The GOP is no longer the party of national security

Not long after Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth read his opening statement and began fielding questions from the Senate Armed Services Committee, I began to think: I hope neither America’s allies nor its enemies see this. The hope was, of course, completely unreasonable. Such hearings are closely watched by friends and foes alike to gauge a candidate who can lead the most powerful military in the world and will be a close adviser to the president of the United States.

What America and the world saw today was not a serious investigation by a serious man. Instead, Republicans on the committee showed they would rather elevate an unqualified and unfit candidate to a position of enormous responsibility than cross Donald Trump, Elon Musk or the most ardent Republican voters in their home states. America’s allies should be deeply concerned; America’s enemies, meanwhile, are almost certainly laughing in amazement at their unexpected good fortune.

Most of the GOP senators asked questions that had little to do with the defense of the United States and everything to do with the peculiar obsessions that dominate the alternate reality of right-wing TV and talk radio, especially “wokeness.” Perhaps it was just as well for Hegseth, because the few moments when something of substance came did not go well for him. When Sen. Deb Fischer of Nebraska, for example, tried early on to draw out Hegseth with some basic questions about nuclear weapons, he was lost. He tried to fumble around for an answer that included harnessing the creativity of Silicon Valley to innovate a future nuclear power… or something.

On many other questions, i.a adherence to the Geneva Conventionsthe military’s role in domestic policing and the obligation to disobey illegal orders, Hegseth fussed and improvised. He seemed aware of the need to avoid sounding extreme while still playing to the only audience that really matters: 50 Republican senators and a former and incoming president of the United States. His dodges weren’t very clever, but they didn’t have to be. He was aware that his two priorities as secretary will be to lead a culture war in the Pentagonand to do what Trump tells him to do.

If America’s friends and adversaries saw an insignificant man before the committee, they also saw Republicans — members of what once announced itself as the party of national security — acting with a complete lack of seriousness and purpose. Few Republicans, except for Fischer and a rather business-like Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa, asked Hegseth anything meaningful about politics. Ernst extracted a promise from Hegseth to appoint a senior official to be in charge of sexual assault prevention, but most of her colleagues resorted to the usual buzzwords about DEI and cultural Marxism while throwing Hegseth softballs. (Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri also managed to mention drag queens, but the trophy for scariest moment goes to Sen. Tim Sheehy of Montana, who asked Hegseth how many genders there are. When Hegseth said “two,” Sheehy said, “I know it, I’m a she-male.

And speaking of buzzwords, most of Hegseth’s answers hinged on his pledge to support the “warfighters” and their “lethality,” two words that have been floating around the Pentagon — as things filled with helium will — for years. Hegseth, to his credit, has learned to speak fluent Pentagon-esque, the content-free language in which stakeholders help warfighters leverage their assets to increase their lethality. (I taught military officers for years at the Naval War College. I can write this kind of Newspeak at will.) As Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut noted, Hegseth might not be qualified to be Secretary of Defense, but he could squeak by as a Pentagon spokesman.

Some Democrats pointed out that Hegseth has never run anything of significant size and that his record even in smaller organizations has not been particularly impressive. Senator Gary Peters of Michigan pointed out that no board would hire Hegseth as CEO, even of a medium-sized company. Other Democrats drilled Hegseth on his personal conduct, including allegations (which he has denied) that he engaged in sexual assault and alcohol abuse. At one point, Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona listed specific incidents and asked Hegseth to confirm or deny them. Each time, Hegseth responded only by saying “anonymous swabs,” which he seems to think is like invoking the Fifth Amendment. Hegseth also said he was not perfect and that he has been redeemed by his faith in Jesus Christ, whose name came up more often than one might expect during a national security hearing.

Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, an Army veteran who was wounded while serving in Iraq, presented a large poster of the Soldier’s Creed, emphasizing the insistence on standards and integrity contained within it. She asked Hegseth how the Defense Department could still require service members to train and serve to such high standards if the Senate lowered the bar to run the Pentagon just for him. After she asked him various questions and Hegseth stumbled again, she put it simply and directly, “You are not qualified, Mr. Hegseth.”

Not that any of that mattered to Republicans on the committee, some of whom took great offense to questions about Hegseth’s character. Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma tried to turn the tables on his colleagues by asking how many of them ever had voted while drunk or cheated on their spouses, as if that somehow avoided any further fuss about whether a possible Secretary of Defense was an adulterer or struggling with drug addiction.

Unfortunately for Mullin, he doesn’t know his Senate history, so Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the ranking member, helpfully laid it out for him: If a member of the Senate was nominated for such a position, Reed said, they would also have to answer such questions. And then he added that the late Senator John Tower was in 1989 rejected for the same job Hegseth wants – over allegations of an alcohol problem.

Through it all, I tried to imagine the reaction in Moscow or Beijing, where senior Defense Department officials almost certainly saw Hegseth stumbling through this hearing. They learned today that their incoming opponent appears to have few thoughts about foreign enemies, but plenty of worries about the people Trump calls “the enemy within.” The MAGA Republicans, for their part, seem only eager for Hegseth to come in and tear the Pentagon apart.

After today, I suspect America’s enemies will happily await the same.

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1. Israel and Hamas are “on the brink” to agree to an agreement on a cease-fire in Gaza and the exchange of some hostages and prisoners, according to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
2. Former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s final report on Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election was published last night.
3. It was announced by the Biden administration Cuba will be removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, which would help clear the way for the release of some political prisoners.

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They stole Yogi Berra’s World Series rings. Then they did something really crazy.

By Ariel Sabar

On a Wednesday morning in October 2014, Tommy Trotta was trying on some new jewelry in a garage in the woods of Pennsylvania: a set of rings belonging to baseball great Yogi Berra. Each gold piece bore a half-carat diamond and the words “New York Yankees World Champions.”

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Read. In Han Kang’s novels, the South Korean Nobel laureate returns again and again to his country’s bloody past, writes Judith Shulevitz.

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Stephanie Bai contributed to this newsletter.

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