The Hearings Begin

Do not expect the Senate to do what's right

Photo by Randy Laybourne on Unsplash

Last November, Donald Trump suffered a setback when his initial choice for Attorney General, Matt Gaetz, withdrew his nomination in the face of the potential release of a House Ethics Committee report that even Republicans felt unwilling to defend.

On the heels of Gaetz’ withdrawal, Trump was moments away from pulling the plug on Pete Hegseth, his choice for Secretary of Defense, over what the New Yorker characterized as “serious allegations of financial mismanagement, sexual impropriety, and personal misconduct.” With this trifecta of charges swirling around Hegseth, Trump had gone so far as to leak that he had discussed the Defense position with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. The familiar DC scandal death-watch was in full swing, and it looked like the Hegseth nomination was toast.

Then Trump had a change of heart and decided to fight for Hegseth. This allowed Hegseth to hang on where previous nominees in his position had faltered. Now Trump is all in on his nominee.

Hegseth’s confirmation hearings began yesterday, with support and opposition dividing along familiar party lines. If there is going to be a Republican revolt against his nomination, it was pretty hard to find.

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This is frightening for the country but not at all surprising.

Early last month, following the demise of the Gaetz nomination and when things looked bleak for Hegseth, I wrote that it was encouraging to see the norms of Washington still in force. Highly problematic nominations could still be short-circuited by public exposure.

But I warned that the circumstances of November and December should not be expected to hold once we reached January, when Republican senators were going to have to declare their support or opposition to Trump’s nominees on the record in a public forum:

There are other terrifying Trump nominees awaiting confirmation, and it is possible that most or perhaps all of them will succeed. Gaetz and Hegseth have blatant ethical problems which came to light before individual senators had to cast a public vote in defiance of their leader. We probably won’t see that happen again.

Instead, senators are more likely to find themselves facing the prospect of confronting Trump over the qualifications of his nominees, and we don’t yet know how much appetite there will be for that. It may be too tempting for Republicans to fall back on the tired line that presidents should be able to assemble the cabinet they want, especially when the White House pressures them to fall in line.

In fact, that’s what we see happening.

With a quartet of blatantly unqualified and dangerous nominees facing confirmation hearings in the coming days—including, in addition to Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence, RFK, Jr. as director of Health and Human Services, and Kash Patel as FBI Director—the Hegseth hearings will set the tone for what’s to come.

Trump can ill-afford an outright rebellion against these nominees from his own party, and he’s using strong-arm tactics to get what he wants. An orchestrated, well-financed intimidation campaign in support of Hegseth is actively working to get Republican Senators to vote for a nominee many of them know to be unqualified and risky.

The New Yorker, which has contributed excellent coverage of this story, is on top of what Jane Mayer describes as a well-funded and “unprecedented, behind-the-scenes campaign ahead of the hearing to intimidate and silence potential witnesses, aimed at keeping Republican senators in line and in the dark”:

Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democratic member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which will be holding Hegseth’s hearing, told me, “I’m deeply concerned by an apparent pattern of intimidation and threats, whether it’s legal action or reputational harm. They’re playing the hardest of hardball. It’s harder by several orders of magnitude than in almost any other confirmation.” Senator Elizabeth Warren, another Democrat on the committee, said the pressure tactics “seem designed” to insure that witnesses “don’t speak up.” Blumenthal said that “it’s been pretty unnerving” for Senate Republicans, “because this nominee is so deeply unqualified and unprepared,” yet they fear political retaliation from Trump if they vote their consciences.” . . . “My Republican colleagues are unsettled,” he added, “and some genuinely feel scared and intimidated.”

Recall that Trump initially wanted Congress to take an extended adjournment so he could use the recess appointment power to install nominees he knows are anathema to his party. When that failed, he resorted to bullying tactics to bludgeon the Senate into acquiescence. In both cases, his objective has been to overcome the advise and consent process designed to put limits on presidential power and block nominees like Hegseth.

While it is encouraging that Congress pushed back on the recess appointment gambit, which would have amounted to total surrender of their constitutional role, we are about to see whether Trump can achieve the same objectives through force.

If the dynamics we’ve seen play out in the Republican party since 2016 continue to hold—and, really, why wouldn’t they?—Trump has the upper hand. Time and again we have seen Republicans fold when confronting electoral threats or fears for their safety.

It would take four defections to tank each of these dangerous nominees. That’s a tall order for a party that has repeatedly fallen in line behind someone who, as Senator Blumenthal put it, scares and intimidates them.

This is why we shouldn’t look to the Senate to provide a guardrail against Trump’s appointments. It would be an impressive and meaningful victory if four Republicans hold out against any one of them, when in ordinary times they would all face lopsided defeats. Of course, no normal president would dare to make these nominations in the first place.

In the legislative arena, Congress may yet prove to be an obstacle to Trump’s agenda, but not intentionally. In the House, where almost non-existent margins, poor leadership, and conflicting objectives among members will leave Republicans struggling to get results, it’s possible to see how it could be hard for Trump to get his way. Similarly, whenever the Senate filibuster is in play, Trump’s interests will face constraints.

But these impediments—while important—shouldn’t be confused with an intentional effort to place a check on executive power. When it comes to the nomination process, senators will have to exhibit great courage to defy the wishes of the person who owns their party and owns them. That kind of courage has been in short supply during the Trump years. We shouldn’t count on it materializing now.