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Analysis: Hegseth is still standing, but hasn’t yet saved his Pentagon bid | CNN Politics

Published

1 month ago

December 5, 2024

Analysis: Hegseth is still standing, but hasn’t yet saved his Pentagon bid | CNN Politics

CNN
—

Pete Hegseth’s bid to lead the Pentagon is stuck in limbo, as he fiercely battles allegations of drinking and sexual misconduct and can’t be sure if President-elect Donald Trump really has his back.

A top Trump transition source had described Wednesday as “absolutely critical” for the former Fox News anchor’s confirmation hopes. And Hegseth threw himself into his task, meeting Republican senators, offering to quit alcohol if he’s confirmed, and mounting fiery rearguards on the Megyn Kelly radio show and in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.

Yet his position seems as tenuous Thursday morning as it was 24 hours earlier.

The most important meeting on Hegseth’s schedule was with Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, a combat veteran, campaigner against sexual harassment in the military and a possible replacement pick for defense secretary if he falls short. Hegseth failed to emerge from the conversation with a public endorsement from the GOP senator. “I appreciate Pete Hegseth’s service to our country, something we both share,” she said in a post on X that was most notable for what was not said. “Today, as part of the confirmation process, we had a frank and thorough conversation.”
Hegseth, who has more Capitol Hill meetings Thursday, is due to meet two other key Republican senators, Maine’s Susan Collins and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, next week. Murkowski said Wednesday she’d “absolutely” ask him about allegations about his conduct and his opposition to women serving in combat roles in the military.
Hegseth told Kelly on Sirius XM that he spoke to Trump Wednesday morning and that the president-elect had told him, “’Hey Pete, I got your back. It’s a fight. They’re coming after you, get after it.’” He added that Trump said, “‘You go meet those senators and I’ve got your back.’” Hegseth concluded: “It means a lot to me. It tells you who that guy is.”
Hegseth’s lawyer, Tim Parlatore, told CNN’s Jake Tapper that his client “can’t wait” to undergo an FBI background check, which he said “is going to exonerate him of the vast majority of these claims.”
Yet Trump did not make a public, on-the-record endorsement of Hegseth on Wednesday as his team at Mar-a-Lago closely watched the defense pick’s day of meetings with key senators. A source told CNN that the president-elect and Ron DeSantis have discussed the Florida governor taking the role, suggesting that Trump may already have a Plan B in mind.
Hegseth’s more aggressive us-versus-them strategy also came into view on Wednesday as he styled himself with the same “warrior” spirit that he once showed on the battlefield. He characterized his troubles as purely the result of a “ridiculous” narrative by “legacy media.” He told Kelly, “It’s our turn, it’s our time, to stand up and tell the truth, and our side.”

But Sen. Josh Hawley summed up the doubts surrounding the Hegseth pick when he said he didn’t know if the selection should be withdrawn. The Missouri Republican said he’d support whomever Trump wanted in his Cabinet but added: “It’s not 100% clear who he wants as secretary of defense right now.”

Hegseth, an Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran, can afford to lose no more than three Republican senators and still be confirmed in the Senate, assuming all Democrats vote against. So, his window was narrow to begin with. And it’s hardly being helped by uncertainty over how much political capital Trump is willing to spend to see him confirmed.

But Sen. Markwayne Mullin said he’d spoken to both Trump and Hegseth and that the president-elect was still committed to his pick.

“They are still both all in the fight,” the Oklahoma Republican told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on “The Source.”

“President Trump personally told me he wants to see Pete get confirmed and I think there’s a … path to get there. It may be a little narrow, but I believe we can get him confirmed,” he added.

The reticence of some senators to throw full public support behind Hegseth may be a hint that while they would prefer not to break with the president-elect early, they might also be keen to avoid a hearing that could turn into a public circus around the time of the inauguration.

One of Hegseth’s meetings on Wednesday was with West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, who said she’d gotten into his “personal issues” and that their chat went well. But she said she has not yet decided whether she will vote to confirm him.

Growing talk about Ernst and DeSantis as possible replacements may also be bad news for Hegseth, because it’s likely that some senators will view the Iowa senator and Florida governor as potentially superior defense secretaries. A number of Republican senators have told reporters they hold Ernst in high regard. And she and DeSantis would have a far clearer path to confirmation than Hegseth. Still, it’s not clear whether Ernst would fit Trump’s bill for an ultra-loyalist who’d do whatever he wants at the Pentagon or whether the president-elect would be willing to elevate a former primary rival with whom he traded sharp words.

Connecticut Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal might not be a disinterested observer, but he suggested on Wednesday that the Hegseth nomination was already doomed. “I’ve talked to 5 to 10 Republicans who have said to me they’re just waiting for the right moment to say no to Pete Hegseth,” Blumenthal, who sits on the Armed Services Committee, told reporters.

Among the issues clouding Hegseth’s candidacy is a sexual assault allegation from 2017 — which he has denied, claiming the encounter was consensual, and in which no charges were filed.

The question of Hegseth’s alcohol use, which could be a concern given the grave responsibilities of the secretary of defense, was underscored by reporting from The New Yorker over the weekend about his tenure leading veterans’ advocacy groups. Other reports have also emerged about Hegseth’s conduct while employed at Fox News.

On Kelly’s radio show, he addressed reports of excessive drinking, complained that many of the allegations were made anonymously and suggested that some people in the Pentagon didn’t want him to get the job. “I’ve never had a drinking problem. I don’t – no one’s ever approached me and said, ‘Oh, you should really look at getting help,’” Hegseth told Kelly. He said that, like other service personnel who came home from wars, he had had some beers. “You know, how do you deal with the demons you’ve seen on the battlefield? Sometimes it’s with a bottle.” But he said that his wife Jennifer and embracing Christianity had saved his life and that he was now changed. Moreover, Hegseth said that he would treat serving as the secretary of defense like being sent to a war zone where alcohol was not allowed. “This is the biggest deployment of my life, and there won’t be a drop of alcohol on my lips while I’m doing it.”

Hegseth’s vow of temperance was welcomed by North Dakota Sen. Kevin Cramer, one of several Republican senators who have said that Trump’s pick would have to answer questions about allegations against him. “The drinking thing is a pretty significant issue – whether you have a problem or don’t have a problem, or you think you have a problem, or you think you don’t have a problem,” Cramer said. “And he said, ‘My commitment is to not touch alcohol while I’d have this position.’” Given that undertaking, Cramer said that he would be ready to give him the benefit of the doubt and put Hegseth before the Armed Services Committee and signaled he may be ready to eventually support his confirmation.

Hegseth’s chances hinge on winning over more senators like Cramer, which may require lowering the heat around his candidacy. Any fresh allegations against him might begin to throw his prospects even more into question. And while he says he has Trump’s support now, there’s no guarantee that he can retain it if he becomes even more of a distraction from the president-elect’s efforts to fill out his government.

Ironically, any new revelations about some of Trump’s other provocative choices — like Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence or Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for the Health and Human Services Department – could help Hegseth return to the shadows and might help his aspirations. Gabbard and Kennedy have so far largely avoided the scrutiny that’s confronted Hegseth and Trump’s short-lived first pick for attorney general, former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz.

The president-elect is notoriously prone to change his mind about candidates — one reason why talk of his interest in DeSantis for the defense job should be taken with appropriate caution.

Still, sources told CNN that the Florida governor and former US military lawyer would be interested in the position if asked. On the face of it, DeSantis would be a popular choice among Republicans, and he has the experience of running a massive government in Florida that could help prepare him for the task of leading the Pentagon bureaucracy. DeSantis also has the kind of culture war credentials that Trump wants for the Pentagon; he built his political brand partly on attacking diversity and inclusion programs, for example.

Swapping Florida for the Pentagon in Virginia could make smart political sense for DeSantis, as it would give him vital national security experience that could lift any future presidential campaign. If he were chosen, it would set up a fascinating triumvirate of at least three potential future primary foes — along with Vice President-elect JD Vance and secretary of state pick Marco Rubio — in Trump’s administration.

Still, DeSantis was scathing about Trump during their primary duel and was especially acerbic about the president-elect’s refusal to take part in the Republican debates. He suggested that Trump had “lost the zip” on his “fastball” and said that he’d be a far more effective implementor of MAGA policies. Unlike Rubio, who has had eight years to leaven his campaign trail critiques of Trump with praise, DeSantis’ insults may be far fresher in the president-elect’s mind.

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Tulsa Massacre Was a ‘Coordinated, Military-Style Attack,’ Federal Report Says

Published

4 hours ago

January 11, 2025

Press Room

Tulsa Massacre Was a ‘Coordinated, Military-Style Attack,’ Federal Report Says

The Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, in which a prosperous Black neighborhood in Oklahoma was destroyed and up to 300 people were killed, was not committed by an uncontrolled mob but was the result of “a coordinated, military-style attack” by white citizens, the Justice Department said in a report released Friday.

The report, stemming from an investigation announced in September, is the first time that the federal government has given an official, comprehensive account of the events of May 31 and June 1, 1921, in the Tulsa neighborhood of Greenwood. Although it formally concluded that, more than a century later, no person alive could be prosecuted, it underscored the brutality of the atrocities committed.

“The Tulsa Race Massacre stands out as a civil rights crime unique in its magnitude, barbarity, racist hostility and its utter annihilation of a thriving Black community,” Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general for civil rights, said in a statement. “In 1921, white Tulsans murdered hundreds of residents of Greenwood, burned their homes and churches, looted their belongings and locked the survivors in internment camps.”

No one today could be held criminally responsible, she said, “but the historical reckoning for the massacre continues.”

The report’s legal findings noted that if contemporary civil rights laws were in effect in 1921, federal prosecutors could have pursued hate crime charges against both public officials and private citizens.

Though considered one of the worst episodes of racial terror in U.S. history, the massacre was relatively unknown for decades: City officials buried the story, and few survivors talked about the massacre.

The Justice Department began its investigation under the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, which allows the agency to examine such crimes resulting in death that occurred before 1980. Investigators spoke with survivors and their descendants, looked at firsthand accounts and examined an informal review by the Justice Department’s Bureau of Investigation, the precursor to the F.B.I. In that 1921 report, the agency asserted that the riot was not the result of “racial feeling,” and suggested that Black men were responsible for the massacre.

The new 123-page report corrects the record, while detailing the scale of destruction and its aftermath. The massacre began with an unfounded accusation. A young Black man, Dick Rowland, was being held in custody by local authorities after being accused of assaulting a young white woman.

According to the report, after a local newspaper sensationalized the story, an angry crowd gathered at the courthouse demanding that Mr. Rowland be lynched. The local sheriff asked Black men from Greenwood, including some who had recently returned from military service, to come to the courthouse to try to prevent the lynching. Other reports suggest the Black neighbors offered to help but were turned away by the sheriff.

The white mob viewed attempts to protect Mr. Rowland as “an unacceptable challenge to the social order,” the report said. The crowd grew and soon there was a confrontation. Hundreds of residents (some of whom had been drinking) were deputized by the Tulsa Police. Law enforcement officers helped organize these special deputies who, along with other residents, eventually descended on Greenwood, a neighborhood whose success inspired the name Black Wall Street.

The report described the initial attack as “opportunistic,” but by daybreak on June 1, “a whistle blew, and the violence and arsons that had been chaotic became systematic.” According to the report, up to 10,000 white Tulsans participated in the attack, burning or looting 35 city blocks. It was so “systematic and coordinated that it transcended mere mob violence,” the report said.

In the aftermath, the survivors were left to rebuild their lives with little or no help from the city. The massacre’s impact, historians say, is still felt generations later.

In the years since the attack, survivors and their descendants and community activists have fought for justice. Most recently, a lawsuit seeking reparations filed on behalf of the last two known centenarian survivors was dismissed by Oklahoma justices in June. In recent years, Tulsa has excavated sections of a city cemetery in search of the graves of massacre victims. And in 2024, the city created a commission to study the harms of the atrocity and recommend solutions. The results are expected in the coming weeks.

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The strange world of the Euro-Gulf

Published

5 hours ago

January 11, 2025

Press Room

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Waiting for the Tube, I see a poster for an upmarket gym chain. Locations? “City of London. High Street Kensington. Dubai.” What a shame to choose a setting that is so disfigured with bad taste and clueless expats. Still, the City and Dubai branches must be first-rate.

Soon after, I am in Doha, and again the Euro-Gulf linkage is inescapable. The emir of Qatar is back from a state visit to Britain, where the hosts were angling for a trade deal. Swiss-headquartered Fifa has just given the World Cup hosting rights to Saudi Arabia. Even in skyscraper-free Muscat, where alleys that might have been rationalised elsewhere in the Gulf twist freely behind the corniche, three restaurants in my hotel are outposts of Mayfair brands.

What a shame the word “Eurabia” is taken. And by such cranks. (It is a far-right term for a supposed plot to Islamise Europe.) Because we are going to need a word for this relationship. The Arabian peninsula has what Europe lacks: space, natural wealth and the resulting budget surpluses to invest in things. For its part, Europe has “soft” assets that Gulf states must acquire, host or emulate to carve out a post-oil role in the world. This isn’t the Gulf’s deepest external connection. Not while 38 per cent of people in the UAE and a quarter in Qatar are Indian. But it might be the most symbiotic, if I understand that word correctly.

True, the US has a defence presence in all six Gulf Cooperation Council states. This includes the Saudi footprint that Osama bin Laden wasn’t super-stoked about. But everyday contact? America is a 15-hour flight away. Its soft assets are either harder to buy or less coveted. Its citizens have little fiscal incentive to live in tax havens, as Uncle Sam charges them at least some of the difference.

In the 1970s, when Opec profits gushed through London, Anthony Burgess wrote a dystopia in which grand hotels became “al-Klaridges” and “al-Dorchester”. What a mental jolt it was for even the worldliest Europeans to see — we mustn’t pussyfoot around this — non-white people with more money than them. Still, they could condescend to the Gulf as being no place to live. Half a century on, their grandchildren would call that copium. In fact, their grandchildren might literally live there for economic opportunities. (Al-Dorado?) As a banker friend explains it, the time zones allow you to sleep late, trade the European markets, then dine late, so it is the young ones who do a Gulf stint, not the burnouts who are my age.

For how long, though? It is the sheer unlikelihood of this tryst, between a universal rights culture and monarchical absolutism, between a mostly secular continent and the home peninsula of an ancient faith, that distinguishes it from anything I can think of. A relationship can be both necessary and untenable. It wouldn’t take much — some intra-GCC violence, say, which seemed close in 2017 — for Europe’s exposure to the Gulf to age as badly as its former openness to Russia. If Abu Dhabi-owned Manchester City are found to have committed financial chicanery, a chunk of Premier League history will be tainted. Because it is “just” sport, I sense people are underprepared for the backlash.

And it is parochial to assume that the relationship could only ever break down on one end. It is the Gulf side that has to make the awkwardest cultural adjustments. Because Europeans associate 1979 with Iran and perhaps with Margaret Thatcher, they sometimes pass over the seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca by zealots who thought the House of Saud had grown soft on western habits. Governments in the region assuredly don’t forget.

How far a place can liberalise without tripping a cultural wire occupies (and is answered differently in) each state, or emirate. Everyone is very nice to “Mister Janan” in his Doha hotel. But the metal scanners that must be passed on each re-entry to the building stand as a reminder of the stakes here. I wonder if Europe and the Gulf throw so much into their liaison out of a niggling doubt that it can last.

Email Janan at janan.ganesh@ft.com

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Fox News headed for trial, again, over 2020 election fraud claims

Published

6 hours ago

January 11, 2025

Press Room

Fox News headed for trial, again, over 2020 election fraud claims

Fox News appears headed for trial over false election fraud claims made after the 2020 election, after a New York state appellate court chose not to dismiss a lawsuit brought by voting tech company Smartmatic.

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Spencer Platt/Getty Images/Getty Images North America

Fox News appears to be headed once more to court over the lies involving election fraud it aired about the 2020 presidential race. This time, it’s over the false claims that election tech company Smartmatic sabotaged the re-election of then-President Donald Trump.

In April 2023, on the eve of a trial in Delaware in which Fox founder Rupert Murdoch was set to testify, the network and its parent corporation agreed to pay $787.5 million to settle a defamation suit filed by Dominion Voting Systems.

Fox News settles blockbuster defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems

A flood of revelations from the pre-trial process of discovery yielded damning internal communications. The judge found that network figures from junior producers to primetime hosts, network executives, Murdoch and his son Lachlan knew that Joe Biden had won the election fairly. Yet, they allowed guests to spread lies that Trump had been cheated of victory to win back Trump viewers. Some hosts amplified and even embraced the claims.

Now, an appellate court ruling in New York state is allowing Smartmatic’s parallel, $2.7 billion suit to press ahead. The same ruling also dismissed some counts against the network’s parent company, Fox Corp.

Pro-Trump Fox hosts including Maria Bartiromo and the late Lou Dobbs invited guests making unsubstantiated and wild claims about Smartmatic on the air, and at times appeared to endorse those allegations themselves.

Fox forced Dobbs off the air just a day after Smartmatic filed its suit in February 2021. Two weeks later, Fox News and Fox Business Network ran an awkward segment with a voting tech expert, Edward Perez, to present viewers with a rebuttal to those outlandish claims. Newsmax, a right-wing channel in competition with Fox for viewers who supported Trump, did much the same.

“Today, the New York Supreme Court rebuffed Fox Corporation’s latest attempt to escape responsibility for the defamation campaign it orchestrated against Smartmatic following the 2020 election,” Smartmatic’s lead attorney, Erik Connolly, said in a statement. “Fox Corporation attempted, and failed, to have this case dismissed, and it must now answer for its actions at trial. Smartmatic is seeking several billion in damages for the defamation campaign that Fox News and Fox Corporation are responsible for executing. We look forward to presenting our evidence at trial.”

Unlike Dominion, whose voting machines were used in two dozen states, Smartmatic says its technology was used only in Los Angeles County in 2020. Fox has sharply questioned the value of Smartmatic and the contracts it says were jeopardized and lost.

“We will be ready to defend this case surrounding extremely newsworthy events when it goes to trial,” a network spokesperson said in a statement. “As a report prepared by our financial expert shows, Smartmatic’s damages claims are implausible, disconnected from reality, and on their face intended to chill First Amendment freedoms.”

In the Dominion case, Fox also relied on arguments that its shows and hosts were simply relaying inherently newsworthy allegations from inherently newsworthy people — the then-president and his allies. The presiding judge in Delaware, Eric M. Davis, rejected that argument; he found that Fox’s executives, stars, and shows had broadcast false claims and defamed Dominion in doing so.

Fox has said that the New York case offers a new venue, with slightly different implications, although Davis applied New York defamation law in his Delaware proceedings.

Fox settled, as it has in many other cases, before opening arguments of the trial with Dominion. It maintains it will fight the allegations Smartmatic is making in court.