Presidents have always sent people to lead the Pentagon who respect the institutions and personnel of the armed forces, not least because Americans tend to bristle at any sign that an administration does not unreservedly support the men and women of the U.S. military. (Just ask Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, both of whom were castigated for such supposed disrespect.) In his first term, Donald Trump sent General James Mattis, a veteran of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and then, when Mattis quit, he appointed a long-serving defense professional, Mark Esper.

But this time, the president found a perfect instrument of destruction to send across the Potomac: Pete Hegseth, a Trump sycophant who served in the military, topped out at the mid-level rank of major, and left full of bitterness and resentment toward a military establishment that clearly didn’t value his brilliance and fortitude.

The halls of the Pentagon are apparently strewn with rakes these days, and Hegseth has managed to step on almost all of them, including security blunders, needless fights with the press, and envious, unmanly whining about the medals on the uniform of Senator Mark Kelly, a veteran of higher rank and far greater achievement than Hegseth himself. Like Trump, Hegseth thinks his job is to get even with people he views as enemies: When Hegseth pulled more than 800 senior officers into an auditorium to give them a long and pointless harangue, it was not only disrespectful; it was cringe-inducing, like watching the angriest kid in your high school come back 20 years later as the principal and unload his adolescent gripes on all the teachers in the staff lounge.

[Read: Holy warrior]

Now, however, Hegseth is in new and far more dangerous territory. The Washington Post reported last Friday that, back in September, Hegseth ordered the killing of the survivors of the first strike against what the administration says are terrorist-controlled drug boats. If this report is accurate, it means that Hegseth issued what is called a “no quarter” order, a crime in both American and international law.

So far, the president and the secretary have not disputed the facts, instead fumbling about with classic Beltway-style “non-denial denials.” Today, the White House admitted that the second strike did in fact take place, but on the orders of the Special Operations Command chief, Admiral Frank Bradley, which seems to be setting Bradley up as a scapegoat. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said today that “Hegseth authorized Admiral Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes,” adding that Bradley “worked well within his authority and the law directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated.”

This seems implausible. Bradley is an experienced officer who by virtue of his rank and position would be intimately familiar with the laws of armed conflict. He would have to know that such an order is likely a war crime, and any senior officer would want civilian leadership to sign off on an order with such potentially immense consequences, especially on the first such operation. (If the admiral actually did give the order on his own, that’s little comfort; it would mean Hegseth’s Defense Department is even more dysfunctional and out of control than anyone might have guessed.)

If either Hegseth or Bradley gave such an order—or if Hegseth issued the order and Bradley carried it out—both could be guilty of murder and war crimes. The United States, after World War II, prosecuted German and Japanese officers for similar offenses. (Yesterday, in fact, was the 80th anniversary of the execution by firing squad of Heinz-Wilhelm Eck, a Nazi U-Boat commander who sank a civilian steamer and then killed the survivors.) Such a possibility is horrendous enough, but Hegseth has since responded to these grave accusations with the crass juvenility characteristic of the toddlers who run this administration.

Yesterday, the secretary of defense of the United States of America posted a meme on X depicting Franklin, the cartoon turtle who is a beloved children’s-book character, as a Special Forces operator killing people on boats. He added a comment: “For your Christmas wish list…” Just to make the point, the secretary tagged the X account of SOUTHCOM, the Southern Forces Command, which has had to carry out the strikes, as if blowing up boats and killing the survivors was a joke to be shared with a chuckle and a backslap.

Perhaps Hegseth thinks that sinking boats on the high seas is funny. Maybe he just wanted to own the libs and all that. Or maybe he thought he could disrupt the gathering war-crimes narrative, like the school delinquent pulling a fire alarm during an exam. Or maybe he just has poor judgment and even worse impulse control (which would explain a lot of things about Pete Hegseth). No matter the reason, his choice to trivialize the use of American military force reveals both the shallowness of the man’s character and the depth of his contempt for the military as an institution.

Posting stupid memes after being accused of murder is not the response of a patriot who must answer to the public about the security of the United States and its people in uniform. It is not the response of a secretary of defense who values the advice of the officers who report to him. It is not the response of a human being who comprehends the risks—and the costs—of ordering other people to kill helpless men clinging to the wreck of a boat.

It is, instead, the response of a sneering, spoiled punk who has been caught doing wrong and is now daring the local fuzz to take him in and risk the anger of his rich dad—a role fulfilled by Donald Trump, in this case.

Institutions, for a time, can cope with buffoonish leaders. While the secretary has been festooning the Pentagon with new Department of War signs, adults in the building have tried to conduct some of the nation’s geopolitical business. Secretary of the Army Daniel Driscoll, for example, is likely the Defense Department point man for Ukraine because Hegseth has made a fool of himself too many times to be taken seriously by American opponents. (The Russians would have to suppress the smirks on their faces if Hegseth were sent to Moscow or Geneva for anything more than a grip-and-grin photo opportunity.)

But Hegseth is still the secretary of defense. He can be kept out of important meetings and excluded from rooms where policies are being debated, but his authority to order the military into action means he can still risk American lives and get people killed. In a remarkable paradox, Hegseth’s formal power and personal incompetence—to say nothing of his apparently nonexistent moral compass—mean he remains dangerous even if he is otherwise insignificant.

[Read: 20 U.S. boat strikes in three months]

Enough of this. Trump is president and has the right to stay in office for his term, even if he thinks fallen warriors are “losers” and “suckers” who have no purpose beyond serving his needs as props and pawns. He again showed how little he regards military lives this weekend when he was asked if he would attend the funeral of Sarah Beckstrom, the young West Virginia National Guardsman killed in Washington, D.C., last week. He said he would think about it, and then immediately made her death about him by adding that he won big in West Virginia in the last election, as if that were relevant to whether he owed her his presence at her funeral.

Pete Hegseth, however, was elected by no one. He is an unprofessional—and sometimes unstable—appointee who does not seem to comprehend the seriousness of the office he occupies, does not respect the senior officers who serve this country, and does not seem to care at all about the people of the U.S. military, except that he’s worried that too many of them are fat—or women. Hegseth is unqualified and incompetent, and he should have been fired months ago.

The secretary is unlikely to resign, but Trump has a record of throwing people under the bus when they are no longer of use to him, and Republicans should increase the pressure on him to fire the most unqualified secretary of defense in U.S. history. Let them and all Americans say to Hegseth what the British politician Leo Amery said to Neville Chamberlain as Europe began to crumble under the Nazi offensive in 1940: “Depart, I say, and let us have done with you.” Channeling Oliver Cromwell from centuries earlier, Amery added: “In the name of God, go.”

In the name of God, Pete Hegseth, go.

She's not a big fan of electric cars and solar energy, but she does like coal: Diana Furchtgott-Roth wrote the blueprint for Trump's energy policy in "Project 2025." DER SPIEGEL wanted to know more about how the Heritage Foundation strategist thinks.

Zohran Mamdani appears to have charmed Donald Trump.

The president was nearly unrecognizable beside the mayor-elect of New York City, who traveled to the White House Friday for their first meeting.

After privately discussing the Big Apple’s affordability crisis, the duo answered questions from behind the Resolute Desk with a remarkably buddy-buddy attitude.

“I think you’re going to have hopefully a really great mayor. The better he does, the happier I am, I will say,” Trump told reporters.

The democratic socialist apparently excelled at speaking the president’s language in their tête-à-tête. Trump noted that he was surprised to hear that Mamdani does not want high crime rates in New York and wants to build affordable housing—two areas that the real estate mogul has focused on for years.

“I have very little doubt that we’re not going to get along on that issue,” Trump said.

One in 10 Trump supporters voted for Mamdani during the New York City mayoral election earlier this month—and Trump could have been one of them, based on the incredibly warm atmosphere in the room. Trump noted that he believed Mamdani could “surprise” conservatives.

“I expect to be helping him, not hurting him,” Trump continued. “We agree on a lot more than I would have thought.”

It was a near-miraculous change in opinion for a man who spent months trying to tear down Mamdani’s campaign. Trump has openly browbeaten the 34-year-old since he won New York City’s Democratic primary in a shocking upset in June. The president has accused the local lawmaker of being a “Communist” and living in the country “illegally” and has even threatened his arrest. Trump also pledged to send the National Guard to New York City if Mamdani enters Gracie Mansion—though it’s not so clear if Trump feels the same way now.

When asked by a reporter if he would feel safe living in New York City when Mamdani’s term begins, Trump said he would.

Reporter: Would you feel comfortable living in New York City under a Mamdani administration?

Pres. Trump: Yeah, I would. pic.twitter.com/jVkWzRSUtZ

— Acyn (@Acyn) November 21, 2025

No component of the pair’s brutal history seemed immune to Mamdani’s pervasive charm as the two politicians laughed and smiled at each other in the White House Friday. At one point, when a reporter asked Mamdani if he stood by calling Trump a “fascist,” Trump patted the Democratic New Yorker’s arm.

“That’s OK, you can just say yes. It’s easier. I don’t mind,” Trump said. At another point, Trump laughed off Mamdani’s accusation that he was a “despot,” telling reporters that he had “been called much worse.”

What buttered him up, Trump said, was the fact that Mamdani was “different than your average candidate.”

“I think you really have a chance to make it,” Trump said, giving Mamdani’s hand a firm shake.

Mamdani, however, was less effusive, keeping his answers strikingly diplomatic.

“Does New York City love Donald Trump?” asked one reporter.

“New York City loves a future that is affordable,” Mamdani said, underscoring that more New Yorkers voted for the president during the 2024 election due to the cost of living crisis.

When the shutdown ended, Arizona Democratic Representative Adelita Grijalva was finally sworn in 50 days after she was elected. She promptly signed the discharge petition to release the full Epstein files, getting it past 218 signatures and forcing a vote in the House. Democrats were jubilant in the expectation that this would finally expose Trump and bring us to a point where Republicans are perhaps forced to remove him from office—or at least forced to reckon with his moral deficiencies.

The problem is, even assuming the best case for Democrats (and the worst for Trump), and even though every House Republican but one hopped on the “release the files” bandwagon, neither of these things are likely to ever happen. Let me walk you through how things will proceed.

First, let’s assume—purely hypothetically and for the sake of argument—that compromising pictures exist of Trump exist with an underage girl. Trump will do everything in his power to make sure these never see the light of day. He will first refuse to release them, and he’ll go to court to do it, which will drag out for months or even years. He will also have his minions work to destroy all proof that the evidence ever existed.

If forced, he will release redacted files. If Democrats realize the pictures are doctored or have been removed from the filings, they’ll have to go back to the courts again to get the unredacted version. Trump will (again) drag this out for months if not years. We can see the seeds of it already, in the fact that they are reopening federal investigations to plausibly deny the release on information related to an ongoing probe.

The Supreme Court’s deference to the executive office and law enforcement makes it likely that Trump will get a favorable ruling at some point that prevents the release of the photos. Even if he loses in the courts his team can always refuse to comply, as they’ve already done in so many cases, dragging it out further.

Given all this, it’s very unlikely that the House will ever receive anything incriminating Trump.

But even if it does, what happens then?

“They’re AI fake images.” “Fake news.” “They were planted by the Biden administration to slander me.” “Total witch hunt.” “No President has been treated more unfairly than me.” “Bondi will be opening investigations into the people slandering me…” We’ve heard this song and dance before, and this time will be no different. 

The social media that MAGA hangs out on (X, Truth Social, Parler, Facebook, TikTok, etc...) will steer people to content that either avoids the photos or supports the claims they are a hoax. AI chatbots like Grok will quickly be tuned and trained to repeat and support these lies, as Grok already does with Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen. With this propaganda flooding their feeds, the MAGA base will never believe the evidence. They’ll angrily call Republican politicians, demanding that they stand up for the president against the fake Biden evidence.

But suppose that Democrats win the House in 2026 and in the face of all this work up the gumption to send articles of impeachment to the Senate. With that sort of pressure from Trump and his base, I can’t imagine getting to 67 votes in the Senate. If it looked to be getting close, Trump would pull out all the stops, including using DOJ and ICE to intimidate wavering Republicans. And if that failed, he could always invoke the Insurrection Act, declare martial law in the Capitol, and make sure the vote didn’t happen.

When you look at the chain of events required for the documents to be released without edits, scrubs, or redaction, and for them to avoid being destroyed before Trump’s time in office expires, it’s almost impossible for them to be released before the 2028 election, much less before next year’s mid-terms. Factor in the tools that Trump has available to combat incriminating evidence that’s come to light, and several miracles or deus ex machina events will have to take place before Trump pays any sort of price.

All it would take is for the Supreme Court to agree that yes, the executive branch can redact whatever it wants if it is related to an ongoing investigation of any sort. Or executive privilege. Or national security. Given how this court has deferred to the executive branch, Trump’s lawyers will throw spaghetti at the wall until something sticks. Then it is game over. 

You would think people opposed to Trump would have figured this out by now. Every time they start getting “happy on the farm” about Trump finally facing consequences of his actions, he inevitably escapes them.

He survived the Stormy Daniels payoffs and Mueller investigation. He escaped punishment for stealing top-secret documents and showing them to casual friends. He escaped child rape allegations before the 2016 election (this was the woman who alleged that Trump raped her when she was 13; she was going to go public just before the 2016 election but canceled because she had received threats). He was convicted in civil court of sexual assault, but he has yet to pay a dime of the $88 million he owes. He was convicted of 34 felonies in criminal court but avoided all punishment. He survived the January 6 insurrection and the criminal investigation for meddling in the 2020 Georgia election, where he was literally caught on tape demanding the governor “find” votes for him. The man has spent his life learning to use his power and money to escape consequences for criminal acts; it’s perhaps his greatest talent.

So, when I look ahead at what it would take to remove him from office (or even get incriminating evidence to the House), the path is very narrow, and many barriers would have to be overcome. I believe he will not face consequences of any sort, regardless of what is (or was, if he’s already had evidence destroyed or covered up) in the files.

Betting that the president of the United States doesn’t find a way out of this, when he’s consolidated all the power of the federal government in the executive branch and controls the GOP with an iron fist, is like watching the Harlem Globetrotters whomp the Washington Generals for 10 years and betting all your money against them because, “I thought the Generals were due.”

This proposal would be even worse than the no deal on extending ACA subsidies bill being floated earlier:

Democrats and Republicans have been locked for more than a month in a standoff over healthcare coverage, with Democrats repeatedly blocking a GOP bill to reopen the government. Without an extension of enhanced Affordable Care Act credits, which run roughly $30 billion a year, more than 20 million Americans are set to see increases in their insurance premiums. Open enrollment for next year started this month.

A key development that appeared to break the logjam in the negotiations was that Senate Republicans proposed that some healthcare funding be provided directly to households rather than be used to pay for a one-year extension of enhanced ACA subsidies.

That GOP proposal involves sending federal money into flexible-spending accounts instead of to insurance companies that use the money to offset the cost of premiums, so consumers pay a smaller monthly bill. The money could be used to cover deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs, which Republicans see as a way to give consumers more choice and control healthcare inflation.

This is an incredibly obvious scam. First of all, money spent from HSAs goes to “private insurance companies” just as surely as the ACA’s tax credits do, just less efficiently and equitably. It will allow Trump to put his name on money being sent to individuals, allowing him to take credit for a Democratic program while making it worse. And this is needless to say an unsubtle move toward trying to kill the ACA and replace it with something like the actual Heritage Plan rather than the imaginary one. The idea that “giving people control” over healthcare expenses will improve access to healthcare is crazy, but once it’s written into law that this is better than the ACA’s credits the GOP will run with it. And it takes the most potent issue Democrats have largely off the table while still making things materially worse.

This would be worse than nothing. A clean spending resolution would be better than this. Any senator voting for this should face a primary challenge at the earliest available opportunity.

…I definitely think this is driving some of the sudden urgency:

not enough chatter about how frequently members fly and how attacking airport capacity directly affects them in a way that cutting SNAP does not

— Joshua Erlich (@joshuaerlich.bsky.social) Nov 9, 2025 at 3:07 PM

The post I wanna see the sun blotted out from the sky appeared first on Lawyers, Guns & Money.

doeeyedyelena:

THE LONG WALK (2025) + last words