vance providing the tiebreaker, voted to confirm Pete Hegseth as the next Secretary of Defense.
The predictable meltdowns have occurred, and the Washington Post seems troubled as well:
Breaking news: Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News personality whose nomination was hampered by misconduct allegations, is confirmed as President Trump’s defense secretary, an appointment expected to dramatically shift national security policy.
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) January 25, 2025
Live updates: https://t.co/CL6uhRUevL pic.twitter.com/wBCE8JLQDm
Democrats will be needing some therapy this weekend.
Elizabeth Warren will be the one reaching for the fire water tonight after Pete Hegseth got confirmed. She heap big disappointed.
— Doug Powers (@ThePowersThatBe) January 25, 2025
Mitch McConnell was among three Republicans who considered Hegseth not qualified, though the Kentucky senator's past definition of "qualified" has been called into question.
McConnell voted for 3 of the 4. pic.twitter.com/YidwxlEvl2
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) January 25, 2025
Looking at where the "traditional" ways have taken the country, it's time to try other ways:
Congratulations to @PeteHegseth, a SecDef who will bring a warfighter perspective to the top of the Pentagon.
— Buck Sexton (@BuckSexton) January 25, 2025
Clearly it's time for somebody who's a bit more of an outsider to helm the Defense Department, considering what "qualified" insiders have accomplished:
In November 2024, the Pentagon failed to pass its annual audit, meaning that it wasn’t able to fully account for how its $824 billion budget was used. This was the 7th failed audit in a row, since the Department of Defense became required to undergo yearly-audits in 2018.
In 2024, nine of the twenty-eight Department of Defense sub-audits passed, an increase over the seven passing sub-audits in 2022 and 2023. None failed outright, but in fifteen there wasn’t enough information to come to a conclusion and in one, isolated, but not pervasive, errors were found. The decentralization and size of the Department of Defense, with $4 trillion in assets dispersed across fifty states and over 4,500 locations worldwide, is blamed for this accounting failure.
The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024 requires the Department of Defense to fully pass its audit by 2028.
The "qualified" people also botched a withdrawal in Afghanistan and then held absolutely nobody accountable. Also, remember when the "qualified" Defense Secretary disappeared for almost a week and nobody at the White House even knew where he was?
The Pentagon’s announcement that the Defense secretary had been in the hospital since New Year’s Day shocked both the Pentagon press corps and national security professionals, leaving many concerned about the chief military official in America being out of commission for days while wars rage in the Middle East and Ukraine and tensions continue between the U.S. and China over Taiwan.
The White House was out of the loop (but we now know that wasn't unusual). I'm guessing Hegseth will end up by far eclipsing recent SecDefs who have been considered "highly qualified."
Lloyd Austin was a current member of the Raytheon board and never divested himself.
— Mostly Peaceful Memes (@MostlyPeacefull) January 25, 2025
Confirmed 93-2 by both parties. pic.twitter.com/qijzD7W4mb
What really troubles the usual Beltway Barnacles are Hegseth's top priorities:
To that end, if confirmed, I'm going to work with President Trump — and this committee — to:
- Restore the Warrior Ethos to the Pentagon and throughout our fighting force; in doing so, we will reestablish trust in our military — and address the recruiting, retention and readiness crisis in our ranks. The strength of our military is our unity — our shared purpose — not our differences.
- Rebuild our Military, always matching threats to capabilities; this includes reviving our defense industrial base, reforming the acquisition process (no more "Valley of Death" for new defense companies), modernizing our nuclear triad, ensuring the Pentagon can pass an audit, and rapidly fielding emerging technologies.
- Reestablish Deterrence. First and foremost, we will defend our homeland — our borders and our skies. Second, we will work with our partners and allies to deter aggression in the Indo-Pacific from the communist Chinese. Finally, we will responsibly end wars to ensure we can prioritize our resources — and reorient to larger threats. We can no longer count on "reputational deterrence" — we need real deterrence.
Hegseth was just sworn in so let it begin! Another Democrat smear campaign has gone down in flames.
