Pete Hegseth's nomination for defense secretary is looking increasingly tenuous, and the bad news just keeps coming.
Still more than a month away from the start of any Senate confirmation hearings, where he's almost certain to face unified Democratic resistance, Hegseth can only afford three defections from his own party.
He has already criticized two of them: Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins.
The question now: Will some of the same senators who tanked Matt Gaetz's nomination with their "implacable" resistance to his selection be the ones to take Hegseth down?
Both Murkowski and Collins have dismissed Hegseth's criticism in statements made since his nomination was announced. Collins, however, said that she intended to look at character and judgment when deciding how to vote on such picks — a remark that hints at a possible lack of traction for Trump's choice for Pentagon chief.
"If I look and see a pattern that causes me to think the person would not be a good leader and doesn't have character or the impartiality — if it's a judge, for example — that would concern me," Collins told reporters.
On Sunday, things got a lot worse for the Magaworld culture warrior.
A letter written by his mother in which she referred to him as an "abuser of women" for whom she had "no respect" drew gasps across the political media spectrum. More on that here.
The other shoe dropped the same day. From The New Yorker, an investigation into Hegseth's management of Concerned Veterans for America, a major advocacy group, and how Hegseth's alleged abuse of alcohol led him to be "dragged away" in a drunken stupor from events.
At the bare minimum, Hegseth is headed for one of the most uncomfortable and public grillings by a Senate panel in recent memory. There's little sign he's doing anything to avert it — including meeting with some of the Republicans who will likely hold his fate in their hands.
Read more here.
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