Jay Weber Show transcript 1-15-25
So... how you ‘perceived’ the senate confirmation hearing of Pete Hegseth and ‘how it went’ yesterday depends almost entirely on ‘what side of the aisle’ you are on...
But...bottom line...democrats brought up every smear that we expected them to. Hegseth never rose to the bait. He acquitted himself nicely with the answers that he -was allowed to give- to the serious ‘defense related’ questions that we were asked.
As you’d expect: republican senators largely kept to questions designed to display his depth of knowledge and his- and trump’s- overall vision of our military and how it needs to be reformed from the top down...
As the democrats spent virtually all their time trying to impugn his character and belittle the man in just about any way they could.
At the end of three or four hours of this...the democrats were flailing and Hegseth was looking good. Doing well.
He had given the republican senators who he needs to vote for his nomination-no reason-to question whether he should be given the job.
The democrats- as expected- brought up ‘long debunked’ allegations of personal misconduct, sexual misconduct, extra-marital affairs, excessive drinking....
And from the GOP perspective-and from a more neutral perspective-all I believe it did was make his democrat questioners look like nasty game players who-still- only want to attack anything they perceive as ‘Trump’ or ‘MAGA’.
Chuck Schumer apparently advised them to ‘make these confirmation hearings a contrast and indictment of trump policies’....
And so...the democrats are right back to making all of the mistakes they’ve made over the last eight years when it comes to positioning and posturing their own party: they are unserious, nasty people, obsessed with trump...while ignoring the work and the will of the American people.
Again, yesterday, i don’t know that a single democrat questioner ‘really’ asked a serious dept of defense question. Mazie Hirono and Tim Kaine embarrassed themselves by using all their time asking questions about a sexual assault allegation that had been sorted out by a left-wing California police department and resulted on no charges- seven years ago.
The dems asked about allegations of excessive drinking by Hegseth...while...honest to God: Virginia senator Tim Kaine -looked- drunk, and Hawaii senator Hirono slurred her words throughout her time...
Ny senator Kirsten Gillibrand tried to smear Hegseth over his take on ‘women in combat’...and he had a great reply to that: I’m not against women in combat so long as she can meet the same combat standards as the men. Afterall, the rucksack weighs the same, the m-4 weighs the same.If the women are equal to the men’s overall level of combat readiness, great, Hegseth said. He and trump are only interested in raising the combat standards back up to where they ‘should be’ after Biden and Obama’s DEI efforts have negatively affected military readiness.
That’s a great answer-and it was an important one-given that one of the questionable republicans on this panel is senator Joni Ernst of Iowa...who insisted she get clarification on Hegseth’s position on women in combat. She is an army reserve vet, herself.
Hegseth had some pretty great answers-when he was actually asked to address questions related to the job.
He also made a few senators look foolish by simply letting them talk.
Squats with unions clearly thought she’d scored some points by trying to get Hegseth to commit to not working in the world of ‘private defense contractors after his four years as defense secretary. But...she didn’t land the punch that she thought she landed.
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Oh- one other thing about the democrats-how they handled this-and how the MSM is reporting it.
You heard warren suggest that Hegseth won’t meet with her. A few other dem senators made the same claim.
This, too, was cheap dc gamesmanship and theatre. Hegseth’s team...and GOP sherpas...told reporters afterward that they’ve been trying to set up meetings with some of these dem senators for months- but it is the senators who have refused to meet or pick a date.
It was clearly a coordinated effort to be geared toward being able to say, in yesterday’s hearing, you won’t meet with us.’
That’s a falsehood. Republican handlers have been trying to set up those meetings, and Warren and Blumenthal and others have been ducking them.
So- another attempt to create a smear against Hegseth falls flat.
One of the greatest moments of the hearing came when GOP senator Markwayne Mullen who is younger than a lot of these democrat fossils on the panel- finally got his time to speak.
He blasted. Blasted. His democrat colleagues for being the worst sorts of hypocrites...in trying to hold Hegseth to all sorts of standards that they won’t hold themselves to-and didn’t hold Joe Biden’s nominees to.
That was a fantastic ‘dressing down’ by senator Mullin, and the best part was when he -flat out-said that US senators are arriving for floor votes- drunk.
You heard the dc insiders in the room react-suggesting it’s true. I’d love to know more about that-and if we had a ‘real’ DC news media- that would be a big story yet this week: are our elected leaders in congress showing up to floor votes drunk.
Clearly, some of them are, and it sounded like that was well known to the people in the room, didn’t it?
But Hegseth -who’s nomination was initially thought to be on the ropes...and really in trouble in December...and oh...Trump’s going to have to pick someone else...
Really performed well and is very likely on his way to confirmation: which says a lot about Pete Hegseth.
Remember, when this flood of smears initially had his nomination in trouble, Donald Trump simply told him to ‘go out and work for it’. Work to turn it around. And Hegseth has in a dramatic way.
So, good for him.
He portrayed himself as a ‘change agent’ who has high standards and high ideals for himself-and the military that he served in.
At one point, he made a great point about how bloated and ineffective our modern military has become...saying...we won World War Two with seven four-star generals, total. But now there’s all sorts of bloat at the top.
Hegseth certainly said all the right things- to impress that half of the country who voted for trump-and voted to restore American greatness.
And it sounds like the dc democrats and Trump-hating media insiders are getting frustrated that the democrat’s efforts to derail at least a few of trump’s nominees are fading fast.
Tulsi gabbard and RFK junior appear to ‘have the votes’ to be confirmed.
Kash Patel, Sean Duffy, Marco Rubio, Pam Bondi-
None of the others are expected to be controversial.
All of the alarmism over Trump’s ‘controversial picks’ seems to have evaporated over time-and over the long holiday break.
photo credit: Getty Images
audio version of the segment here> Sen Democrats didn't lay a glove on Pete Hegseth