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Trump Second Administration

Pete Hegseth Starts Out Career as SecDef With a ‘Huge F*ck Up,’ Walks it Back But Not Before He Totally Humiliates Himself

This man has no business in the Pentagon.

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I’m not sure what Donald Trump expected out of Pete Hegseth when he picked him to be America’s Secretary of Defense. I mean, I know what he intended to achieve by selecting him. He just wanted “generals” who do his bidding, like a certain former Herr von Jërkenstein who was in charge of Germany (and a few other countries) for a while in the 40s.

But he picked a drunk, womanizing, jingoistic racist who, pardon the expression, doesn’t know sh*t from Shinola™. As a former Fox News talking head, Hegseth definitely doesn’t know anything about foreign policy. Heck, those guys get paid to know the opposite of what’s real.

And as much as having a “yes man” benefits Trump, it doesn’t do him any favors when it comes to looking like HE knows what he’s doing, either. When Pete’s out there, dumbing it up, Trump might as well be standing right next to him nodding like a dufus.

On Wednesday, Pete decided he needed to sound important, as though his opinions or input were necessary or wanted. They’re not, of course, but Pete has to look the part, so he got up in front of the world at a NATO summit in Belgium and told everyone that Donald Trump is the boss of whatever happens between Russia and Ukraine.

If you heard the sound of a record scratch in your head just now, you’re not alone — so did everyone in Brussels.

Hegseth’s address to the Ukraine Defense Contact Group must have sounded pretty arrogant as he declared that not only was Donald Trump going to end the war between the two former Soviet nations personally, but that an outcome that included Ukraine becoming part of NATO was all but off the table:

We want, like you, a sovereign and prosperous Ukraine. But we must start by recognizing that returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective.

Chasing this illusionary goal will only prolong the war and cause more suffering.

A durable peace for Ukraine must include robust security guarantees to ensure that the war will not begin again.

This must not be Minsk 3.0.

That said, the United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement.

First of all, as a totally pedantic writer and editor, I have to say that an “illusionary goal” is hoping that your magic trick works. I’m pretty sure that the word Pete’s speechwriter was looking for was “illusory” — and that’s actually a little worse. Calling something illusory necessarily implies that a person who believes in it is kind of gullible.

Nevertheless, it’s a brash statement: Ukraine wants to be in NATO, the organization wants to have them, and the only nation that opposes Ukraine’s entry into NATO is Russia itself. In fact, that’s why there’s a war. Vladimir Putin believes that not only should Ukraine not be independent enough to be a NATO member nation, but that Ukraine should once again be politically, culturally, and geographically attached to Russia as it was in the pre-Soviet era.

Let me rephrase all that in simpler terms: Pete stood up in front of everyone and said “We’re going to end this war by letting Russia win it.”

No negotiations, no concessions from Putin, nothing. Just pure capitulation to Russia with no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Hegseth was roundly criticized by, um, everyone.

So then on Thursday, Hegseth began the walk-back of shame:

These negotiations are led by Donald Trump. Everything is on the table. In his conversations with Vladimir Putin and Zelensky, what he decides to allow or not allow, is at the purview of the leader of the free world–President Trump. So I’m not going to stand at this podium and declare what President Trump will do or won’t do, what will be in or what will be out, what concessions will be made or what concessions are not made.

He didn’t walk back Trump’s authority or anything. But he was forced to basically admit he had no authority to say one way or the other whether the whole affair ended with Ukraine in NATO or not.

That’s not because Trump doesn’t favor Russia or anything. He does, and he’ll end up doing probably whatever Putin wants. But he can’t have Pete up there making him look weak by SAYING he’s just going to do whatever Putin wants.

People had plenty to say about Pete fumbling to dial it back down:

Your favorite Congressman, Ted Lieu, weighed in:

Tommy Vietor, a former aide to President Obama, took it a step further:

Tommy’s not wrong. This isn’t just a foreign policy blunder. Pete Hegseth has no business on the world stage in the first place. He looked like a big enough idiot already when he declared NATO membership unattainable for Ukraine, but then to have to come BACK out and admit he had no idea what he was talking about?

Well, that makes us ALL look like fools. I mean, just look at this:

Andrew Simpson
meet the author

Andrew is a dark blue speck in deep red Central Washington, writing with the conviction of 18 years at the keyboard and too much politics to even stand. When not furiously stabbing the keys on breaking news stories, he writes poetry, prose, essays, haiku, lectures, stories for grief therapy, wedding ceremonies, detailed instructions on making doughnuts from canned biscuit dough (more sugar than cinnamon — duh), and equations to determine the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow. A girlfriend, a dog, two cats, and two birds round out the equation, and in his spare time, Drewbear likes to imagine what it must be like to have spare time.

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