Pete Hegseth struggled repeatedly throughout his confirmation hearing, but the scandal-plagued former Fox News host who Donald Trump tapped to lead the Pentagon faced an especially difficult line of questioning from Sen. Tim Kaine.
The Virginia Democrat, more so than his colleagues, focused attention on some of Hegseth’s personal scandals, including allegations of adultery, sexual misconduct and alcohol abuse. Soon after, Sen. Markwayne Mullin tried to defend the prospective nominee in an unusual way. This was the line the Oklahoma Republican pushed during the Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing:
[Kaine] starts bringing up the fact that what if you showed up drunk to your job? How many senators have showed up drunk to vote at night? Have any of you guys asked them to step down and resign from their job? And don’t tell me you haven’t seen it, because I know you have. And then how many senators do you know have gotten a divorce before cheating on their wives? Did you ask them to step down?
As a rule, one might expect Hegseth’s GOP allies to argue, especially in public, that the prospective nominee has not struggled with excessive drinking. Mullin apparently thought it’d be a good idea to go in the opposite direction: The Oklahoman described it as a “fact” that Hegseth “showed up drunk” while on the job.
But in the next breath, Mullin seemed to suggest that Hegseth’s alleged alcohol abuse is unimportant because, by his telling, he’s seen senators drunk while on the job, too.
In other words, as far as the Senate Republican is concerned, there’s no point in trying to hold a Pentagon secretary to a higher standard because Mullin has seen politicians fail to meet those same standards.
I can see the placards now: “Vote to confirm Hegseth! He’s about as bad as members of Congress who drink too much and cheat on their wives!”
Hours later, Mullin sat down with CNN’s Kaitlin Collins and elaborated on the point. “What I was trying to get to is, if you’re capable of doing your job, and you’re able to still drink on the job or late in the evening, then don’t tell me that Pete can’t,” the senator said.
I still don’t see how this is supposed to make anyone feel more confident in Hegseth’s qualifications.
As part of the same on-air exchange, Mullin added, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing, expecting different results. And we keep recycling the same type of people as a secretary of defense. And where have they got us? Nowhere.”
This was hardly any better. In effect, the GOP senator argued that the country has had qualified Pentagon chiefs, which in Mullin’s mind has gotten us “nowhere,” so it’s time to go with an unqualified defense secretary.
The idea that the civilian leadership of the armed forces has gotten us “nowhere” is bizarre: The United States has the strongest and most capable military on the planet. Why put that preeminence in jeopardy with a prospective nominee who’s obviously unfit for the job?
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With just days remaining ahead of Donald Trump’s second inaugural, there’s ongoing chatter about whether the president-elect will follow through on his trade tariff threats. Sure, the Republican ran on the issue ahead of his re-election. And yes, he’s offered plenty of bluster. But when push come to shove, some continue to suggest, Trump might not pull the trigger on a misguided plan that would undermine the economy.
It was against this backdrop that the president-elect made an announcement of sorts by way of his social media platform:
For far too long, we have relied on taxing our Great People using the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Through soft and pathetically weak Trade agreements, the American Economy has delivered growth and prosperity to the World, while taxing ourselves. It is time for that to change. I am today announcing that I will create the EXTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE to collect our Tariffs, Duties, and all Revenue that come from Foreign sources. We will begin charging those that make money off of us with Trade, and they will start paying, FINALLY, their fair share. January 20, 2025, will be the birth date of the External Revenue Service.
Before we dig in on this, it’s worth pausing to acknowledge the “watch what they do, not what they say” maxim. Some reports over the last 24 hours indicated that Trump is creating a new bureaucracy to run parallel to the IRS, pointing to his online missive. The trouble is, there’s no way of knowing whether the Republican will actually try to create an “External Revenue Service,” or whether this will soon join the long list of ideas that he briefly seems excited about, only to never mention again.
But for the sake of conversation, let’s say Trump was serious about his latest plan. Let’s assume that, starting next week, the new GOP administration really will have a new layer of bureaucracy that will focus exclusively on collecting foreign money coming into the United States, thanks in part to his plans for sweeping new tariffs.
What’s wrong with this? Quite a bit, actually.
For one thing, the idea of an “External Revenue Service” appears to be a clumsy attempt at political packaging: The president-elect has long struggled to understand the basics of trade policy, and he apparently continues to believe that tariffs will generate vast wealth that will pour into the government’s coffers.
As he really ought to know by now, it’s American consumers, not foreign sources, that would pay more as a result of Trump’s policies.
But even if we put this aside, a more glaring problem emerges: Trump seems determined to create a new bureaucracy that’s wildly unnecessary, because the United States already has an agency responsible for collecting foreign revenue. The president-elect has probably heard of it: U.S. Customs and Border Protection already does what the “External Revenue Service” would presumably do.
The Washington Post reported that Trump’s announcement “sparked immediate confusion about how such an office would work in practice.”
U.S. Customs and Border Protection currently administers tariff policy, which is set by the president and Congress. Importers self-classify and declare the value of their goods, and CBP officials review and audit that paperwork before collecting any duties, penalties and fees, according to the Congressional Research Service. Those funds are deposited into the U.S. General Fund, run by the Treasury Department. The government collected about $80 billion in tariffs and duties in 2023, according to a White House estimate.
Does Trump know this? Did he give this a moment’s thought before making the announcement? Did it occur to him that maybe he could ask someone who actually knows something about the issue?
Unfortunately, I think we know the answer to these questions.
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What do Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg have in common? They’re all tech industry billionaires with nine-figure net worths that rival the GDPs of many countries. They also hold the top three slots on the Forbes 400 list. And as a political matter, they’ve also spent quite a bit of time — to varying degrees of genuflecting — cozying up to Donald Trump.
Their sycophantic efforts have apparently not gone unnoticed. NBC News reported:
Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg will attend President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration Monday, according to an official involved with planning the event. They will have a prominent spot at the ceremony, seated together on the platform with other notable guests, including Trump’s Cabinet nominees and elected officials.
Around the same time as the NBC News report was published, Musk confirmed online that he will, in fact, have a prominent spot at Monday’s inauguration.
In case this isn’t obvious, a presidential inaugural dais — at least in this country — usually features members of the incoming president’s family, his White House predecessors and prominent U.S. officials, including congressional leaders.
It does not traditionally feature megadonors and billionaires hoping to curry favor with the new administration. Such a display not only would’ve been unseemly in the recent past, it would also have been politically risky: Incoming presidents do not generally want to be seen as rewarding the hyper-wealthy with special political perks, especially at an important public event.
Team Trump, however, apparently doesn’t much care.
It’s also worth emphasizing for context that Zuckerberg, who recently announced that he’s moving part of his Meta operation from California (a blue state) to Texas (a red state), won’t just be hanging out with powerful officials during Monday’s event. After joining Trump on the inaugural platform, the billionaire will also reportedly co-host a pro-Trump reception with Republican megadonor Miriam Adelson and Todd Ricketts, Trump’s choice for deputy secretary of commerce.
As for the larger context, the latest column from The New York Times’ Ezra Klein about the president-elect and his “alliance of oligarchs” continues to ring true.
Trump is now flanked by an alliance of oligarchs led by Elon Musk. The billionaire owners of The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times killed presidential endorsements of Kamala Harris, ABC News (owned by Disney) gave Trump’s “future presidential foundation and museum” $15 million to settle a defamation lawsuit Trump brought, Mark Zuckerberg is refocusing Meta platforms around “free expression” and his company against D.E.I., and Amazon reportedly paid $40 million for Melania Trump’s documentary about herself. Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai and a slew of other chief executives have recently traveled to Mar-a-Lago to dine with Trump. This differs from 2017, when Trump was treated as an aberration to be endured or a malignancy to reject. The billionaires see that the rules have changed. They are signaling their willingness to abide by them.
By playing by these new rules, Musk, Bezos and Zuckerberg will receive a special reward on Monday. What additional rewards should they expect in the coming weeks, months and years? Watch this space.
