Malevolence Compounded by Incompetence

 Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start. Its incompetence extends to current officials and nominees.

Trump’s pick for U.S. ambassador to Singapore was told to “shape up and do some homework” as he struggled to answer questions about the country.

Read the full story here: https://t.co/ny8TosCYlW pic.twitter.com/tM1uN2UVKT

— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) July 10, 2025

Someone tell Education Secretary Linda McMahon it's AI, not A1.... @Lesdoggg pic.twitter.com/tpVINadjwO

— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) July 7, 2025

Yes, Hegseth should resign. Glad Sen. Tillis and Rep. Bacon are there now, but it should have happened in April. (Or, more accurately, he should never have been confirmed).https://t.co/2m8XtpHue6

— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) July 10, 2025

Incompetence and Disorder

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start.

The Trump administration's incompetence extends across the river into the Pentagon.

  Matthias Gafni at SF Chronicle:

President Donald Trump’s rush to deploy California National Guard troops to Los Angeles has left dozens of soldiers without adequate sleeping arrangements, forced to pack together in one or more federal buildings, resting on the floors of what appear to be basements or loading docks, the Chronicle has learned.

The state troops federalized by the Trump administration over the weekend to confront immigration protesters, without the approval of Gov. Gavin Newsom, were “wildly underprepared,” said a person directly involved with the deployment, who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak on the issue.

The troops — whose makeshift quarters are shown in photographs exclusively obtained by the Chronicle — arrived without federal funding for food, water, fuel, equipment or lodging, said the source, who was granted confidentiality under Chronicle policies. This person said state officials and the California National Guard were not to blame.

LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell Responds to Possible Deployment of Marines to Los Angeles pic.twitter.com/bYrUSC4m0L

— LAPD PIO (@LAPDPIO) June 9, 2025

Malevolence Compounded by Incomptence: Oveview

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start.

MAGA people (e.g., Hegseth) have replaced the normals (e.g., Mattis) that populated the first Trump administration. Luke Broadwater at NYT:

The defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, shared sensitive military information in not one, but two Signal group chats. The I.R.S. has had three different leaders in the span of a single week. A Salvadoran man living in Maryland was deported because of an “administrative error.” And, in yet another misstep, administration officials kicked off a war of threats with Harvard University by sending a letter to the school prematurely, two people familiar with the matter said.

...

The administration’s tariff policy has whipsawed back and forth so rapidly that businesses planning their futures can barely keep up.

Also this month, the president fired more than a half-dozen national security officials on the advice of the far-right agitator Laura Loomer, who was granted access to the Oval Office and ticked through a list of officials she deemed disloyal.

In general, however, the president has been reluctant to fire those close to him in part because he doesn’t want to be seen as giving a victory to the news media.

...

Also this month, the president fired more than a half-dozen national security officials on the advice of the far-right agitator Laura Loomer, who was granted access to the Oval Office and ticked through a list of officials she deemed disloyal.

In general, however, the president has been reluctant to fire those close to him in part because he doesn’t want to be seen as giving a victory to the news media.

Hot Mess Hegseth

  Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start.

The Trump administration's incompetence extends across the river into the Pentagon.

Greg Jaffe, Eric Schmitt and Maggie Haberman  at NYT:

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared detailed information about forthcoming strikes in Yemen on March 15 in a private Signal group chat that included his wife, brother and personal lawyer, according to four people with knowledge of the chat.

Some of those people said that the information Mr. Hegseth shared on the Signal chat included the flight schedules for the F/A-18 Hornets targeting the Houthis in Yemen — essentially the same attack plans that he shared on a separate Signal chat the same day that mistakenly included the editor of The Atlantic.

Mr. Hegseth’s wife, Jennifer, a former Fox News producer, is not a Defense Department employee, but she has traveled with him overseas and drawn criticism for accompanying her husband to sensitive meetings with foreign leaders.

Mr. Hegseth’s brother Phil and Tim Parlatore, who continues to serve as his personal lawyer, both have jobs in the Pentagon, but it is not clear why either would need to know about upcoming military strikes aimed at the Houthis in Yemen.

John Ullyot, former chief Pentagon spokesman, at POLITICO:

The last month has been a full-blown meltdown at the Pentagon — and it’s becoming a real problem for the administration.

First there was Signalgate, where the secretary shared detailed operational plans, including timelines and specifics, about an impending military strike on the Houthis in Yemen over an unclassified Signal chat group that happened to include a member of the news media.

Once the Signalgate story broke, Hegseth followed horrible crisis-communications advice from his new public affairs team, who somehow convinced him to try to debunk the reporting through a vague, Clinton-esque non-denial denial that “nobody was texting war plans.” This was a violation of PR rule number one — get the bad news out right away.

His nebulous disavowal prompted the reporter, Jeffrey Goldberg, to release Hegseth’s full chat string with the detailed operational plans two days later, turning an already-big story into a multi-week embarrassment for the president’s national security team. Hegseth now faces an inspector general investigation into a possible leak of classified information and violation of records retention protocols.

That was just the beginning of the Month from Hell. The Wall Street Journal and other outlets reported that Hegseth “brought his wife, a former Fox News producer, to two meetings with foreign military counterparts where sensitive information was discussed.”

Next, the Pentagon set up a top-secret briefing by the Joint Chiefs of Staff on China for Elon Musk, who still has extensive business interests in China. After learning about it, the White House canceled that meeting.

Then came the purges. And the news keeps coming. On Sunday night, The New York Times reported that Hegseth shared details about the Yemen strike in another Signal chat that included his wife and brother.

DoD rapid response amplifies Leavitt's claim that the "entire" Pentagon is working against Hegseth. More than 20,000 people work at the Pentagon, including military personnel and veterans who have served for decades. https://t.co/SlmyZL8exS

— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) April 21, 2025

Malevolence Compounded by Incompetence, Pentagon Edition

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start.

The Trump administration's incompetence extends across the river into the Pentagon.

Daniel Lippman and Jack Detsch at Politico:

Joe Kasper, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s chief of staff will leave his role in the coming days for a new position at the agency, according to a senior administration official, amid a week of turmoil for the Pentagon.

Senior adviser Dan Caldwell, Hegseth deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick and Colin Carroll, the chief of staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg, were placed on leave this week in an ongoing leak probe. All three were terminated on Friday, according to three people familiar with the matter, who, like others, were granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue.

The latest incidents add to the Pentagon’s broader upheaval in recent months, including fallout from Hegseth’s release of sensitive information in a Signal chat with other national security leaders and a controversial department visit by Elon Musk.

Caldwell, Carroll, Selnick and Kasper declined to comment. Two of the people said Carroll and Selnick plan to sue for wrongful termination. The Pentagon did not respond to a request of comment.

Joint statement from Colin Carroll, Darin Selnick, and Dan Caldwell:

All three had their employment terminated by the Pentagon on Friday. Prior to that, they were placed on administrative leave.

The three were the target of an investigation into unauthorized leaks.

Colin… pic.twitter.com/6cti6UFtMk

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) April 19, 2025

Pete Hegseth: Security Risk

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start.

Warren P. Strobel,Missy Ryan and Hannah Natanson at WP:

The Yemen attack timeline that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted to a Signal chat group would have been so highly classified, under Pentagon guidelines, that the details should have been restricted to a special, compartmented channel with its own code word and with access tightly limited, according to former Defense Department officials.

Hegseth and other senior Trump administration officials have denied that the data they shared in a Signal group, which included the timing of weapons strikes against Yemen’s Houthis and intelligence information shared by Israel on the whereabouts of a top Houthi operative, was classified.

“These are indeed highly detailed operational plans for war,” said one of the former officials, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity. “Twenty-five years, I have never known them not to be classified. And usually this operational level of detail is further restricted to those with a need-to-know.”

Katherine Long et al. at WSJ:

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who is facing scrutiny over his handling of details of a military strike, brought his wife, a former Fox News producer, to two meetings with foreign military counterparts where sensitive information was discussed, according to multiple people who were present or had knowledge of the discussions.

One of the meetings, a high-level discussion at the Pentagon on March 6 between Hegseth and U.K. Secretary of Defense John Healey, took place at a sensitive moment for the trans-Atlantic alliance, one day after the U.S. said it had cut off military intelligence sharing with Ukraine. The group that met at the Pentagon, which included Adm. Tony Radakin, the head of the U.K.’s armed forces, discussed the U.S. rationale behind that decision, as well as future military collaboration between the two allies, according to people familiar with the meeting.

A secretary can invite anyone to meetings with visiting counterparts, but attendee lists are usually carefully limited to those who need to be there and attendees are typically expected to possess security clearances given the delicate nature of the discussions, according to defense officials and people familiar with the meeting. There is often security near the meeting space to keep away uninvited attendees.

"We Are Currently Clean on OPSEC"

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start.

Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic tells how a Trump official mistakenly put him on a Signal chat about top secret plans to bomb Houthi targets across Yemen.  The chat took place on Signal, a commercial app.  The case reveals astonishing incompetence and recklessness at the highest levels.

Hegseth denied texting war plans.

He lied.

The Atlantic has just published excerpts from chats:

At 11:44 a.m. eastern time, Hegseth posted in the chat, in all caps, “TEAM UPDATE:”

The text beneath this began, “TIME NOW (1144et): Weather is FAVORABLE. Just CONFIRMED w/CENTCOM we are a GO for mission launch.” Centcom, or Central Command, is the military’s combatant command for the Middle East. The Hegseth text continues:
“1215et: F-18s LAUNCH (1st strike package)”
“1345: ‘Trigger Based’ F-18 1st Strike Window Starts (Target Terrorist is @ his Known Location so SHOULD BE ON TIME – also, Strike Drones Launch (MQ-9s)”

Let us pause here for a moment to underscore a point. This Signal message shows that the U.S. secretary of defense texted a group that included a phone number unknown to him—Goldberg’s cellphone—at 11:44 a.m. This was 31 minutes before the first U.S. warplanes launched, and two hours and one minute before the beginning of a period in which a primary target, the Houthi “Target Terrorist,” was expected to be killed by these American aircraft. If this text had been received by someone hostile to American interests—or someone merely indiscreet, and with access to social media—the Houthis would have had time to prepare for what was meant to be a surprise attack on their strongholds. The consequences for American pilots could have been catastrophic.

The Hegseth text then continued:
“1410: More F-18s LAUNCH (2nd strike package)”
“1415: Strike Drones on Target (THIS IS WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP, pending earlier ‘Trigger Based’ targets)”
“1536 F-18 2nd Strike Starts – also, first sea-based Tomahawks launched.”
“MORE TO FOLLOW (per timeline)”
“We are currently clean on OPSEC”—that is, operational security.
“Godspeed to our Warriors.”

Shortly after, Vice President J. D. Vance texted the group, “I will say a prayer for victory.”

At 1:48 p.m., Waltz sent the following text, containing real-time intelligence about conditions at an attack site, apparently in Sanaa: “VP. Building collapsed. Had multiple positive ID. Pete, Kurilla, the IC, amazing job.” Waltz was referring here to Hegseth; General Michael E. Kurilla, the commander of Central Command; and the intelligence community, or IC. The reference to “multiple positive ID” suggests that U.S. intelligence had ascertained the identities of the Houthi target, or targets, using either human or technical assets.

Six minutes later, the vice president, apparently confused by Waltz’s message, wrote, “What?”

At 2 p.m., Waltz responded: “Typing too fast. The first target – their top missile guy – we had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend’s building and it’s now collapsed.”

Vance responded a minute later: “Excellent.” Thirty-five minutes after that, Ratcliffe, the CIA director, wrote, “A good start,” which Waltz followed with a text containing a fist emoji, an American-flag emoji, and a fire emoji. The Houthi-run Yemeni health ministry reported that at least 53 people were killed in the strikes, a number that has not been independently verified.

Later that afternoon, Hegseth posted: “CENTCOM was/is on point.” Notably, he then told the group that attacks would be continuing. “Great job all. More strikes ongoing for hours tonight, and will provide full initial report tomorrow. But on time, on target, and good readouts so far.”

Springtime for Spies

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start.

Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic tells how a Trump official mistakenly put him on a Signal chat about top secret plans to bomb Houthi targets across Yemen.  The chat took place on Signal, a commercial app.  The case reveals astonishing incompetence and recklessness at the highest levels.

Helene Cooper and Eric Schmitt at NYT:

Several Defense Department officials expressed shock that Mr. Hegseth had put American war plans into a commercial chat group. They said that having this type of conversation in a Signal chat group itself could be a violation of the Espionage Act, a law covering the handling of sensitive information.

Revealing operational war plans before planned strikes could also put American troops directly into harm’s way, the officials said. And former F.B.I. officials who worked on leak cases described this as a devastating breach of national security. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive national security matter.

Former national security officials said that if personal cellphones were used in the group chat, the behavior would be even more egregious because of ongoing Chinese hacking efforts.

Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said that the “story represents one of the most egregious failures of operational security and common sense I have ever seen.”

Amy Mackinnon at Politico:

The Trump administration’s rapid slashing of the government workforce creates fertile ground for foreign adversaries to recruit disgruntled staffers who know some of the nation’s most closely guarded secrets, according to former intelligence officials and national security insiders.

Hundreds of intelligence and national security officials who had access to reams of classified information are among the tens of thousands of federal workers who lost their jobs since President Donald Trump returned to the White House.

POLITICO spoke to more than half a dozen people connected to the U.S. intelligence community — former intelligence officials, lawyers who work on national security and experts on insider threats — for this story. All expressed deep concern that the administration’s rapid cuts to the national security workforce will create recruiting openings for other countries.

“What we have done is we have created a ripe set of targets for our adversaries,” said James Lawler, a former CIA operations officer who specialized in recruiting foreign spies for the U.S.

...

Lawler, the former CIA officer who recruited foreign spies, said the administration is creating exactly the kind of vulnerabilities that they sought to exploit.

“I never recruited happy people,” said Lawler, who led the team that dismantled a nuclear smuggling network spearheaded by the Pakistani nuclear physicist A. Q. Khan. “People who were pissed off, people who had axes to grind made it very easy for me to convince them to basically commit espionage.”

Russia's Man in Washington

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start.

Dave Lawler at Axios:

Breaking it down: Trump has made at least five Moscow-friendly moves just in the last two weeks.

1. The White House asked Treasury and State to identify sanctions on Russia that could be loosened as part of the process of improving relations, Reuters reports.Trump didn't deny that Monday, telling reporters: "We want to make deals with everybody."

2. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly ordered U.S. Cyber Command to suspend offensive cyber and information operations against Russia.The suspension is intended to last as long as negotiations to end the Russia-Ukraine war play out, officials told the Washington Post.

3. Trump has called for elections in Ukraine, and he and his allies suggested after the Oval Office spat that Zelensky might need to go.Regime change in Kyiv was one of Putin's original objectives for invading. It remains unlikely he'll be able to install a Kremlin stooge any time soon. Still, Trump's comments denouncing Zelensky — and his moves to freeze him out after the meeting — have weakened the position of a leader the Kremlin has long sought to discredit internationally. Reality check: Ukraine has been under martial law since the invasion began, and its constitution does not allow for elections in such a scenario.

4. The U.S. voted with Russia and 16 other mostly authoritarian countries to oppose a UN resolution last week that condemned Russia's "aggression" in Ukraine.The Biden administration repeatedly used such votes to depict Russia as a pariah state. This time, the U.S. voted with Moscow and against nearly all its Western allies.

5. Suspending weapons shipments — which the Trump administration had already dramatically slowed — is the latest dramatic step.Billions of dollars of equipment committed under Biden were in different stages along the delivery pipeline, Axios' Sareen Habeshian reports.

If Trump and Company Were Russian Assets...

 ...would they be doing anything differently?

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start. Hewgseth weakens our defenses against Russia just as Gabbard repeats Russian talking points.  

Counterintelligence catastrophe: all the DoD’s operations, for every single employee at a granular level, collected at one time, at one email address. It would take billions of dollars and many years for an adversary to get this information, if even possible, through espionage. pic.twitter.com/QoBvAJttlm

— John Jackson (@hissgoescobra) March 2, 2025

Pete Hegseth just reportedly ordered the US military’s Cyber Command to “stand down” from all planning against Russia. Analysts have been ordered not to follow or report on Russian threats.

One inside source said, “Putin is on the inside now.” pic.twitter.com/2vnNoL6FcK

— No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen (@NoLieWithBTC) March 2, 2025

The Washington Post confirms The Guardian's reporting (denied by DHS) that some CISA cyber-threat analysts have been told to "focus on adversaries other than Russia": https://t.co/pWUAFkF1qC

— Eric Geller (@ericgeller) March 2, 2025

"Churches are closing in Ukraine, elections are canceled, and the government fully controls the media" — U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard talking about 'values'.

This is exactly what Russian propaganda shows and the Kremlin are constantly spewing. pic.twitter.com/HVWbyWNP6w

— NOELREPORTS 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 (@NOELreports) March 3, 2025

Trump National Security: Appeasement and Incompetence

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start. 

David E. Sanger and Steven Erlanger at NYT:

The top foreign policy official for the European Union had a blunt assessment on Friday of the Trump administration’s apparent willingness to give Russia’s leader, Vladimir V. Putin, much of what he wants in Ukraine, even before negotiations to end the three-year war begin.

“It’s appeasement,” the official, Kaja Kallas, declared at the Munich Security Conference. “It has never worked.”

Ms. Kallas, a former prime minister of Estonia, was hardly the only European diplomat uttering the word “appeasement,” with all its historical resonance, though she was one of the few willing to do so on the record.

It was an almost-universal description of the Trump administration’s disorganized and often publicly contradictory approach to the questions seizing the continent: What kind of peace deal does President Trump have in mind? And will it be done with Mr. Putin over the heads of both the Ukrainians and the Europeans, whom Mr. Trump apparently expects to bear the burden of Ukraine’s future security?

Adam Wren at Politico:

Policymakers across the continent are still reeling from VP JD Vance’s blistering speech yesterday, during which he chided Europe and told it to open up to the far right, as NYT’s Jim Tankersley, Steven Erlanger and David Sanger report. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz derided Vance’s comments, citing Germany’s history with Nazis, Bloomberg’s Christoph Rauwald and Stephanie Lai report. (“No one is talking about anything else,” a senior Eastern European official told POLITICO’s Robbie Gramer, Paul McLeary, Jack Detsch and Joe Gould).

Vance’s speech could be remembered as one of the most important speeches a sitting vice president ever delivered. Quick: Recall any speech former VP Mike Pence ever made while in office.

tic:

Day-to-day operations at the Pentagon and other agencies are usually run by a deputy secretary. The previous deputy under Lloyd Austin, Kath Hicks, has a Ph.D. from MIT and years of experience in national defense, including at the Pentagon. Trump’s nominee to succeed her is the billionaire Steve Feinberg, who co-founded Cerberus Capital. He has no military or Pentagon experience. (Likewise, Trump’s pick for secretary of the Navy, John Phelan, is a wealthy businessman and art collector who has never served in the military or any government position.)

Below the secretary, several undersecretaries serve as the senior managers of the institution, and the news here is also worrisome. In 2020, Trump tried to nominate Bradley Hansell, a special assistant to Trump in his first term, as the deputy undersecretary for intelligence (in order to replace someone whose loyalty came into question among Trump’s advisers), a nomination that was returned to Trump without action from the Senate. This time, Trump has nominated Hansell (whose background is in venture capital) for the more senior job of undersecretary, despite his lack of qualifications. Trump has also tapped Emil Michael, a tech investor and executive at Uber and Klout, as undersecretary for research and engineering. Michael is a lawyer; his predecessor in the research and engineering post in the Biden administration, Heidi Shyu, was an actual engineer, with long experience in defense production and acquisition issues.

...

After Hegseth, Trump’s most disturbing DOD nomination—at least so far—is Anthony Tata, the retired one-star general whom Trump has put forward as undersecretary for personnel and readiness. Tata’s views are extreme: He once referred to President Barack Obama as a “terrorist,” claimed that former CIA Director John Brennan was trying to kill Trump, and pushed the conspiracy theory that Bill and Hillary Clinton had murdered several of their political opponents. Trump had to pull Tata’s nomination in 2020 as undersecretary for policy (the position Colby is now slated to get) just 90 minutes before his Senate hearing, after being told that the votes to confirm him were not there. The president is now going to send Tata back and humiliate the Republicans into voting for yet another unacceptable nominee.

Trump and the Bureaucracy

Our next book is titled The Comeback: the 2024 Elections and American Politics.

With Vance casting the tiebreaker, the Senate confirmed Hegseth as SECDEF.  McConnell voted no.

“Stewardship of the United States Armed Forces, and of the complex bureaucracy that exists to support them, is a massive and solemn responsibility. At the gravest moments, under the weight of this public trust, even the most capable and well-qualified leaders to set foot in the Pentagon have done so with great humility – from George Marshall harnessing American enterprise and Atlantic allies for the Cold War, to Caspar Weinberger orchestrating the Reagan build-up, to Bob Gates earning the wartime trust of two Commanders-in-Chief, of both parties.

“Mere desire to be a ‘change agent’ is not enough to fill these shoes. And ‘dust on boots’ fails even to distinguish this nominee from multiple predecessors of the last decade. Nor is it a precondition for success. Secretaries with distinguished combat experience and time in the trenches have failed at the job.

“Effective management of nearly 3 million military and civilian personnel, an annual budget of nearly $1 trillion, and alliances and partnerships around the world is a daily test with staggering consequences for the security of the American people and our global interests.

“Mr. Hegseth has failed, as yet, to demonstrate that he will pass this test. But as he assumes office, the consequences of failure are as high as they have ever been.

David Nakamura,  Lisa Rein and Matt Viser at WP:

The White House late Friday fired the independent inspectors general of at least 12 major federal agencies in a purge that could clear the way for President Donald Trump to install loyalists in the crucial role of identifying fraud, waste and abuse in the government.

The inspectors general were notified by emails from the White House personnel director that they had been terminated immediately, according to people familiar with the actions, who like others in this report spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private messages.

The dismissals appeared to violate federal law, which requires Congress to receive 30 days’ notice of any intent to fire a Senate-confirmed inspector general.

 Lisa FriedmanHiroko Tabuchi and Coral Davenport at NYT:

President Trump is stocking the Environmental Protection Agency with officials who have served as lawyers and lobbyists for the oil and chemical industries, many of whom worked in his first administration to weaken climate and pollution protections.

Lee Zeldin, Mr. Trump’s choice to lead the E.P.A., has little experience with environmental policy. He will be expected to hit the ground running, though, to fulfill Mr. Trump’s fire hose of orders directing the agency to cut regulations.

Mr. Zeldin already has marshaled more than a dozen deputies and senior advisers. The quick appointments are in contrast to Mr. Trump’s first term, when many Republicans hesitated to join the administration and internal squabbling delayed the selection of the deputy administrator as well as the chief air pollution regulator for nearly a year.

The top appointees, who have already moved into their offices, include David Fotouhi, Mr. Zeldin’s second-in-command, a lawyer who recently challenged a ban on asbestos; Alex Dominguez, a former oil lobbyist who will work on automobile emissions; and Aaron Szabo, a lobbyist for both the oil and chemical industries who is expected to be the top air pollution regulator.

The Senate Rejected John Tower for a Lot Less

 Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Our next book is about the 2024 election. The consequences of that election are coming into view. Trump is nominating Fox pundit Pete Hegseth to be secretary of defense.

Jane Mayer at The New Yorker:

A previously undisclosed whistle-blower report on Hegseth’s tenure as the president of Concerned Veterans for America, from 2013 until 2016, describes him as being repeatedly intoxicated while acting in his official capacity—to the point of needing to be carried out of the organization’s events. The detailed seven-page report—which was compiled by multiple former C.V.A. employees and sent to the organization’s senior management in February, 2015—states that, at one point, Hegseth had to be restrained while drunk from joining the dancers on the stage of a Louisiana strip club, where he had brought his team. The report also says that Hegseth, who was married at the time, and other members of his management team sexually pursued the organization’s female staffers, whom they divided into two groups—the “party girls” and the “not party girls.” In addition, the report asserts that, under Hegseth’s leadership, the organization became a hostile workplace that ignored serious accusations of impropriety, including an allegation made by a female employee that another employee on Hegseth’s staff had attempted to sexually assault her at the Louisiana strip club. In a separate letter of complaint, which was sent to the organization in late 2015, a different former employee described Hegseth being at a bar in the early-morning hours of May 29, 2015, while on an official tour through Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, drunkenly chanting “Kill All Muslims! Kill All Muslims!”

In response to questions from this magazine, Tim Parlatore, a lawyer for Hegseth, replied with the following statement, which he said came from “an advisor” to Hegseth: “We’re not going to comment on outlandish claims laundered through The New Yorker by a petty and jealous disgruntled former associate of Mr. Hegseth’s. Get back to us when you try your first attempt at actual journalism.”

Judd Legum:

Hegseth published a column in college that claimed having sex with an unconscious woman is not rape

While he was a student at Princeton in 2002, Hegseth was the publisher of the Princeton Tory, a right-wing student newspaper. In the September 2002 edition of the publication, flagged for Popular Information by Will Davis of Arc Initiatives, Hegseth published a column that claimed having intercourse with an unconscious woman was not rape. The columnist claimed that rape required both the failure to consent and "duress," and women who are passed out cannot experience "duress":

[A] bemusing yet mandatory orientation program, revolved entirely around whether an instance of sexual intercourse constituted “rape.” The actual instance portrayed in the skit was in fact not a clear case of rape – at least not in my home state. (In short, though intercourse was not consented to, there was no duress because the girl drank herself into unconsciousness. Both criteria must be satisfied for rape. Unfortunately, the panelists never cited any legal definition of rape.) Yet the panel – all females in the session I attended – claimed that rape it was.

In an introductory note to students in the September edition, Hegseth wrote that he hoped the Princeton Tory would "help shape the way you view the world."