I just have one question….
Give Trump’s cabinet nominees this much: they were thoroughly coached for their confirmation hearings.
Whenever a Senate committee member this week asked Fox News weekend co-anchor Pete Hegseth (nominee for secretary of defense) to answer allegations of drunkenness or whatever, his default answer was “anonymous smears.” Over and over. Despite senators telling him to his face that the committee has documents naming the people, including Fox co-workers, who made those allegations.
When Democratic senators on Wednesday asked Pam Bondi (nominee for attorney general) if she agreed with positions taken by her prospective employer (Donald Trump), the former Florida attorney general defaulted multiple times to variations on “I’m not familiar with the statement.”
To date, no Democrat has as I suggested asked any Trump nominee if they had reason to doubt their qualifications for the job, and if they did, why they accepted anyway.
But another question that came up a couple of times in Bondi’s hearing was whether she would admit that President Trump lost the 2020 election. Hegseth and other Trump supporters have similarly refused to say so.
It must appear to the casual observer, and especially to MAGA Republicans, like a “gotcha” question, a trap to draw Trump’s ire. Everyone knows that Trump refuses to admit he lost. To salve his bruised ego, he still claims the election was stolen. Trump considers it a sign of fealty and obeisance, like kowtowing to the emperor, that his subjects agree. To the likes of Hegseth and Bondi, the question must feel like an anti-inquisitor’s demand to renounce the MAGA faith. But for people pursuing the responsibility for upholding the U.S. Constitution and the republic it is more meaningful than that.
Asking a Trump cabinet nominee — yes/no — whether Donald Trump lost the 2020 election is not a “gotcha” question. It’s a test. Do you have the spine, the personal integrity, to disagree with your future boss when he’s wrong or demands you do something improper or illegal?
Pam Bondi doesn’t have a spine. Nor does Pete Hegseth, though he may have faced bullets in combat.
Bondi, Hegseth, MAGA Republicans in elected office, and the foot soldiers at Trump’s rallies have mistaken bluster for courage. The more they double down on the former, the more obvious it is that they lack the latter. And they’ll never admit it. They’re lying to themselves and to us.
Their refusal marks them as subjects, not citizens. They have no business serving in a democratic republic. But then, that’s not Donald Trump aim for this country, is it?
This has been a public service announcement.