(Nov. 20. Note: Since I first wrote this piece, I have leaned ever more strongly against this nomination. What follows, though, is how I first wrote it.)
President-elect Donald Trump may have made a mistake in choosing Fox News personality Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense. However, the nomination merits an open mind.
Hegseth is a problematic choice. He isn’t as ludicrous or insulting a selection as former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz for attorney general, former Democratic Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard for director of National Intelligence, or Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for secretary of Health and Human Services, but he isn’t ideal.
Still, it is only if Trump nominates and the Senate confirms the right deputy secretary and key undersecretaries for the Pentagon that Hegseth might be worth a risk as a change agent.
Consider Hegseth’s drawbacks first. On paper, he doesn’t fit ordinary ideals of “qualifications.” His two Bronze Stars for military service are impressive but are hardly rare. More than 100,000 were awarded for Operation Iraqi Freedom alone. As leader of two veterans-related groups, he was on the right side of policy changes advocated by Republicans, but they weren’t veterans-service organizations. They were political-action groups.
For 10 years, Hegseth has been a Fox News talking head. During the pandemic, he accused Democrats of “rooting for coronavirus to spread. They’re rooting for it to grow” and said the Omicron variant was a mere ploy by Democrats that would pop up every other October to help the party in elections. Those are not statements of someone of sober judgment.
Hegseth’s military service merits praise, but as someone whose highest rank was “major,” just as he was retiring, he has no high-level management experience, especially not at a stratus of policy or large-scale systems administration. To the extent that the defense secretary has quasi-diplomatic responsibilities, Hegseth has shown no inclination for nuance or teamwork.
Finally, the disputed allegation that Hegseth committed sexual assault is more worrisome than his supporters acknowledge. Even if his version is accurate, the details are sleazy. Both he and the woman in question agreed that sexual congress was consummated. It occurred — get this — after the woman led him back to his room to keep him from his “pushy” propositioning of other women at a conference bar. His own attorney said Hegseth’s extreme drunkenness that evening was his best defense because his state supposedly meant he could not have been the aggressor. … [The full column is here.]
