The Daily Signal - Victor Davis Hanson: Trump’s Nominees’ Confirmation Battles

Episode Date: January 29, 2025

Do those who opposed Pete Hegseth’s nomination really believe he will be worse than former Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin? On this edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,” Hanson discusses the contentious Senate confirmation process for Trump administration nominees. He highlights past and upcoming nominations, such as Pete Hegseth, Kash Patel, and RFK Jr., and the crucial role swing-state senators play in these votes: “There's a general rule, though, that we can make sense that, I think, will apply—has applied, to Pete Hegseth. It will apply to Kash Patel, especially, RFK Jr. and others. And that is three things: The more important the Cabinet position is, the more controversial the vote; the more likely a Republican nominee is going to try to make fundamental and needed changes, the more controversial the vote; and, the more that senators in swing states worry about being reelected, the more controversial vote.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We'd love to talk, business. There's a general rule, though, that we can make sense that I think it will apply, has applied to Pete Hexeth. It will apply to Cash Patel, especially RFK Jr. and others. And that is three things. The more important the cabinet position is, the more controversial to vote. The more likely a Republican nominee is going to try to make fundamental and needed changes. And the more that senators in swing states worry about being re-elected, the more controversial.

Hello, this is Victor Davis-Hanson again for the Daily Signal. We're in a weeks-long process of confirming nominees of the Trump administration for these 13 cabinet-level positions. And I think it may go on all the way through February, given the Democratic strategy to oppose wherever possible the confirmations. There's a general rule, though, that we can make sense that I think has applied to Pete Hexeth. It will apply to Cash Patel, especially RFK Jr. and others. And that is three things. The more important the cabinet position is, the more controversial the vote.

The more likely a Republican nominee is going to try to make fundamental and needed changes, the more controversial the vote. and the more that senators in swing states worry about being re-elected, the more controversial vote. Put that all together, and on the Republican side, there's usually going to be two to three votes that are going to be ambiguous. Susan Collins in Maine, Lisa Murkowski in Alaska, and here and there Mitch McConnell. Take the Pete Hackseth recent nomination confirmation. That was only the second time in nomination history for a cabinet post that the nominee was completely deadlocked, and the vice president, in this case, J.D. Vance, interceded to break the vote. That had only happened one time before when Mike Pence came in and ensured that Betsy DeVos would be confirmed.

Why was that necessary? Because three senators obliterated the Republicans' 53 Senate margin, Mitch McConnell, Lisa McCoskey, and of course, Susan Collins. Looking back, we have to ask ourselves, do they really believe that Pete Hexeth is going to be a worse defense secretary than Lloyd Austin, in retrospect? Lloyd Austin was AWOL for a week. Lloyd Austin oversaw the worst catastrophe and humiliation in U.S. history with the withdrawal from Kabul. Under Lloyd Austin, we had two theater-wide wars, and we were very ambiguous ourselves

on whether to support Israel fully or to give them necessary munitions or what was our position about Ukraine. Give them enough to win but not lose or just prolong that war that. It's cost of 1.1 million lives. So there's a lot of inconsistency. And now we look at the upcoming nomination, specifically RFK and Cash Patel. And I think it's going to be very, very close again. I expect both Collins and Murkowski to vote against Cash Patel, to vote against RFK.

And it'll depend on whether Mitch McConnell is there. A couple of other things I want to point out. in the past as well. Betsy DeVos, who remember, she resigned early in anger at Donald Trump after January 6th, but I don't think she remembers fully that when she was nominated, she was more controversial in 2017 than was Donald Trump. She was the only Trump nominee that got the entire Democratic side against her. And again, Senator Murkowski and Senator Markowski.

college joined the Democrats. That said, after she was confirmed, she turned out to be, I think, a spectacular Secretary of Education. She went after the teachers' union. She tried to make reforms with higher education. She looked at illicit donations from China to major university campuses, and yet she would not have been confirmed if it had been up to those two Republican senators. Contrast that with the most recent Secretary of Education, Miguel Cardona. I don't think we've seen a worst secretary. He was in power during this outbreak of anti-Semitic, anti-Israel violence throughout the United States on major campuses from October 7th of 2023 to January 20th of 2025. He said nothing.

He was pressed to say, do you condemn the anti-Semitism? He would say nothing because he was a hard leftist. Nobody really knew who he was before he was selected as Education Secretary and nobody knows who he is now after four years and no one knows, we'll know where he'll be in four years. And yet two Republican senators suggested that, I just shouldn't say suggested, they voted that he was more qualified than Betsy DeVos, whom they opposed. So the Republican Party once again has a big problem that they don't have the discipline and the solidarity that the Democrats do.

And they have to count on J.D. Vance in these particular cases to save them from themselves. Thank you very much. This is Victor Davis-Hansson for The Daily Signal. Thank you so much for tuning in today. Please subscribe to the Daily Signal for our next episode.