Trump’s defense choices embarrass himself on basic questions of geography

Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s nominee for defense secretary, was unable to name a single country in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations during his confirmation hearing on Tuesday — even mentioning Australia instead.

Senator Tammy Duckworth asked Hegseth to talk about the importance of the political and economic alliance in an effort to highlight how unqualified he was to lead the Pentagon and its massive workforce.

“You talked a little bit about the Indo-Pacific… Can you mention the importance of at least one of the nations in ASEAN and what type of agreement we have with at least one of those nations? And how many nations are there in ASEAN, by the way?

“I couldn’t tell you the exact amount of nations in it, but I know we have allies in South Korea and Japan, and in AUKUS with Australia (we’re) working on submarines with them…”

“Mr. Hegseth none of these countries are in ASEAN. None of the three countries that you mentioned are in ASEAN,” Duckworth replied. “I suggest you do some homework before you prepare for this type of negotiation.”

“This may seem like a small, embarrassing thing, but ASEAN is an acronym you come across a lot if you do very basic reading about the Pentagon’s strategy to counter China,” Yahoo’s Jordan Weissman wrote X.

ASEAN consists of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. The US regularly conducts joint military exercises with member states.