Donald Trump Jr. warned Senate Republicans, “If you are on the wrong side of the vote, you’re buying yourself a primary…. And there’s a guy named Elon Musk who is going to finance it… The president gets to decide his Cabinet, no one else.” Will the Republicans bend to Trump’s threat to unseat them and confirm his most lethal nominees?
Trump has tossed the experience, qualifications and integrity of his picks to the wind and replaced them with loyalty and obedience to himself. His picks reveal the contempt he holds for the Senate Republicans in believing that they’ll surrender to his threat at the expense of the country’s security. If they do, they will be complicit in installing the most dangerous and embarrassing cabinet in American history.
For example, Trump’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Milley, had to stop Trump from misusing our nuclear arsenal in the last month of his presidency, and had to call the head of China’s military to assure him there was no such plan in order to avoid a crisis.
There’ll be no General Milley to Stop Trump next time – only Fox News co-host Pete Hegseth whom Trump has picked to be his Secretary of Defense and promises to purge all generals who push back on Trump’s decisions. So if Trump reaches for the button again, his Secretary of Defense will cheer him on. Hegseth also urges conservatives to “crush our leftist opponents”, to “attack first” and end their “sedition,” and threatens to unleash the military on our enemies if Democrats win an election. Hegseth also has a history of drunkenness. So, if Republicans bend to Trump’s threat, America’s Secretary of Defense may well be drunk during a military crisis.
Republicans must not default to the oh-that-will-never-happen excuse – but will they take the risk? They also need to recognize that Trump and most of his picks are not the rational people we expect to be nominated to crucial positions. We simply don’t know what they’re capable of.
A comparison of Trump’s picks with the cabinets of past Presidents will forewarn us how a Trump administration might react in a crisis. Take a look:
Joe Biden: picked Lloyd Austin as Secretary of Defense. Austin:
- Served as Commander of the US Central Command, a Rapid Deployment Task Force to be used in crises.
- Was Vice chief of staff of the Army.
- Served as Commander of United States Forces in Iraq.
- Was awarded 5 Defense Distinguished Service Medals.
- Received graduate degrees from West Point, Army Command and General Staff College, and the Army War College.
Barack Obama had 4 Defense Secretaries: Robert Gates, Leon Panetta, Chuck Hagel and Ash Carter
- Robert Gates
- Served 26 years with the CIA, including as Director and National Security Council member.
- Member of the Iraq Study Group for lessons from the Iraq War.
- Assistant to the President for National Security.
- Member of Strategic Air Command where he delivered intelligence briefings to Intercontinental Ballistic Missile crews.
- PhD in Russian and Soviet history from Georgetown University.
- Leon Panetta:
- Director of the CIA
- White House chief of staff under Obama;
- Director of the Office of Management and Budget;
- Graduated magna cum laude from Santa Clara University with a BA in political science and a Juris Doctor from its Law School.
- Chuck Hagel:
- Chairman of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board,
- Recipient of two Purple Hearts;
- Professor at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University;
- Chairman of the Atlantic Council on international security;
- Ash Carter:
- Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics;
- Deputy Secretary of Defense under Obama;
- Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security under President Clinton, responsible for policy regarding the former Soviet states and nuclear weapons;
- Awarded the Distinguished Public Service Medal, the Joint Distinguished Civilian Service Award, and the Defense Intelligence Medal.
- Director of the Center for Science & International affairs at Harvard.
- Graduated Yale College, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa.
George W. Bush had 2 Secretaries of Defense: Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates
- Rumsfeld:
- Chief of Staff for Presidents Ford and Nixon;
- Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity;
- Representative to NATO;
- Served in the Navy for 3 years.
- Robert Gates:
- Served 26 years with the CIA,
- Director and National Security Council.
- Member of Iraq Study Group for lessons learned from the Iraq War.
- Assistant to the President for National Security.
- Strategic Air Command where he delivered intelligence briefings to Intercontinental Ballistic Missile crews.
- PhD in Russian and Soviet history from Georgetown University.
Bill Clinton had 3 Secretaries of Defense: Les Aspin, William Perry and William Cohen
- Les Aspin: Member of Congress for 11 succeeding terms and chairman of the Armed Services Committee where he was recognized as a leading defense authority.
- William Perry:
- Deputy Secretary of Defense under President Clinton before he became the Secretary of Defense;
- Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering under President Carter;
- Expert in foreign policy, national security and arms control;
- Founded a non-profit effort to educate the public on the dangers of nuclear weapons;
- Instrumental in developing the feasibility of surveilling the Soviet Union and hired as a technical consultant to the Department of Defense
- Received Presidential Medal of Freedom.
- William Cohen:
- Member of the House of Representatives and the Senate.
- Continuous working relationships with President Clinton, National Security Adviser and the Joint Chiefs of Staff;
- Graduated cum laude from Bowdoin College.
- George H.W. Bush chose Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense. He was:
- Assistant to the President for National Security and Deputy National Security Adviser.
- Officer in the US Air Force, and recruited by the CIA where he served for 26 years, including at the National Security Council.
- Served on Strategic Air Command as an intelligence officer where he delivered intelligence briefings to Intercontinental Ballistic Missile crews.
- Received his PhD in Russian and Soviet history at Georgetown University.
President Ronald Reagan chose Caspar Weinberger and Frank Carlucci to be Secretaries of Defense.
- Casper Weinberger:
- Oversaw massive rebuilding of US military strength leading to the economic and military-industrial pressures that were ultimately responsible for Russia’s economic decline, the end of the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union as a global power.Second lieutenant during World War II,Served in the Pacific and became Captain on the intelligence staff of General Douglas MacArthur.Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission in 1970, credited for revitalizing the FTC.
- Graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University, and from Harvard Law School with a BA law degree.
- Frank Carlucci was:
- Deputy Director of the CIA
- Deputy Secretary of Defense.
- Served as National Security Advisor from 1986 to 1987
- Carlucci was notable for advocating an arms build-up to hasten the end of the Cold War.
- He graduated from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
Comparing these Secretaries of State with Pete Hegseth makes it blatantly and frightenly obvious that confirming Hegseth as Secretary of Defense will not only endanger America’s security, it will also shame the Republican party and America’s electorate who put them in power, and the world will lose confidence in America’s ability to govern itself and as a reliable ally and world leader. Not surprisingly, it will not shame Donald Trump because he is incapable of feeling shame.
