Yesterday, Senator Tammy Duckworth, the Democrat of Illinois who lost both her legs flying battle missions for the United States, heard Defense Secretary Shitty McShitfaced give his excuses for why he WAS NOT EITHER sharing battle plans on Signal — despite how the evidence shows he was doing exactly that, for a battle that was about to happen — and she was pissed. Since he was blabbing a couple hours ahead of the planned strikes, if the thread had been intercepted, it could have given Houthi leaders ample time to fly into action and try to shoot down American planes or otherwise put American troops in danger.
Her statement shows the proper amount of respect to guys like Pete Hegseth, the exact amount of respect he’s earned in his entire life:
Pete Hegseth is a fucking liar, she said. That’s the official statement from a United States senator, one of the most honorable ones we have. Therefore resign in disgrace immediately, you fucking liar nutsack.
The rest of the statement reads, “Hegseth and every other official who was included in this group chat must be subject to an independent investigation. If Republicans won’t join us in holding the Trump Administration accountable, then they are complicit in this dangerous and likely criminal breach of our national security.”
Indeed.
Last night Duckworth joined Rachel Maddow to expound on “Pete Hegseth is a fucking liar.” She said in that statement that she had used her “Army language.”
Before Duckworth joined her, Maddow provided a recap on just what a fuckup Hegseth has been in the short time he’s been serving as the least qualified and biggest laughingstock of a Defense secretary of any country in human history. There was the Potomac plane/helicopter crash, when he not only provided identifying information about those servicemembers who had been killed long before he was supposed to, but also vomited out that it was a “continuity of government” practice mission, which he definitely wasn’t supposed to say out loud at all.
There was Pete overseas setting his own dick on fire and eating it, yapping out of school about how his educated and experienced (LOL) foreign policy assessment was that Ukraine couldn’t hope for NATO membership, and then having to walk it back because in Trump’s America, Donald Trump sucks Putin’s dick first! No skipping in line, Pete Hegseth!
There was that thing just under a week ago — really, not even a week! — where Pete was apparently planning to show China’s bitch Elon Musk America’s secret contingency plans for responding to war with China. And now Signal-Gate.
How many times can we watch this dumbass fail a “Do Your Job In A Straight Line” test before this becomes fully untenable for national security and for the entire American armed forces?
As far as Donald Trump’s reaction to the continued fallout from Signal-Gate goes, it’s still not entirely clear Trump even understands what happened here, or what Signal is, or even these days which one is “camel.”
“Hegseth is doing a great job, he had nothing to do with this,” said Trump yesterday in his trashy, tacky gilded Oval Office. “Hegseth? How do you bring Hegseth into it? He had nothing to do with it. Look, look — it’s all a witch hunt.” Trump’s entire grasp of the scandal, apparently, is that National Security Advisor Mike Waltz added Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg to the secret He-Man Woke Haters No Girls Allowed Except Tulsi Gabbard And Susie Wiles Chat Of Bombing Yemen With Emojis.
In fact, reading the Signal thread — and how Stephen Miller appeared to be the last word on whether the bombing was happening — it was entirely unclear whether Trump had any grasp or awareness at all of what was about to go down.
Trump may be utterly confused about the technology aspect of all this. (Really, hearing him talk about Signal yesterday was something else. He thinks maybe the entire app is “defective.” You betcha.)
But reporting is starting to come out that Trump is furious about this scandal and how it’s making him look bad.
The Atlantic is reporting that, while on the outside Trump is going with his usual playbook of attacking the messenger — and his sack-lickers like Hegseth are following Daddy’s lead like good little boys — he’s been “privately upset with the sloppiness of his advisers” and the bad headlines this has been making for him. (He angrily said yesterday that the press is only focused on this because he’s had “two perfect months” in office. Rachel Maddow had some fun doing a recap of that last night too.)
Meanwhile, Trump allies in and out of the White House are reportedly furious with Mike Waltz’s bumblefucking efforts to cover his ass here, with one source specifically calling out Waltz’s denials of knowing Goldberg, or trying to pretend the dog ate his homework and then put porn-popups on his phone, which somehow also put Jeff Goldberg’s phone number into his Signal chats. That source says it’s “bullshit and he risks somebody else calling bullshit on it. Like if anybody has ever seen them talking or if Goldberg has other texts.”
Which brings us to how this story digs at Trump’s perpetual open wound of paranoia, where he’s constantly terrified people are secretly working against him/behind his back. Indeed, why would Mike Waltz have Jeffrey Goldberg’s number on his phone if he wasn’t secretly leaking to enemy journalists? Who else is Mike Waltz talking to? Is Mike Waltz actually Hillary Clinton in drag? Is Mike Waltz a plant from the Obama deep state, there to secretly install Obama “wire tapps”?
Trump was mad — and suspicious — that Waltz had Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg’s number saved in his phone in the first place, according to three people familiar with the situation, who were granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. A fourth person said the president was also particularly perturbed by the embarrassing nature of the episode.
From the rest of that article, it sounds like trust for Mike Waltz among Trumpers in the White House is at an all-time low, and it’s making people nervous that if he gets pushed out, the facade of everything being seamless and drama-free Trump 2.0 might all come crashing down and this will be Trump 1.0 all over again. Said one source:
“The president trusts his team a lot more than he did during his first term. But he is still someone who doesn’t easily forget about mistakes, so just because he’s not getting rid of Waltz or one of the others today, doesn’t mean a day won’t come when a person will sort of run out of rope,” a person close to the White House said. “If he starts to question someone’s judgment or instincts — or even worse, their loyalty — then it can become a situation where it’s only a matter of time.”
Ooh! Ooh! We bet he’s a WHOLE ASS TRAITOR who secretly loves talking to reporters, and we bet there’s a whole bunch more people in the White House who are just the same! Wait, who said that? It’s just something we suspect!
In related news, Der Spiegel found a whole bunch of phone numbers, email addresses, and even passwords for top Trump security people on the internet, and Wired found that Mike Waltz had his Venmo friends list public and OMG, HOW DID ALL THESE REPORTERS GET ON MIKE WALTZ’S VENMO FRIENDS LIST?
Trump is right to be paranoid.
[Politico]
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