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Senate Republicans are getting wobbly on the nomination of Pete Hegseth, a decorated former Army officer who served in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, a longtime veterans advocate, and a graduate of Harvard University and Princeton University. President-elect Donald Trump has won the most sweeping Electoral College mandate for a Republican in more than 30 years. Yet, some red-state senators think they have better judgment than the most popular and transformative Republican figure of the modern era. They’re wrong.
Hegseth did not spend his life climbing the political ladder of the Department of Defense bureaucracy, and that is why the DOD swamp (or, as President Dwight D. Eisenhower called it, the military-industrial complex) is freaking out over his nomination. Hegseth isn’t a general (all too often a politician with stars) whose livelihood depends upon a revolving door of lucrative military contracts. He is an outsider who is committed to fundamental reform of the Department of Defense by returning the world’s most fearsome fighting force back to its core mission of winning on the battlefield and projecting competence and strength around the world to protect our country’s safety and security interests.
Congress increased this year’s budget for the Department of Defense to $824 billion, excluding billions in supplemental funding for the war in Ukraine. As we approach the $1 trillion mark, and surely we will by the decade’s end, the American people have the right to ask if their tax dollars are being well spent on our nation’s defense. Are we positioned to claim a decisive victory in a war against China if, God forbid, that were to happen? Is the nation’s homeland, including our borders, secure from terrorist threats? Will we win the space race of the 21st century, or will China catch us flat-footed, as the Soviet Union did in the 1950s? Our own government’s war games indicate we are not nearly as ready as we need to be to defeat the threats we face.
So the obvious question Americans must ask is why, after spending more than any other nation on Earth for its military, are we not preeminent? Bureaucratic bloat, insular thinking, inertia, and outright corruption are the answer. The Department of Defense recently failed its seventh audit in a row. In other words, it’s so massive, messy, and unaccountable that it doesn’t even know where or how it spends its own money, our money. Pete Hegseth is a fearless outsider who will overhaul and reforge our armed forces. And that’s why the information campaign against him, using the left-wing media and anonymous sources as its tools, is so intense. A lot is at stake for powerful, wealthy military contractors.
The Senate plays a vital constitutional advice-and-consent role in confirming presidential nominees. However, some senators mistake their personal preferences or policy positions as relevant to the confirmation process. The president alone selects nominees for his branch of government, and as the democratic victor, he has a right to his nominees, especially his Cabinet. Senators have a two-part question before them: Is a nominee qualified? If yes, has the nominee done anything to disqualify themselves?
Hegseth, an Ivy League-educated, war-fighting, Bronze Star-winning former Army officer, is unquestionably qualified to lead the Pentagon. Those claiming he is disqualified because of alleged personal misconduct have the heavy burden of coming forward with clear and convincing evidence. Anonymous, motive-driven leaks don’t meet that standard. The Senate doesn’t solve crimes or canonize saints. Through a routine Senate background investigation, senators must get the answers to these basic questions: Does this otherwise qualified nominee’s past disqualify him from service? Does he have the current character and fitness to serve? With Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation, fortunately, we got rid of the #MeToo presumption of guilt. A qualified nominee’s opponents must prove his disqualification with clear and convincing evidence.
Of course, the propaganda campaign against Pete Hegseth isn’t really about claims he was a playboy or enjoyed drinking in the past. That’s most of Washington, after all, especially in the Senate. Hegseth’s military-contractor opponents and their pawns in the Senate aren’t really concerned about these unsubstantiated “scandals.” They’re using these as their pretext because they don’t own him. The Democratic and Republican neocon hawks want a puppet for their endless wars. Hegseth will bring the Pentagon back to fighting and winning wars instead of the woke nonsense that we’ve seen under the Biden administration. Republicans must confirm him.
Voters demanded change in November, and Trump, in nominating Hegseth, is delivering upon his campaign promise to rebuild America’s military to realize its full potential and defend our great nation. Senators who won’t commit to supporting Hegseth are opposing their constituents and will surely pay a price should they continue with their obstruction.
Mike Davis is the founder and president of the Article III Project.
