Trump Considering Most Embarrassing New Choice Possible for Defense

With growing scrutiny mounting against Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump is reportedly looking at replacements for his defense secretary nominee—but the number two pick might be an even more dangerous selection to run the Pentagon.

The president-elect is having casual conversations at Mar-a-Lago about tapping Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for the highly coveted Cabinet position, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

Unlike the majority of Trump’s “anti-qualified” picks to run his government, DeSantis would, at least, have some level of experience for the role. The 46-year-old briefly served as a Navy lawyer in Iraq and was part of a legal team that advised the Guantánamo Bay detention center, where he backed torture methods such as force-feeding.

DeSantis was also one of Trump’s more outspoken primary challengers, sparking a bitter—if lopsided—rivalry that cast the Florida governor as disloyal to the MAGA cause. But the pair’s shared perspective on “woke” politics in the military might be enough to get him in the door.

But DeSantis isn’t the only option being floated. Also on the list of Hegseth replacements is former Pentagon official Elbridge Colby, a friend of Vice President–elect JD Vance, and Iowa Senator Joni Ernst, according to sources that spoke with the Journal.

Conservatives have grown increasingly concerned about Hegseth’s ability to pass the Senate confirmation process in light of sexual assault allegations against the ex–Fox News host. Even Hegseth’s own mother couldn’t defend the white nationalist–connected conservative, accusing her son of “using women for his own power.” (Hegseth’s mother has since changed her tune—on Tuesday, she told Fox News that her son was a “changed man” whom she hoped “our dear female senators” would get to know.)

Senator Mike Lee wrote out a blueprint for dismantling Social Security on X Monday night that Elon Musk amplified, hinting at disturbing GOP plans for the program.

In a thread now pinned to his X profile, the Utah Republican laid out a case for overhauling the program and amending the 1933 Social Security Act itself, claiming that the law allows for the government to steal taxpayer funds for its own purposes rather than safeguard Social Security itself.

Musk, along with Trump crony and business executive Vivek Ramaswamy, has been tasked by Trump to run the figurehead Department of Government Efficiency, where their mission will be to eliminate government waste. It’s no secret that their vision of waste includes Social Security, and they seem to have the backing of Trump and Vice President–elect JD Vance.

Lee is a leading Republican senator and, with Republicans controlling Congress, could be an architect for the GOP’s designs on the program. Lee would have plenty of allies in the House, with one congressman, Richard McCormick, alluding to overhauling the program along with Medicare and Medicaid, in a Tuesday interview. Earlier this year, House Speaker Mike Johnson promised to cut Social Security and increase defense spending, and the right-wing Project 2025 manifesto also includes drastic cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

With control of the Senate, the White House, and a very thin majority in the House, it seems quite clear that Republicans will take aim at the popular government program, despite the fact that most Americans oppose making any cuts to Social Security along with Medicare. Right now, Republicans are building a case for making dangerous changes. The question is whether they will follow through over popular opposition, and whether Democrats will put up a fight.

Hunter Biden’s federal pardon has Eric Adams holding out hope for a way out of his own legal troubles. 

When asked about President Biden’s decision to pardon his son Hunter of tax evasion and possession charges, New York City Mayor Eric Adams responded by reading a sentence from The New York Times: “‘President Biden and President-Elect Trump now agree on one thing: The Biden Justice Department has been politicized,’” Adams intoned. “Does that sound familiar? I rest my case.”

In that same interview Adams went on to strike a particularly conservative tone, even daring an unspecified group of people to “cancel” him.

“Those who are here committing crimes, robbery, shooting at police officers, raping innocent people … I would love to sit down with the border czar and hear his thoughts on how we are going to address those who are harming our citizens,” the mayor said. “This is not a new position. In the era of cancel culture, no one is afraid to be honest about the truth. Well, cancel me.”

Adams seems to be not so subtly angling for a pardon in the near future from President-elect Donald Trump. Adams has been federally indicted on charges of bribery, fraud, and soliciting political donations from the Turkish government in exchange for favors. 

Trump has already shown Adams public sympathy for his indictments, telling him at a charity event in October that they were both “persecuted.” Trump is also very likely to replace the U.S. attorney prosecuting the case against Adams, instead appointing someone who better aligns with his yes-men preference.   

Adams’s pardon pandering is shameless, and who knows? He might have a pretty good chance at getting one. Trump would love to have a loyal MAGA ally in charge of his hometown.

Kash Patel, Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the FBI, has hopes of enacting the president-elect’s revenge plot against anyone he deems to be part of the so-called “deep state”—and that includes a number of Republicans.

Patel’s list, which can be found in his 2023 book, Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for our Democracy, includes a number of prominent Republicans and former Trump appointees.

Those people include Christopher Wray, whom Patel is set to replace before his 10-year term is up. Trump and his Republican sycophants went after Wray after he testified about the failed assassination attempt on Trump, saying he wasn’t sure whether Trump had been struck by an actual bullet.

The list includes Bill Barr, Trump’s former attorney general who publicly endorsed him even though he previously called Trump “nauseating” and “despicable.” Also on the list are Rod Rosenstein, a deputy attorney general; Pat Cipollone, Trump’s White House counsel; and Pat Philbin, a deputy White House counsel.

Ex–communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin appears on the list, as well as Stephanie Grisham, the former chief of staff for Melania Trump who sounded the alarm against Trump ahead of the 2024 presidential election. Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide who turned star witness for the House January 6 investigative committee is mentioned too. Hutchinson publicly described a hostile work environment ruled by Trump’s volatile temperament.

The list also includes John Bolton, an outspoken critic of the president-elect who once said Trump “can’t tell the difference between what’s true and what’s false,” and Mark Esper, Trump’s former secretary of defense, who said that reelecting Trump would put our “nation’s security at risk.”

Patel’s list mentions special counsel Robert Hur, who investigated President Joe Biden for mishandling classified documents but declined to prosecute because there was not enough evidence to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.

The list also included the names of Ryan McCarthy, a secretary of the Army under Trump; Miles Taylor, a Department of Homeland Security official under Trump; Charles Kupperman, a deputy national security adviser for Trump; and Sarah Isgur Flores, who was head of communications for Trump’s first attorney general, Jeff Sessions.

Something that many of these Republicans have in common is that they were distinctly not anything like the “deep state” actors Patel wishes to persecute, but rather a group of people who were once defenders of Trump but failed to execute his wishes after he left office. Patel plots to chase them down for the biggest crime in Trump’s book: disloyalty.

Senator Mitch McConnell is upset that two Democratic judges are reversing their decisions to retire, complaining Monday that “this sort of partisan behavior undermines the integrity of the judiciary.”

After Donald Trump was elected to his second term as president last month, two judges appointed by Democratic presidents changed their minds about retiring. U.S. District Judge Max Cogburn, appointed by President Obama, announced that he would remain active on the court for the Western District of North Carolina after previously saying he would move to part-time status in 2022.

Before Cogburn, U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley, a Clinton appointee, changed his mind about moving to senior status on the court for the Southern District of Ohio. To McConnell, this “exposes bold Democratic blue where there should only be black robes.

“It’s hard to conclude this is anything other than open partisanship,” the former Senate majority leader added, before offering a warning to Democrats: “It would be especially alarming if either of the two circuit judges whose announced retirements created the vacancies currently pending before the Senate—in Tennessee and North Carolina—were to follow suit.”

Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, highlighted McConnell’s hypocrisy in his complaints about partisanship, pointing out that McConnell blocked President Obama’s appointment of Merrick Garland for one year in 2016. The Kentucky senator’s delay tactic allowed Republican Donald Trump to appoint Justice Neil Gorsuch immediately upon taking office.

“When I hear the senator come to the floor, from Kentucky, and talk about whether there is any gamesmanship going on, I don’t know but I can tell. We saw it at the highest possible level in filling the vacancy on the Supreme Court when Antonin Scalia passed away,” Durbin said.

McConnell made it his personal mission to confirm as many conservative federal judges as possible when his party controlled the Senate during Trump’s first term. The appointees generally signed off on whatever Republicans and Trump wanted and were younger and less qualified than previous judicial appointments. They also gave the GOP favorable decisions in restricting voting rights to help Republican candidates.

It was all part of McConnell’s legacy of serving the interests of powerful conservative billionaires. He’s crying foul now because Democrats are using tactics that he pioneered when he was in power. In fact, he probably would have far exceeded them. While McConnell has now ceded leadership of Senate Republicans, and by extension the Senate, to his ally John Thune, it remains to be seen if the next Senate majority leader will pursue Republican goals as brazenly as McConnell.

When it came time to hit the voting booths, Americans sided with Donald Trump on their top three biggest concerns.

A poll published Tuesday by Navigator Research revealed that Trump’s stance on—and his ability to elevate—three key issues drastically swayed American voters at the ballot box. Those issues included inflation and the cost of living, immigration and the border, and jobs and the economy. Navigator Research surveyed 5,000 voters in the 2024 general election, some of whom self-reported as new Trump voters.

Across the survey pool, 43 percent of voters ranked inflation as their top priority, followed by a tie between immigration and the economy for second and third place with 31 percent of the vote. Swing voters and first-time Trump voters were even more concerned by those same issues, with approximately 45 percent of swing voters ranking inflation as their first priority and 55 percent of new Trump voters doing the same.

And Trump’s messaging resonated with those voters, with the president-elect winning by double digits on those issues over Vice President Kamala Harris. On the issue of inflation, voters sided with Trump by a matter of 34 points. He won by 31 points with voters who ranked jobs and the economy as one of their most important issues and by a massive 71 points with voters who prioritized immigration and border policies.

Harris won on the next four issues most significant to voters, though the significance of the issues was obviously relatively minimal. Those included abortion, Social Security and Medicare, health care, and threats to democracy—the last of which Harris won by 60 points.

The Democratic candidate also won on guns and climate by 43 and 70 points, respectively, though voters ranked those issues much lower on the totem poll.

A few Supreme Court justices went out of their way to fight back against enforcing the court’s new ethics rules, The New York Times reported Tuesday—and it’s not that surprising.

In a series of secret offline memos and meetings, the justices toiled away over how they would formulate their code of ethics, and—crucially—whether it could actually be enforced.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson all supported enforcement rules for the court’s code of ethics. Kagan even pitched a panel of “safe harbor” judges that justices could go to about ethics concerns. Her proposal failed to gain wider support.

Meanwhile, Justice Neil Gorsuch railed against enforcement of the ethics code, essentially arguing that not abusing his seat of power should be voluntary. One of his memos raising concerns over enforcement stretched to more than 10 pages, according to the Times.

Gorsuch warned that ethics enforcement would threaten the court’s independence, and Justice Samuel Alito echoed his concerns, the Times reported. Justice Clarence Thomas, who has failed to report that he accepted exorbitant gifts and trips from conservative megadonors such as Harlan Crow, argued that the court’s critics could not be appeased.

Gorsuch, Thomas, and Alito compromised and agreed to some enforcement mechanisms—but only ones that couldn’t reasonably be enforced. Ultimately, the court decided to place no real restrictions on accepting gifts, travel, or real estate.

Donald Trump has an obsession with total power, and America’s greatest democratic allies have taken notice.

In an interview with CNN published late Monday, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel recalled that her first impression of the MAGA leader was his “fascination with the sheer power” of authoritarian leaders such as Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.

“My impression always was that he dreamt of actually overriding maybe all those parliamentary bodies that he felt were in a way an encumbrance upon him, and that he wanted to decide matters on his own,” Merkel told CNN. “In a democracy—well, you cannot reconcile that with democratic values.”

The wide-ranging interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour covered Merkel’s upcoming memoir, Freedom, and her fears for liberal democracy as it comes “under pressure” from international threats.

“The way he spoke about Putin, the way he spoke about the North Korean (leader)—obviously apart from critical remarks he made—there was always a kind of fascination with the sheer power of what these people could do,” Merkel said.

In that vein, Trump has threatened to weaponize the Federal Communications Commission to punish media organizations that are critical of him, referred to his political opposition as the “enemy from within,” and claimed that the military should be deployed to help him retain power.

Merkel isn’t the only person to raise alarm bells over Trump’s disturbing veer toward authoritarianism. Ex-members of Trump’s inner circle, including his longest-serving chief of staff, retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, have condemned their former boss as a “fascist.” In a shocking October interview with The New York Times, Kelly warned that Trump had—on multiple occasions—praised Adolf Hitler, and reportedly said that he “needed the kind of generals that Hitler had,” which Kelly said Trump defined as “people who were totally loyal to him, that follow orders.

“Certainly the former president is in the far-right area, he’s certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators—he has said that. So he certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure,” Kelly said at the time.

Donald Trump’s pick for the number two position in the Department of Defense, Steve Feinberg, is a billionaire with business ties to the defense industry.

The Washington Post, citing unnamed sources, reports that the president-elect has chosen Feinberg for the post of deputy secretary of defense, which requires confirmation from the Senate. Feinberg is co-CEO of Cerberus Capital Management, which has invested in hypersonic missiles and once owned private military contractor DynCorp.

In Trump’s first term, Feinberg was the head of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, which gives advice to the president on intelligence estimates and assessments, as well as counterintelligence. The deputy secretary of defense post comes with much more responsibility, with day-to-day management of the massive department’s three million civilian employees and service members among its duties.

Like Trump’s choice for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, Feinberg does not have experience running a large organization or working in the Pentagon. Plus, Feinberg’s investments and business activities would create multiple conflicts of interest if his appointment to the DOD survives the Senate.

Unlike Hegseth, Feinberg doesn’t have a long list of sexual misconduct, as well as scandals running veterans organizations (that we know of). His appointment could convince senators that there’s someone competent actually running things as the deputy to a Christian nationalist who envisions the military taking sides in a civil war scenario.

Feinberg is not the only Trump appointee with conflicts of interest: The president-elect’s pick to run Medicare and Medicaid, Mehmet Oz, has multiple ties to the pharmaceutical industry. But Feinberg’s defense industry ties could affect his view of the role of the U.S. military, as the Trump administration is already stocked with pro-war and pro-intervention advisers. A man who stands to profit when the U.S. military is deployed doesn’t bode well for peace.

Florida Representative Jared Moskowitz is the first Democrat to join the caucus for Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

“I will join the congressional DOGE caucus, because I believe that streamlining government processes and reducing ineffective government spending should not be a partisan issue,” Moskowitz wrote in a statement. He also noted that the Department of Homeland Security was “too big” and that the Secret Service and Federal Emergency Management Agency should become independent. Many Republicans—including the authors of Project 2025—are in favor of privatizing key agencies like FEMA.

Moskowitz has often gone out of his way to side with Republicans on key issues. He has argued that the debt is too large, backing devastating cuts to the federal government. More recently, he has supported Israel’s war on Gaza and is also one of the largest recipients of AIPAC funding in the House; Moskowitz was one of a handful of Democrats to recently give Donald Trump extraordinary powers to strip the tax-exempt status of nonprofits. These are all decisions that make Moskowitz’s enthusiasm for DOGE much less surprising. And, as Slate’s Alex Sammon noted on Twitter, Moskowitz also served as Ron DeSantis’s Covid czar before joining the House of Representatives.

Loyal DOGE appointees Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have their sights set on cutting massive swaths of the federal government, including but not limited to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, international grants, and funding for “progressive groups.”