Is Pete Hegseth now 'brat,' too? Is his nomination now all about the 'Joy'?

My, how quickly the momentum shifts! A couple of weeks ago, the media treated Hegseth's nomination like a dead letter. Anonymous allegations of misconduct and reports of alcohol abuse supposedly had doomed his bid. Last week, rumors floated up that Donald Trump might ask Ron DeSantis to serve as Secretary of Defense instead.

Today, however, Punchbowl News reports that Hegseth now has the "vibes" of success after Trump publicly restated his full support:

The vibes around Pete Hegseth’s nomination to lead the Defense Department have shifted during the last few days.

Buoyed by continued support from President-elect Donald Trump, the crisis atmosphere enveloping Hegseth’s nomination has cooled somewhat, although the former Army National Guard officer and Fox News host is still far from a sure thing for confirmation.

After the most prominent Senate GOP critic of Hegseth, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), signaled on Monday that she would not oppose his nomination, there’s a growing sense among Senate Republicans that Hegseth has survived a stunningly bad rollout period that threatened to completely derail his confirmation prospects.

Can we all agree to retire the word "vibes" when it comes to politics? The mainstream media proved that it  couldn't find a vibe with both hands and a flashlight in their all-in propagandizing for Kamala Harris. 

In fact, the "stunningly bad rollout period" refers to Protection Racket Media attacks on Hegseth using anonymous sources who are notably coming up short after the first blush of gossip. The ferocity of those media attacks caused some Senate Republicans to go wobbly, most notably Joni Ernst and Lindsey Graham, but that impact appears to have been short-lived. As Punchbowl notes, Ernst has reversed her position -- largely under pressure from Republicans promising a primary in 2026 -- and Graham has retreated as well. 

Tom Cotton declared yesterday that Hegseth has successfully navigated the Senate waters:

I expect our Republican Senate is going to confirm all of President Trump's nominees.

— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) December 9, 2024

As GOP Conference Chair, Cotton's in pretty good position to know what the whip count looks like. He's also clear on the history of Cabinet confirmations, at least those who make it to a final floor vote:

Despite concerns that Hegseth and other nominees could fail to get confirmed, Cotton assured that the Republican Senate would be on Trump’s side, detailing the meetings he has done ahead of the confirmation vote.

“I had a good meeting with Pete Hegseth and with Pam Bondi,” Cotton said on Fox News’s Fox & Friends. “I know many of these nominees — two Arkansans have been nominated as ambassadors — Marco Rubio, Kelly Loeffler, Doug Collins, and I served together. In fact, if you go back 32 years to Bill Clinton’s transition, there are only two nominees out of 72 Cabinet secretary nominees in which senators of the president-elect’s party voted against them. So no one should be surprised that a Republican Senate is going to confirm the Republican president-elect’s Cabinet secretaries."

I doubt that the attacks on Hesgeth intended to get him defeated in a floor vote; the media and Democrats (redundancy alert!) wanted to bully Hegseth and Trump into a withdrawal. The reason that this voting record looks as strong as it does is because presidents tend to be risk-averse when it comes to nominations and withdraw any that don't get unanimous support from their own party. That was more of an issue before Harry Reid's nuclear option eliminated the filibuster on presidential appointees, too. 

Trump isn't risk-averse, however, and neither is Hegseth. Trump intends to appoint disruptors to these positions to combat the kind of political corruption that we see emerging in this bureaucratic gossip-mongering. As long as Hegseth can get to 50, he'll be Defense Secretary, and Trump has no problem forcing Republicans to make a very public choice about which side they're on. And the similarities between the campaign to torpedo Hegseth and the earlier one about Brett Kavanaugh -- vague allegations, rumors, and alcohol use -- probably have Senate Republicans concerned enough to not play along with the attacks this time.

Getting to 50 (and a J.D. Vance tiebreaking vote) could still be a challenge. Democrats will have a few weeks to recruit witnesses to attack Hegseth's character, a la Kavanaugh, and those may turn out to bring some substance to their allegations. We won't know until the Armed Services hearing on his nomination for sure, but Hegseth and Trump appear ready to push through the turbulence to a final vote. That's not vibe or brat -- that's determination and focus, two qualities that have been in short supply at the DoD for the last few years. 

The latest episode of The Ed Morrissey Show podcast is now up! Today's show features:

•  Will Joe Biden pardon the entire deep state before leaving office? Andrew Malcolm offers his reaction to the corrupt pardon of Hunter Biden and the rumors of "pre-emptive" pardons coming next. 
• We also point out how this confirmed the value of "the word of a Biden," although everyone but the media seems to have known it all along. 
• Will Congress act to curtail presidential pardon power, and will it revisit the length of presidential transitions in the near-abdication of Joe Biden? Donald Trump is filling that vacuum, and foreign leaders are responding to that, but the risk of a vacuum is now crystal clear. 

The Ed Morrissey Show is now a fully downloadable and streamable show at  Spotify, Apple Podcasts, the TEMS Podcast YouTube channel, and on Rumble and our own in-house portal at the #TEMS page!