Burnt Toast

Reality continues to hold as another high profile Trump nominee faces trouble

When Matt Gaetz realized there was no way he was going to become attorney general, it was an encouraging sign that normal pressure against a compromised nominee still means something. Late last month, I wrote:

There was hopeful news last week when Matt Gaetz withdrew from consideration as the country’s chief law enforcement officer. The Gaetz nomination collapsed under the weight of a congressional ethics probe into Gaetz’ behavior that had become a political albatross for a number of Republican senators.

This was promising because it represents business as usual. It’s the way the process has always worked.

Still, it was an isolated incident. Trump has made so many problematic appointments that before we could place any stock in the resilience of normal political forces the process would have to repeat itself.

This week it did.

Trump’s choice for Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, officially assumed the “embattled” moniker last Sunday when the New Yorker published an exposé about the Fox News talking head that added details to the rumors swirling around his nomination. It touched all the DC scandal buttons: “serious allegations of financial mismanagement, sexual impropriety, and personal misconduct.”

If these items sound like highlights from Donald Trump’s resume, it speaks to the singular ability of the cult leader to survive behaviors that are indefensible when attached to someone else. And that’s why the Hegseth saga is instructive and—I say this reluctantly—even a little encouraging. The whole point of nominating an unqualified loyalist to run the military is to allow Trump to impose his will on the state while remaking American institutions in his corrupt image. He’s not supposed to have to defend the indefensible.

As with Gaetz, the Hegseth nomination is an early test of how far Trump can go in his determined effort to do as he wishes. That makes the resistance to Hegseth significant.

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By mid-week, we were seeing the familiar “embattled” script play out.