Hegseth Confirmed: Four Key Takeaways of the Confirmation Process

Topic: Perspective

Big news broke yesterday from the U.S. Senate chamber, with Pete Hegseth receiving his 51 votes to become Secretary of Defense. As this journal suggested two days ago, Hegseth was indeed good to go and lacked the support of the three GOP stooges – McConnell, Murkowski, and Collins. Deadlocked at 50-50, Vice President J.D. Vance engaged in his first major action as Trump’s second-in-command by casting the tiebreaking vote.

I have written about the importance of the Hegseth selection for Defense Secretary on multiple occasions, including in a dedicated piece last month:

If you’re clutching your Sunday pearls over Pete Hegseth and his personal past, just stop. You are not considering, as a church body, allowing him to be an elder or deacon, which comes with its own criteria your pastor is aware of. Just like when you hire an exterminator to eradicate every rodent and pest in your home, you should be hoping the Senate confirms Hegseth for the simple task of eradicating wokeness, DEI, and trophy mentality in the military. After all, I guarantee no one who is upset about Pete Hegseth the man being nominated for the SECDEF role would think to ask the exterminator what his body count is, or what kind of smut he consumes online. You hired him to stop the problem dead in its tracks.

I also had this to say in my first initial glimpse into some of Trump’s cabinet selections in the immediate aftermath of his election, while votes were still being counted:

I am not confident Hegseth is going to make it through the confirmation process with all the “me too” hearsay swirling, especially thanks to neocon scum like John Curtis seeping in from Utah (a small state that repeatedly insists on humiliating the rest of us who just want to unplug America’s toilet); nevertheless, his nomination is a clear indication that one of Trump’s main priorities is to think outside the box when it comes to the way we’ve done business in the defense realm.

While Hegseth doesn’t have too much on record about the isolationism most of us desire, selections like Tulsi Gabbard at DNI don’t jive with an expeditionary foreign policy, and those who have turned the military into a giant social experiment believe Hegseth is being fronted to take on the culture of wokeism in a force that exists to fight and win wars. Another good measure of a candidate’s potential upside is how much opposition he receives from the political establishment and media, and Hegseth has high marks in that regard. Remember this if he doesn’t get past the Senate and the boobirds come out when a replacement must be named.

Lo and behold, Hegseth is confirmed, and provided he serves for four years, will lack all but a few days in the driver’s seat out of the entire term. It is time to get to work, and here are four key takeaways I’ve gleaned from the confirmation process and all that has surfaced since Hegseth became the nominee more than two months ago:

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I. No Substitute for Toughness

Unlike other prognosticators, I don’t conceal my missed predictions or cover over my hedging. The excerpt above clearly reveals I had my concerns over Hegseth’s candidacy thanks to the artificially reduced GOP Senate majority and the presence of several Republican establishment tools used to pilot mainstream media narratives to fruition. Hegseth has (or had) the most heat on him out of all Trump nominees thanks to #MeToo drama that has permeated the public space since the Trump era kicked off, and he did an admirable job of not only weathering this madness, but facing it head on.

The media and political establishment, who covet control of the Department of Defense, figured they’d heard the last of Hegseth back in November, when they ran with claims of sexual assault and a police report from Monterey County, California, dating back to 2017. Hegseth maintained his innocence publicly and by the time the dust settled, it seems the public realized the report was likely filed as a cover and political hit. Mental toughness and resilience like this will also be required to navigate the geopolitical world, particularly in times of constantly brewing conflict.

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II. Murkowski Shows True Colors…Again

I am convinced Lisa Murkowski is not only a weak Republican, but a compromised asset of the intelligence community owned by foreign and domestic special interests. She’s been ousted in a GOP primary before, only to win a write-in campaign in the General Election, and most recently had her career saved by Ranked Choice Voting. For years, she’s been the darling of the media establishment who need to find a “Republican” to shame other Republicans, especially those capable of championing true reform. She and Jeff Flake were the go-to Republicans when the Kavanaugh smear campaign went around in 2018, but had no trouble voting to confirm 19 Biden Cabinet nominees.

Who can forget the image of Dianne Feinstein cornering Murkowski over the Kavanaugh nomination? We need far fewer squishes who can be bent to the will of the permanent bureaucracy, and far more people willing to turn the turret around and return fire.

Murkowski wasted no time casting judgment on Hegseth’s personal life, when, back in reality, the people are sick of watching the military used for foreign interventionism and social experimentation. We don’t need a pastor in the role, but rather, a warrior. It dawned on me that there is no accident in Hegseth not being a senior officer, especially a General officer, but rather a junior field grade officer with service in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He is uniquely qualified to lead soldiers who have fought futile campaigns in both of those theaters and refocus them on military readiness and a renewed culture of national pride and esteem.

Murkowski, on the other hand, is a national disgrace and worthless politician who will be hated by posterity in nearly all future accounts of this period in American history.