By Nia-Malika Henderson / Bloomberg Opinion
Consider this: As he prepared to take office in 2017, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense was Jim Mattis, a four-star general who mandated that Marines who were deployed to Iraq undergo cultural sensitivity training. In 2024, Trump’s nominee for the same post is Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News weekend anchor and Army National Guard officer who has said that women should not be in combat roles.
The vast difference in these picks shows how much the GOP has shifted under Trump, who has bent the party’s establishment and institutionalist wing to his will.
This week, Hegseth will have his Senate confirmation hearing, along with a raft of other Trump nominees. Among them are South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem for Homeland Security, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum for Interior, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio for the State Department and Pam Bondi as attorney general. Others, like Kash Patel, Trump’s nominee to run the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence director and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Health and Human Services have yet to be scheduled because of lingering concerns about background checks, among other questions.
To be sure, some of Trump’s picks are qualified for the roles to which they have been appointed. Those nominees — Rubio and Burgum — will likely get bipartisan support, just as his previous nominees did. (Mattis was confirmed 98-1).
Yet, there are others who aren’t qualified. Their selection speaks to Trump’s disdain for expertise and the country’s institutions and penchant for revenge. The arguments that Republican senators are making on their behalf don’t center on their credentials or their skills. The arguments amount to: Trump won so he gets his picks. Hegseth, Gabbard, Patel and Kennedy fall into this latter category, posing risks, domestic and global, that Democrats should underscore in their public questioning and vetting. These nominees owe much of their standing to Trump and will likely see their roles as doing his bidding.
It’s clear that for Trump, fealty is the most important qualification and often that amounts to a stated belief in Trump’s big lies. So called “loyalty questions” about who won the 2020 election and the events of Jan. 6, 2021, have been part of the interview process for applicants across several agencies. And Trump’s recent phone call with Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito reportedly centered on whether a potential employee would be loyal to Trump, given his previous work for former Attorney General William Barr, someone Trump now views as a traitor.
While Democrats are not in a position to block any of these nominees, the minority party can make it as difficult as possible for Republicans to cast their votes for Trump’s most troublesome choices with tough, strategic questions and viral moments. In doing so, they can also put down a marker for what the party stands for as it seeks to rebrand. The committee hearings for the nominees will include questions from some of Democrats’ best communicators, people like Sens. Elizabeth Warren (Massachusetts), Mazie Hirono (Hawaii), Adam Schiff (California) and Tammy Duckworth (Illinois).
With Hegseth, Republicans have essentially said that the allegations of sexual assault and public drunkenness are simply hearsay and not enough to sink his nomination; particularly because he has denied the sexual assault accusation and promised not to drink while leading the Department of Defense. He has also seems to have reversed his position on women in combat after meeting with Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, a Republican who was initially expected to oppose his nomination.
She, too, has changed her tune.
“As I support Pete through this process, I look forward to a fair hearing based on truth, not anonymous sources,” said Ernst in a December statement backing the nominee. The combat veteran and sexual assault survivor faced immense pressure to back Hegseth from Trump supporters in Iowa, on social media and the conservative echo chamber; activist Charlie Kirk warned that her political career was “in serious jeopardy” if she defied Trump over the nominee.
Ernst’s seeming reversal leaves Duckworth, herself a combat veteran and double amputee, to press Hegseth on these matters.
“The manager of the average Applebee’s has probably managed more people than Pete Hegseth,” Duckworth said on a call with reporters last week. Democrats on the committee have rightfully complained that they haven’t had access to FBI background checks of several nominees, hampering their ability to fully prepare for the hearings.
But what’s already in the public record is damning enough.
Trump has made it clear that these are his picks, that he wants them confirmed quickly, and that he wants Republicans to fall in line with little dissent. The GOP bucked Trump over Matt Gaetz, the president-elect’s first choice for attorney general, but seems to have little will for further rebellion, given the threat of a primary challenge and the possibility of more menacing threats from Trump’s MAGA base. It could be that Gaetz — a backbencher congressman facing serious allegations about paying at least one underaged girl for sex, a charge he denies — will be the only failed choice. It will be up to Democrats to raise the serious issue of sexual assault in the military and the chilling effect Hegseth’s confirmation could have on a force of nearly 3 million people.
Republicans can only afford to lose three votes if Democrats unilaterally oppose a nominee, so they actually have some cushion, albeit a small one. In all likelihood, Trump will get his way, with Republicans wary of crossing him and his base. But Democrats and a few lone Republicans can make the fight an ugly one; and make the GOP and Trump own these unqualified nominees and whatever destruction follows in their wake.
Nia-Malika Henderson is a politics and policy columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. A former senior political reporter for CNN and the Washington Post, she has covered politics and campaigns for almost two decades. ©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
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