With Matt Gaetz Out, Pete Hegseth Is Now In The Hot Seat
INSIDE: Pam Bondi ... Matt Gaetz ... Rudy G
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
The Undisclosed Sex Assault Settlement Wasn’t Enough?
With Matt Gaetz out, Pete Hegseth’s nomination for secretary of defense comes under closer scrutiny. It’s not just the sexual assault allegation he settled in 2017 – and failed to disclose to the Trump transition team – that’s cause for concern.
If we use the Trump II trifecta of retribution, corruption, and destruction as the analytical framework, Hegseth probably best slots in under the destruction theme. He is someone with nowhere near the management experience expected of someone running the Pentagon; he is eager to root out “wokeness” in the military; and he comes to the job with a passel of other right-wing notions and agenda items.
A sampling of the latest reporting on Hegseth:
TPM’s Hunter Walker: Hegseth Railed Against ‘Insidious’ Security Measures That Kept Far-Right Extremists Out Of Armed Forces
WaPo: Pete Hegseth’s Army unit in Iraq was rocked by a war-crimes case after he left
WSJ: How Hegseth Cultivated an Image That Caught Trump’s Eye
I should note that the MAGA impulse towards destruction is closely connected to the corruption threat. Grifters prey on the chaos, the breakdown of normal policies and procedures, and the undermining of watchdogs and other accountability mechanisms. The enormous amount of money coursing through the Pentagon is ripe for even further abuse than we’ve become accustomed to.
Trump’s Second Choice For AG: Pam Bondi
To get help you familiarize yourself with former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi:
Philip Bump: Pam Bondi has shown how willing she is to use her authority to help Trump
WaPo: Pam Bondi, Trump’s AG pick, said ‘prosecutors will be prosecuted’
Politico: ‘Is she on our side?’: Jan. 6 defendants and allies puzzle over Bondi nomination
Greg Sargent: “Matt Gaetz’s withdrawal from consideration as Donald Trump’s attorney general is unquestionably a big victory for the rule of law. But now that Trump has put forth Pam Bondi—the former Florida attorney general whose loyalty to Trump is almost as slavish as Gaetz’s—it raises a question: Why assume she’ll be any less wedded to his agenda of unleashing the Justice Department on his enemies and otherwise reducing it to a tool of his most corrupt designs and whims?”
Point Of Clarification
Former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) seemingly settled the confusion about whether he only resigned from the current Congress but might return in the new Congress, having already been re-elected before his resignation. “I do not intend to join the 119th Congress,” Trump’s failed presumptive nominee for attorney general said in an interview.
Matt Gaetz Is Now On Cameo
“After announcing he would not return to Congress, Matt Gaetz appears to be trying out a new career option: creating personalized videos for his fans on Cameo.”–NBC News
JD Vance’s Just Reward
It’s comical watching Vice President-elect J.D. Vance, a first-term senator, being tasked with steering the most controversial Trump nominations – like Gaetz and Hegseth – through the Senate.
The Trump II Clown Show
Hedge fund executive Scott Bessent, Treasury secretary
Project 2025 architect Russ Vought, OMB director
Brooke Rollins, president of the America First Policy Institute: secretary of agriculture
Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-OR), secretary of labor
Sebastian Gorka, deputy assistant to the president and senior director for counterterrorism
Dr. Marty Makary, commissioner of the FDA
Fox News commentator and physician Janette Nesheiwat, surgeon general
Former Rep. Dave Weldon (R-FL), director of the CDC
What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
WaPo: Trump health picks largely untested in fighting disease outbreaks
Project 2025 Is Back, Baby!
Just making sure you didn’t miss Donald Trump’s bait-and-switch of disavowing Project 2025 toward the end of the presidential campaign when it was controversial and then immediately turning back to it for appointees to his new administration:
TPM: Project 2025 Would Like Its Cabinet Now
NBC News: Trump’s transition team turns to Project 2025 after disavowing it during the campaign
NYT: Trump Picks Key Figure in Project 2025 for Powerful Budget Role
Joyce Vance: Project 2025: It’s On (Predictably)
Trump Transition Miscellany
Politico: Trump team barred from agencies amid legal standoff
NYT: Trump Is Running His Transition Team on Secret Money
WaPo: Sharp elbows and raised voices: Inside Trump’s bumpy transition
Trump Prosecution Watch
Jan. 6 case: Trump plans to fire Jack Smith’s team and “assemble investigative teams within the Justice Department to hunt for evidence in battleground states that fraud tainted the 2020 election,” the WaPo reported.
Hush money case: Trial judge cancels Trump’s sentencing for now.
RUDY!
“With a motion for civil contempt already looming over him in Washington, D.C., another judge on Friday warned Rudy Giuliani that “on pain of contempt” he must comply with requests from the Georgia election workers he defamed to surrender his assets squirreled away in an increasingly controversial storage unit on New York’s Long Island.”–HuffPost
Sign Of The Times
“Almost every week, small white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups have been descending on downtowns, gathering in public parks or rallying on the grounds of state houses and courthouses across the country.”–NYT
Fair Winds and Following Seas
Every time I take I-95 through Philadelphia, I crane for a view of the S.S. United States, the largest U.S.-built ocean liner, rusting away at a pier on the Delaware River since 1996. She still holds the record for fastest transatlantic crossing, in both directions. Built at the tail end of the era of ocean liners, she cruised at 35 m.ph.
Repeated efforts to rehabilitate the S.S. United States over the decades have all failed and she will soon be towed to waters off the coast of Florida and sunken as a manmade reef. Photographer Stephen Mallon went aboard for NPR recently; and even though she was long ago stripped of her fittings, his photos show she still carries herself with a certain dignity.
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I took the USSS from France to NYC in 1961. I have a cup with its photo. It was very fast and so very bumpy, but a kind steward got me outside in the wind and cajoled me into thinking I could do it.
Somehow the fate of the SS United States, built at the high tide of the American Republic, seems an appropriate metaphor for the fate of the county whose name she carries.