Pete Hegseth's mother haunts his confirmation hearing

Senate Democrats gave the Defense Secretary nominee a proper grilling today about his abuse of women and whether he'd shoot protesters in the legs; Republicans asked him how many pushups he can do.

It’s been over a month since we had the pleasure of reading this email to Pete Hegseth from his mother, after Donald Trump nominated him to be Secretary of Defense:

“On behalf of all the women (and I know it’s many) you have abused in some way, I say … get some help and take an honest look at yourself,” Penelope Hegseth wrote. “…I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around and uses women for his own power and ego. You are that man (and have been for years) and as your mother, it pains me and embarrasses me to say that, but it is the sad, sad truth.”

We also learned that he regularly showed up hammered to work at Fox News, recently threw back three gin and tonics at breakfast, took his colleagues to a strip club, paid a woman hush money after she accused him of rape, and allegedly screamed “kill all Muslims” while drunk at a bar in Ohio. This behavior all came up at Senate confirmation hearing today, where Democrats actually showed up ready for a fight, and one heckler had to be dragged out of the room after yelling “YOU ARE A MISOGYNIST” at the beginning of the proceedings. I’m going to run through the highlights and lowlights below, but let’s start with my favorite moment from the entire hearing: After Hegseth kept responding to Sen. Tim Kaine’s (D-Va.) list of his alleged transgressions by claiming that they were all “anonymous false charges,” Kaine invoked his mom’s email.

“They’re not anonymous,” Kaine said. “We have seen records with names attached to all of these, including the name of your own mother.”

Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) also had a particularly strong showing today. After holding Hegseth’s feet to the fire about the drinking and sexual assault, she interrogated Hegseth about whether he’d carry out orders from President Trump to use military force to invade Greenland or to shoot American civilian protesters in the legs, as Trump already suggested doing. He dodged both questions.

Several women senators grilled Hegseth about his years of comments that women should not serve in combat roles, which he “changed his mind” about after Trump nominated him for a cabinet role. Elizabeth Warren brought receipts. "Just 32 days after your last public comment saying that women absolutely should not be in combat, you declared that, quote, 'Some of our greatest warriors are women,' and you support having them serve in combat," Warren said. "Now that is a very, very big about face in a very, very short period of time. So, help me understand, Mr. Hegseth, what extraordinary event happened in that 32-day period that made you change the core values you had expressed for the preceding 12 years?"

“I've heard of deathbed conversions,” she added, “but this is the first time I've heard of a nomination conversion.”

In response, Hegseth repeated a lie about his problem with the military using “quotas” for women, which Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) had already called out earlier in the hearing as being completely invented by him.

Hegseth was also exposed for having zero knowledge of the actual job that he’s been nominated for, or U.S. foreign policy in general. When Hirono asked him to simply name a country in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), he named Japan, South Korea, and Australia, none of which are in ASEAN. “I suggest you do a little homework,” she replied.

Meanwhile over on the Republican side, senators spent their time apologizing to Hegseth for the Democrats’ unfair treatment of him, openly relating to his drinking and misogyny problems, asking him how many push-ups he can do and to name one single thing he loves about his wife, and complaining about DEI (Diversity Equity and Inclusion) hires in the military with a misspelled poster and not a hint of irony.

Here’s Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) basically admitting the whole Senate is full of assholes who show up hammered to work. “How many senators have shown up drunk to vote at night?”

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) basically admitted to being drunk and rapey as well. "Regarding his personal conduct, Mr Hegseth has admitted to falling short, as we all do from time to time," Wicker said.

Now, it would be one thing if Hegseth were the most qualified man in the country to run the DoD—the largest department in the government, with 3.4 million employees and a budget of $850 billion—and whiny Democrats were trying to ruin his chances by bringing up anonymous smears about his personal life that don’t really matter. But that is far from the case. As Jonathan Last pointed out in The Bulwark today, Hegseth is a “historically, hilariously, unfit nominee for secretary of defense” who was nominated because of his personal failings, not in spite of them. The entire cabinet is a backlash to the Me Too movement and to social progress in general. And when Democrats harp on the rape allegation against Hegseth, they’re only “giving Fox News the woke-mob martyrdom its audience craves,” as Rebecca Traister put it.

For all of Republicans’ ranting about “DEI” and supposedly unqualified people being hired based on their skin color or gender identity, this is really a much better example of it than any they’ve ever given: Hegseth, who’s only ever failed upward, being granted massive power over the free world because Trump liked watching that squared-jawed white man on TV. And while a few Republican senators expressed some concern when Hegseth was first nominated—and after he promised to stop drinking if we give him the Department of Defense—when it comes down to the actual Senate vote, I am still betting on him squeaking through.