Donald Trump has chosen a Fox News anchor to run the Pentagon in a move that is somehow both shocking and completely unsurprising.
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To be fair, what we wrote in the headline hasn’t happened… yet. But, based on some of Donald Trump’s other personnel decisions, it might.
At least that is the inevitable conclusion one has to reach when looking at some of the president-elect’s choices.
It seems as though the main qualifications one needs to be nominated for a Cabinet-level position in his second administration include being on Fox News, loving Trump, and saying stuff he likes.
Take Pete Hegseth, whom the president-elect tapped as his secretary of defense on Tuesday night.
Like about 20 million other Americans currently alive, he served in the military at one point (in his case in Minnesota, Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, and Afghanistan).
Unlike those others, however, he also served multiple tours on Fox News, including as a host of Fox & Friends.
And it’s these last deployments that will get him the top job in the Pentagon… because it seems unlikely that four Republican senators are going to develop enough of a spine and common sense to say, “Let’s not.”
Since 2016, Hegseth has been a staunch supporter of Trump and has also advised him on military matters. For example, he was seen as instrumental in getting a Navy SEAL’s demotion revoked who was accused (and controversially acquitted) of war crimes, and whom his fellow soldiers described as “evil” and “perfectly OK with killing anybody that was moving.”
Trump also pardoned two other soldiers either convicted or charged with committing war crimes whom Hegseth had lobbied for.
In addition to being a fan of the president-elect and appearing on Fox, Trump also pointed to Hegseth’s book as a qualification for leading the Pentagon.
“[The War on Warriors] reveals the leftwing betrayal of our Warriors, and how we must return our Military to meritocracy, lethality, accountability, and excellence,” Trump wrote in a statement announcing the nomination.
He added that “with Pete at the helm, America’s enemies are on notice.”
This is true.
While it is unclear which countries Trump views as “America’s enemies” since his rhetoric directed at NATO is more bellicose at times than that aimed at the world’s dictators, they will certainly be on notice that the US military will be led by a mentally ill commander in chief and some dude from TV who has no relevant experience… unless you count hitting a bystander with an axe during a Fox News segment.
In his Navigating the Insanity columns, Klaus Marre provides the kind of hard-hitting, thought-provoking, and often humorous analysis you won’t find anywhere else.
