On Friday, at the stroke of drunk, the Republican-controlled Senate confirmed Pete Hegseth, a flaky Fox News weekend DEI hire (gotta hit that white fascist dude quota!), as secretary of Defense.
Hegseth has never run shit, and what little shit he’s run he’s run into the ground; he’s been credibly accused of rape, and he paid his accuser off, but says he’s been “cleared,” which is not true; sources all over the place say he’s an obnoxious drunk and that his former wife was scared of him; oh yeah and his mom once wrote in an email that he’s a piece of shit who’s abusive to women.
Just a top-notch guy.
It was the tightest vote it possibly could have been in this 53-47 Senate. Two Republicans announced they could not vote for Hegseth, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, who was so concerned her actions actually reflected it for once. Mitch McConnell walked down the aisle and, like a dearly departed John McCain, stuck his thumb down and his dick in Trump’s eye.
There would not be a fourth Republican “no.” It was 50-50, and Vice President JD Vance cast the tiebreaking vote. Haw haw haw, said Vance on Twitter. I thought I was done voting in the Senate! Haw haw haw! (Slight paraphrase.)
He used the laughing-until-crying emoji, like a MAGA manchild.
Again, it was the tightest vote it possibly could have been. Pretty humiliating if you consider how far up Trump’s ass Republicans live these days. (Of course, if we were Hegseth, we’d be humiliated by a lot of things.)
But the day before the vote, it seemed like something might be afoot, like at the last minute things might actually go south for this singularly unqualified creep with bad skin and an emotionally stunted inability to grapple with the possibility that maybe there are other reasons besides “woke” that the military hasn’t won any wars the past several decades, that maybe that’s a weak cop-out that masks truths much more painful to bear.
Danielle Hegseth, Pete Hegseth’s former sister-in-law on his brother’s side, submitted an affidavit to senators that detailed how Samantha Hegseth, Pete’s second wife, was scared of him, and had a codeword established to signal people that she needed to get out. An escape plan, which she reportedly used once. She said in the affidavit that she “trust[ed] what Samantha told me […], most critically because it was consistent with what I personally observed of Hegseth’s erratic and aggressive behavior over many years.” She recounted times Hegseth had drunkenly acted out in front of and toward her. She said he had a drinking problem.
(Samantha Hegseth sort of kind of denied it, but not really. Rachel Maddow reported that night that there was language in their divorce deal that might have precluded Samantha from really speaking out.)
In Danielle Hegseth’s affidavit, she said she was speaking out now because “I have been assured that making this public statement will ensure that certain Senators who are still on the fence will vote against Hegseth’s confirmation. But for that assurance I would not subject myself or others referred to in this statement to the public scrutiny this statement is likely to cause.”
She exposed herself to the personal risk inherent in saying a bad word about abusive MAGA men in public. Who had done the assuring, we all wondered?
The Wall Street Journal now reports that it was North Carolina Republican Senator Thom Tillis. You might know him as the 50th vote in favor of confirming Hegseth. AKA the guy who was undecided all the way up to the end, because (he said) he was doing his due diligence!
What a fucking bastard.
WSJ reports:
Tillis personally assured Danielle Hegseth in a call on Jan. 19, witnessed by two other people, that if she signed the statement testifying that she believed her former brother-in-law Pete Hegseth has an alcohol-abuse problem and was abusive to his second wife, it would carry weight, and potentially move three votes—his own, along with the votes of Sens. Susan Collins (R., Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska), those people said.
Oh, but then Mitch McConnell’s vote also got moved somehow. Did that change Tillis’s calculation? Is that when he decided Danielle Hegseth could fuck off?
In a statement, Tillis didn’t dispute The Wall Street Journal’s reporting about the call. He said Danielle Hegseth’s statement “did carry weight, which is why I communicated my concerns to the White House and spent days doing my due diligence and seeing if there were any firsthand corroborating accounts of the sworn statement.” He continued that he was “not able to speak with anyone who provided firsthand corroboration.”
And as we all know, unless a white Republican man personally witnesses abuse and confirms it publicly, then it doesn’t count. That’s what we learned in the Kavanaugh hearings, isn’t it? Wait, no. We learned in the Kavanaugh hearings that when a woman speaks to the Senate for hours and cries and details sexual abuse at the hands of a powerful Republican man, the powerful Republican man still wins.
Anyway. Thom Tillis did his “due diligence,” and couldn’t find anybody who personally confirmed what happened behind closed doors in Pete Hegseth’s second marriage, so it’s all fine. He called the White House and everything! (Is this a good place to note that the president of the United States is an adjudicated rapist who has been accused of sexual assault and/or harassment by we lost count how many women?)
Tillis said that he did extensive research including long conversations with Hegseth and his vote “makes it clear where the facts ultimately led,” and that he looks forward to working with the new defense secretary.
The facts ultimately led to bitches be lyin’, like they always do with Republican conservative men. (That is also basically what Pete Hegseth said in a two-page response to Danielle Hegseth’s affidavit.)
The Wall Street Journal notes that after the vote happened, but before the tally was announced, Tillis was seen having a big important conversation with Collins and Murkowski. “Collins sat with her arms crossed, listening. Murkowski spoke to Tillis, gesturing emphatically with her hands.” When JD Vance announced the results, those three did not clap for Hegseth. So maybe personally in his heart Thom Tillis is not happy about what happened. Maybe he shouldn’t have been such a fucking coward?
Did McConnell mess him up by voting no? Was there some kind of deal where he was willing to vote against, as long as Hegseth was still confirmed with JD Vance’s vote? That way, Senate Republicans could effectively say, “Tut tut! We aren’t thrilled with the idea of the military being run by a thrice-married loser trailing sexual and other kinds of abuse allegations in his wake, who everybody says is a total fucking alcoholic! But we must give Dear Leader what he wants!” Was that it?
We are just asking.
Danielle Hegseth responded to the vote:
Danielle Hegseth said she was promised a week earlier that her statement, on the record, would corroborate other accusations and make a difference in key votes. She didn’t say who promised her this. “But in the end, it did not,” she said. “What happened today will make women who have experienced abuse and mistreatment even less forthcoming.”
Whether they’re victims of people Donald Trump has nominated to run federal agencies or sit on the Supreme Court … or women who serve in the military.
But it’s fine, Republican Senator Joni Ernst swears Pete Hegseth will help her tackle the military’s rampant sexual abuse problem, you betcha, take that to the bank! (In related news, Ernst refused to meet with the woman who accused Hegseth of rape, per the New Yorker. Ernst’s office says that’s a lie, but who you gonna believe, a Republican senator or the New Yorker’s multiple sources?)
Oh hey, did y’all hear about Pete Hegseth’s first day at work? He said how excited he was to turn the military against the American people by using it to help Donald Trump with his Nazi immigration enforcement plans.
Can’t wait to hear about Day Two!
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