Tim Kaine does a good job here, Hegseth comes across as a lying liar who lies. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/takeaways-pete-hegseth-confirmation-hearing-rcna187660
It's becoming pretty clear that no matter how poorly this confirmation hearing went... the Republicans will vote to confirm Hegseth.
Indeed, he will do anything he is asked and that's all they want. I'm surprised nobody reminded him that Trump will land him in jail most likely. Well that's after people like WC get their oats from abusing children in the deportation system and the military has been used domestically. Well, maybe not. As with Yemen, Trump wants a guy who knows that what Amercians never hear about doesn't bother anybody.
https://thespectator.com/topic/pete...medium=email&utm_term=0_-79ad183236-155578121 Ben Domenech Hegseth in the hornet’s nest The Democrats were shockingly disorganized and spastic Tuesday, January 14, 2025 Pete Hegseth testifies during his Senate Armed Services confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill (Getty) Pete Hegseth was the first cabinet nominee to the breach, leading Donald Trump’s collection of outsiders, populists and hellraisers into the Capitol Hill combat they can all expect to navigate in the coming weeks. And in terms of a first confrontation with the opponent, Hegseth handled his mission manfully — taking the slings and arrows from the Democratic side of the aisle with relative ease. At one point, exasperated Connecticut senator Richard Blumenthal — you’ll remember him from not serving in Vietnam and falsely claiming that he did — said, “I don’t dispute your communication skills.” And how could he? Hegseth seemed more than ready to address the accusations from Senate Democrats head on, and the Republicans on the committee seemed unperturbed by their attacks. For those unfamiliar with Senate hearings like this, the Democrats were shockingly disorganized and spastic. The aim of hearings like this should not be grandstanding or shaking a fist at the nominee — it should be a focused, organized attempt to undermine them and create more questions around their record, questions designed to lead to Republican follow-up that begs more research, delay and investigation. For comparison, recall how Democrats achieved this, albeit briefly, with a canny manipulation of Senator Jeff Flake during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings. But today, rather than hammer away at one particular point of emphasis designed to pull at the potential gap between Hegseth and someone like Joni Ernst, Senate Democrats were flailing, leveling scattershot attacks that seemed more like partisan talking points than an actual case. Before the hearing began, the staff-level spin to Punchbowl was that the more partisan Democratic women on the committee — Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Duckworth, Mazie Hirono, Jeanne Shaheen, Kirsten Gillibrand, Jacky Rosen and Elissa Slotkin — would be focused on allegations about Hegseth’s behavior and his opposition to women in combat. But Warren tried to make it about hypocrisy, saying that Hegseth’s opposition to generals going through a revolving door from government service into the military industrial complex was a bad thing was a rule he wouldn’t follow himself. “I’m not a general,” Hegseth responded, to laughter from those in the committee room — and Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama jokingly addressed him as a “general” when the time shifted to him. The moment for any point-scoring was lost. The questioning from Duckworth and Hirono was no better. Duckworth demanded to know what organizations Hegseth had audited, as if the Pentagon’s inability to sustain an audit is something that would require him to don a green eyeshade himself, then demanded he name the members of ASEAN, who she described as part of potential negotiated military agreements. The only problem: ASEAN is an economic trade alliance, having nothing to do with the SecDef job. And then Hirono, displaying her IQ, asked a series of questions about obeying unlawful orders — to seize Greenland or the Panama Canal by force, to get drunk on the job, to shoot protesters in the legs — and yelled whenever Hegseth began to answer that he would do exactly the thing she claimed.