No sooner had Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth dodged an impeachment inquiry by Congress than he ended up in a fresh kerfuffle. First, Republicans had refused to vote for Representative Thomas Massie’s resolution on Tuesday night, while insufficient numbers of Democrats showed up to support it. Yesterday was Veterans’ Day. To mark it, Hegseth visited the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery together with his wife and several chums. A video released by CNN showed his entourage chatting and laughing until a US Army sentinel reprimanded them, shouting, “All visitors will maintain an atmosphere of respect and silence at all times!”
Hegseth’s blunder offered a fresh reminder that the only thing worse for Democrats than his remaining in office would be if he exited it. Like Donald Trump, his persistent blunders are an effective recruiting tool – not for the armed forces, but for the Democratic party. Hegseth, who fancies himself as presidential timber, is another drag on Republican political fortunes as the party tries to sift through the wreckage of the midterm elections to prepare for 2028’s presidential race. So far, its prospects appear dim.
The wild card, as ever, remains Trump
Two competing camps have emerged. The first believes that the problem isn’t that Trump and his associates over-egged the pudding by allowing ICE immigration agents to run riot and by imposing tariffs on global trade partners. Instead, the belief is that the GOP should double down on MAGA principles, including mass deportations and severing any lingering support for Ukraine. Had Trump only followed them, Curt Mills, the editor of the American Conservative, contends, then the GOP would have fared far better in the recent elections. Mills, who represents a younger cohort on the right, told me that the first two years of the Trump presidency were a “boomer bacchanale.” With Stephen Miller ensconced as Trump’s chief of staff, Republicans can return to the hardline policies they should have pursued from the outset.
The second camp consists of Republicans who believe it’s time to win one for the Gipper. They see Ronald Reagan’s crusading foreign policy, a welcome mat for immigrants and low tax and tariff policies as the model to emulate. They want to finish the job in Iran and up assistance for Ukraine.
Some believe that a fusion can be achieved between the Reagan and Trump acolytes. The alternative is an intra-party feud that could end in disaster.
Maybe so. But the wild card, as ever, remains Trump, who has two more years in office (assuming he doesn’t have a go at a third term). One day Trump accepts the results of the midterm election; the next he insinuates that some hanky-panky may have taken place with the ballot. Another day he makes conciliatory noises about extending citizenship to gardeners or hotel workers who have been paying taxes before backpedaling. Meanwhile, his special envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff are off on yet another mission to Moscow, where they are proffering one concession after another in the hope that Russian president Vladimir Putin will sign a peace deal with Ukraine.
Next week Trump himself will travel to Asia, where he hopes to demonstrate that he remains Mr. Big. But with his buddy Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang in hot water over his various dalliances and ties to China, Trump’s standing has been further eroded. This state of affairs might be what tempts North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un to engage in a splashy meeting with Trump, reckoning that the 80-year-old lame duck president is desperate to achieve, or at least tout, a foreign policy accomplishment. Trump has previously averred that he and Kim “fell in love” with each other. Whether he can rekindle the romance with him, let alone American voters, is dubious in the extreme.
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