The AP reports: Trump builds out national security team with picks of Hegseth for Pentagon, Noem for DHS.
Hegseth, 44, is a co-host of Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends Weekend” and has been a contributor with the network since 2014, where he developed a friendship with Trump, who made regular appearances on the show.
If confirmed by the Senate, he would inherit the top job during a series of global crises — ranging from Russia’s war in Ukraine and the ongoing attacks in the Middle East by Iranian proxies to the push for a cease-fire between Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah and escalating worries about the growing alliance between Russia and North Korea.
Hegseth is also the author of “The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free,” published earlier this year, and has been outspoken about rooting out what he has called “woke-ness” in the military.
The book, according to its promo, combines “his own war experiences, tales of outrage, and an incisive look at how the chain of command got so kinked,” and bills itself as “the key to saving our warriors — and winning future wars.”
Well, that certainly sounds like someone who should be in charge of the largest bureaucracy in Washington.
This is decidedly the type of appointee that I feared and screams #6 on my list, . He is utterly unqualified for the position, and it is a position of central importance.
Hegseth was an infantry captain in the Army National Guard and served overseas in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He was formerly head of the Concerned Veterans for America, a group backed by conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch, and he unsuccessfully ran for the Senate in Minnesota in 2012.
He also championed the case of four former Blackwater contractors convicted in a 2007 shooting rampage in Baghdad that killed more than a dozen Iraqi civilians. They were pardoned by Trump in one of his final acts in office.
That’s not comforting in the least.
“With Pete at the helm, America’s enemies are on notice — Our Military will be Great Again, and America will Never Back Down,” Trump said in a statement. “Nobody fights harder for the Troops, and Pete will be a courageous and patriotic champion of our ‘Peace through Strength’ policy.”
I would love for one of our Trump-supporting regulars to justify this appointment. This is literally one of the most important jobs in the world where the stakes could not be higher.
This a not the appointment of a serious and responsible administration.
Let me add that the NYT‘s response to this choice suggests they haven’t learned much: “The choice of Mr. Hegseth was outside the norm of the traditional defense secretary.”
I think that this calls for more than just classifying it as “outside the norm of the traditional defense secretary.”
If an NFL team hired a guy to be the head coach who played some college ball and was a weekend Sportscenter anchor, I think that the reportage would be more than just what an “outside the norm” of a choice it was.
More from their write-up:
A Minnesota native, Mr. Hegseth graduated from Princeton University, where he was the publisher of The Princeton Tory, a conservative magazine, for which he wrote about seeing the statue of Saddam Hussein toppled in Baghdad in 2003.
“Conservative ideas have worked, do work and will continue to work,” Mr. Hegseth wrote. “The list is long: A strong military is absolutely essential to bringing long-term peace and stability to the world.”
He holds a master’s in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School, according to Fox.
This is not what I would call comforting analysis.
Mr. Hegseth’s book, the New York Times best-seller “The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free,” was published in June. “Our ‘elites’ are like the feckless drug-addled businessmen at Nakatomi Plaza, looking down on Bruce Willis’s John McClane in ‘Die Hard,’” Mr. Hegseth wrote in the book. “But there will come a day when they realize they need John McClane — that in fact their ability to live in peace and prosperity has always depended on guys like him being honorable, powerful and deadly.”
US national defense policy is not a Hollywood movie.
