You can hear it in their voices, the words they use, the issues brought up, the frustration evolving into tinged anger, and the conviction — no more, you’re pushing it, really pushing it.
Republican senators have been talking about Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth a lot more lately, and that’s bad news at a particularly bad time for him, as he already faces eight articles of impeachment once the House returns (assuming it ever returns).
But it is even worse news for Donald Trump.
Because for all the talk about Hegseth’s recklessness in firing officers, bumbling the war, running through money, self-aggrandizement, and self-satisfaction, it’s all but impossible for these Republicans to keep Hegseth’s name straight in these sentences. It is amazing they don’t realize that it’s not obvious that everything they say applies equally to Trump, if not more to Trump, and that this is a coded message: “If we come after your guy, the one you still strongly support, and we are coming, there’s only one last hill to climb between him and you.”
The cynics will laugh this away, and to a degree they are right. We cycle through this. But as has been said here too many times, we’ve never cycled like this when the American people are hurting and watching a new war unfold in front of us. And it really, really matters when the cycling includes Hegseth stumbles that hurt Congressional candidates in the midterms. That’s a sick mix.
An unnamed Senate source was quoted as saying: “There are a lot of people that are really upset with the war in Iran and how it’s being played out. We feel it’s hurting our chances in the elections in the fall, and it seems rather haphazard.”
Seems?
It “seems” to the American people like we had a one-week plan for a two-year war. Of course, the war might have gone better had Hegseth not emptied the cupboard of “strong, experienced senior officers,” who just happen to be women, Black, or insufficiently nimble in their Trump support.
Said another Senator: “We don’t like what we’re seeing when it comes to the pulling of officers off of the promotion lists. We don’t like what we see with … indiscriminate firings of admirals and generals across the force.”
It would be easier to feel some sort of compassion for the angry Republicans, or at least shared concern in this matter, were it not for the fact that Hegseth was laughably unqualified. He also told us exactly what he was going to do during his confirmation hearings: rid the department of DEI, meaning everyone who isn’t a white-hetero-Christian MAGA man. He wanted big guns, bigger bombs, and the biggest dudes, not once thinking maybe there was a use for the mousy 45-year-old woman about to be brigadier general — the type who might step up and say, “What do we have to prevent them from closing the strait?”
Door slam.
They certainly don’t want to give Hegseth’s “War Department” any more money; they don’t trust him to use what they’ve given already, and they really don’t trust the voters’ forgiveness for giving much more to an adolescent with the matches to burn down the Middle East. Now Hegseth is asking for a $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget, more than 40% above the prior year, plus another $88 billion associated with the Iran war and additional weapons.
For poor Pete, this couldn’t possibly come at a worse time. Word on the street is that Trump plans on re-upping bombing and aggressiveness after the midterms, as if it might have escaped Americans’ notice that we’re in a quagmire, lifting all prices. But guess what else is coming after the midterms? That’s right, Pete’s eight articles of impeachment, and all Massie needs is a handful of GOP votes to move it forward. He may well have that now, never mind then, and that’s just the beginning of issues, because ramping up war means putting more of our sons and daughters in harm’s way.
Lose 20 soldiers to a horrifically “perfect” drone placement — data provided by Russia, parts by China — and suddenly those Senate voices may well be joining Massie and the Democrats. Hegseth could realistically be in actual danger of being convicted and dumped.
And, look, this isn’t dumping Kristi Noem for imitating her boss. This is Hegseth, a Trump guy to the bone, a guy Trump still strongly supports.
It is that strong Trump support that links the two, as Hegseth acts as a political proxy for things that Republicans wish they could say and do to Trump. Because again, you can hear it in the tone, the specificity of the complaints, the bewilderment; everything said about Hegseth could actually be directed at Trump.
No doubt, it is not easy being president, nor Secretary of Defense, but it is also nowhere near as hard as these two are making it, either. That sentence alone is doing a lot of work; think about it: two men who, through a combo of incompetence and misplaced priorities, make hard jobs infinitely harder than they would otherwise be, and like a man drowning, the more they panic and slap, scream, and shake, the further under they go.
So now the real danger. What if Trump starts pushing the war again right as an entire Congress is freed during a lame duck session with a truly lame duck president, one who — be reminded — is already polling at his lowest levels ever, at a career-low 32% approval, and God forbid, what if it doesn’t go well at all? It doesn’t go well at all while Trump keeps talking about his ballroom, gas prices go up further, Epstein still hasn’t been opened, a blue wave just crashed, investigations are coming, threatening a lot more GOPers than just Trump and Hegseth? What if Trump’s name starts getting substituted for Hegseth’s outwardly, rather than under the breath as now?
A real squeeze could be coming as we join three formerly disparate matters: Blue wave coming to Congress, including investigations, Trump renewing a war so unpopular it is stunning, Hegseth impeachment, drifting, drifting, drifting, to either firing Hegseth — a major Trump concession, along with Republicans stretching their vision a bit, stretching their Trump-opposition voices. That is a lot coming together at a point in time when Trump would desperately love to avoid investigations, avoid a lame duck two years, desperately enjoy his full pardon, and then desperately enjoy his money.
It is cool to say that nothing can bring this administration down, that MAGAs will parrot whatever Trump says. But Sen. Foghorn-Leghorn Kennedy, one of the smartest ‘Aw Shucks’ guys in Congress, did not support Trump’s ad over the weekend; the stretching is getting worked out.
Mostly true during pretty good times when Trump had his hands around the necks of every candidate in any race and the American people were doing “alright” and no new war. Reverse all of it, all of the above, and trouble is brewing.
Hegseth is a placeholder. A workout. Stretching exercises. It is more likely he’s gone before Christmas than still in office unless that war is somehow won.
They say one should live in interesting times. Well, this has been interesting, but only because we’re seeing the destruction of a once great nation, in part because hard jobs are made infinitely harder by guys who simply can’t help themselves.
Soon, neither will Congress.
Jason Miciak is a Raw Story Columnist, former editor of Occupy Democrats, author, consultant, attorney, and single parent girldad. Please follow on Bluesky, and he can be reached at [email protected]
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