Pete Hegseth Cares More About Grooming Standards Than Readiness

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is sacrificing military readiness for his conservative culture war—and he’s getting away with it.

In his resignation, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll laid out his concerns that Hegseth was blocking efforts to modernize the military by removing the generals spearheading those efforts, a source told CNN Wednesday. One person familiar with the matter told Politico that Hegseth thwarted Driscoll’s efforts “at every turn.”

Multiple sources told CNN that they agreed that Hegseth was firing the leaders behind modernization efforts, and instead focusing on culture war issues.

“It’s conflicting because yeah he put out a memo saying this is important, but … he’s talking about muscles, dudes in dresses, testosterone,” a defense official in Europe told CNN. “We don’t see a change at that level.”

Unlike Driscoll and his deputy Army undersecretary Dave Fitzgerald, who also resigned, Hegseth was more focused on the way things look, not with long-term strategic priorities, one source familiar with their relationship told CNN. “Driscoll and Fitzgerald were focused on the modernization issues and less the social,” the source said.

Sources also pointed to the removal of three other army officials focused on the future: Army chief of staff Randy George; General Chris Donahue, the former head of U.S. Army Europe and Africa, who was working to learn drone warfare from the Ukrainians; and General David Hodne, former commander of the U.S. Army Transformation and Training Command.

“It’s critical that you have key leaders that understand technology and have the temperament to deal with industry and turn that into the formation,” a former senior Army official said. “When you fire these guys for arbitrary reasons, it creates confusion and a void … the Army is enduring turbulence right now.”

Meanwhile, Hegseth positioned his senior military assistant General Christopher LaNeve into position to serve as acting chief of staff after George’s removal. One defense official told CNN that LaNeve’s “whole schtick is that he’s a ‘back to basics’ guy.”

Since his appointment, Hegseth has been consumed with the project of remaking the U.S. military in his own image. The secretary was quick to install new rules for how soldiers should look—no beards or bellies—and recently introduced mandatory testosterone screenings. He’s repeatedly thwarted the advancements of Black and female DOD personnel, and overseen a ban on new transgender and nonbinary soldiers.

Georgia Republicans are snubbing Donald Trump’s pick for U.S. Senate.

A cadre of conservative mayors in the Peach State have opted to publicly back Democratic incumbent Jon Ossoff rather than get behind Trump-endorsed Representative Mike Collins.

Those mayors include Gail Fry of Toccoa, James Matheson of Valdosta, and Julie Smith of Tifton. The key to their successful bipartisan relationship with Ossoff rests in the senator’s attentiveness to Georgia’s myriad communities.

In an interview with The Daily Beast published Wednesday, Fry explained that—despite voting against Ossoff six years ago—she’s come to appreciate his responsiveness.

“We have gotten more support from Senator Ossoff than any other office that we’ve contacted,” Fry said, citing a multimillion-dollar federal grant that Ossoff secured for natural gas infrastructure in her city. “He calls us and says, ‘What do you need?’”

The others listed similar experiences with the liberal lawmaker.

“I don’t have to track him down. He tracks me down,” Smith told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution last month. “He’s been very good to South Georgia, and in my nonpartisan role as mayor, I have to look to someone who takes care of their constituents. I’m a Republican, but there are times when a person exceeds the party. They go above and beyond.”

Matheson—who described himself as a “hard-core conservative”—told the Journal-Constitution that he expects to “take heat” for endorsing Ossoff, but “it doesn’t matter.”

“There’s no way I can turn my back on this relationship,” Matheson explained. “The voters put me in here to do a job, and that man has been absolutely incredible.”

Trump, meanwhile, has spent inordinate amounts of time online, dividing the American public with his polarizing opinions rather than trying to build similar relationships across the country. The president has practically thrown his entire election cycle playbook at Ossoff, using his enormous platform to lob personal attacks against the 39-year-old. On Truth Social, the president has taken to mocking Ossoff’s looks and name, referring to him as “Os(jerk!)off” and comparing Ossoff to comedian Pee-Wee Herman and Alfred E. Neuman, the fictitious mascot of Mad Magazine.

Republicans are steering clear of the upcoming GOP convention for fear that Donald Trump’s big mouth might hurt them in November.

A Politico survey of more than 70 Republican candidates and party members found that most were not planning to attend the two-day function that begins September 9. Others were still debating whether they should be there. Dozens more refused to disclose their plans.

The Dallas-based event will be the first GOP midterm convention in American history. Trump and Vice President JD Vance are both expected to deliver speeches to the conservative assembly. The unprecedented conference seems to have been created out of an eleventh-hour necessity rather than a nationalistic groundswell, aiming to give Republicans a boost ahead of a contentious midterm cycle. But many candidates feel that showing face at the event could only damage their odds.

Some 45 Republicans told Politico that they weren’t going to be at the convention due to obligations—such as fundraisers or weddings or college tours—that were planned before the convention was announced in June.

But yet another group of conservatives were planning to dodge the event, which has been dubbed “Trump-a-palooza,” in order to avoid being held accountable for the president’s inflammatory rhetoric.

“I just felt I’d be more useful in my district,” Representative Tom Barrett told Politico. “I travel a lot for this job and if I can be back home and see my family and do the job back home as well, then that’s sort of what I lean toward doing.”

Barrett is in a tough battle against progressive William Lawrence for Michigan’s pivotal 7th district. When asked if Trump’s comments could make that race harder, Barrett told the outlet: “I can’t control what the president’s going to say at the convention, but I can control where I’m at, what I’m doing.”

Another House Republican (who spoke on the condition of anonymity) told Politico the convention is a “waste of time” and that the event planning was a “mess.”

“You shouldn’t be having to rally your base at this point,” the member said. “You should be trying to convince independents. Independents are not attending nor watching the midterm convention.”

Most major party conventions are centered on a specific item of business, such as formally nominating a presidential candidate. But this function will offer no such line items. Instead, the event has been billed as a big Republican party—and the ticket prices reflect it. The two-day convention has asked House members to pay a minimum of $25,000 to get in the door with a guest. But that’s really the bottom of the barrel: Better packages have been priced closer to $100,000.

The conference has also been backed by corporate sponsors, and proceeds are being dumped into a nonprofit that does not have to disclose its donors.

Former FBI Director James Comey may have ruined the federal government’s case against him.

Comey’s attorneys argued in a court filing Tuesday night that he was charged under the wrong law, making the government’s criminal indictment moot.

“On the actual question before the court, the government has little to offer,” the filing states. “A call for others to commit violence can only be incitement—which the indictment does not charge.”

Comey was charged with making threats against President Donald Trump by posting a picture to social media of seashells spelling out “86 47” in May last year. But his lawyers argued that the government made a mistake. Prosecuting Comey under the wrong law would unconstitutionally “broaden the possible bases for conviction beyond those included in the indictment.”

“The government’s attempt to prosecute an incitement case through a threats indictment violates settled law,” Comey’s lawyers wrote. “The indictment must be dismissed.”

Comey’s lawyers also mocked the federal government’s rationale that “86 47” constitutes a death threat, accusing federal prosecutors of relying on “a 2005 edition of Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang” and a 1991 New York Times article explaining to its readers that “86” was “military jargon for killed in action.”

The fact that prosecutors had to explain the term means that “the ordinary meaning of ‘86’ is not ‘to kill,’” the filing states, making it clear that “86 47” is “a statement of nonviolent political opposition.”

Trump is obviously using ginned-up charges to take revenge on Comey for supposedly wronging him during his first term as president. The case has been riddled with missteps since last year. It doesn’t help that the embattled current FBI Director Kash Patel cobbled the case together based on conspiracy theories, or that prosecutors consulted a former mobster in an attempt to prove that “86” was threatening language, only to be told their claims were bogus.

The Department of Justice even made the stunning claim that, while Trump or his supporters didn’t pressure the DOJ to prosecute Comey, it’s OK if the department has no independence from the president. This case has all kinds of issues, and Comey’s attorneys seem to have no trouble making it look like a farce.

Speaker Mike Johnson and the GOP have an even smaller House majority now after Democratic Representative Everton Blair of Georgia was sworn in on Capitol Hill Tuesday.

Republicans now have a 218–213 advantage over Democrats, and they’ll be down one more vote once California Democrat Aisha Wahab—who replaced scandal-ridden ex-Representative Eric Swalwell—is sworn in later this week.

Blair—Georgia’s first openly gay congressman—was victorious in a special election last month to complete the term of deceased Representative David Scott, and will only serve until January. State Representative Jasmine Clark will represent the party in the November midterm elections in a district that usually trends blue.

Swearing in two Democrats in one week is unusual for Johnson, as he has traditionally gone well out of his way to delay Democrats taking their seats—it took Representative Adelita Grijalva a record 50 days to be sworn into office, delaying the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files. In contrast, it took him less than 48 hours to swear in a Republican colleague last year.

Blair was sworn in hours before a tense vote on the Republican legislative agenda—including a resolution to condemn socialism, among other things. The vote resulted in the bill’s survival and averted a government shutdown, as Democratic Representatives Jared Golden and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez joined Republicans to advance it, even though five other Republicans refused to do so.