Democrats haven’t even picked up their gavels, and they’re already sharpening knives for Pete Hegseth.
The capital’s gossip merchants rushed to hand him a cushy escape hatch before the first subpoena lands.
And Marsha Blackburn’s camp just answered them with six blunt words.
Washington Started Filling Tennessee’s Senate Seat Before Blackburn Did
Marsha Blackburn won the race for governor of Tennessee, and that win opens up the Senate seat she has held since 2019.
US Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) plans to keep that seat until she takes the oath as governor in January, according to the Associated Press. After that, she gets to name her own replacement, and that person will serve out a term running through January 2031.
But the rumor mill in the nation’s capital didn’t wait for her. In the days after the midterms, the chatter had Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth packing his bags for Nashville.
Some of that talk started before anybody voted. Puck’s Leigh Ann Caldwell reported in October that Hegseth was angling for the appointment. The Hill reported that he wanted the seat and had worked behind the scenes to land it.
Then Jake Sherman of Punchbowl News heard from someone close to the incoming governor. That source told Sherman flatly that Hegseth “is not being considered” and blamed the whole story on a pack of consultants “with nothing better to do.”
“The Blackburn team is focused on the transition, not entertaining baseless speculation,” the source added.
And then came the six-word line that should hang on every lobbyist’s office wall in Washington, DC. The source said the capital “won’t pick the next senator.”
The AP got the same answer from a person familiar with the discussions, who waved off the Hegseth talk as baseless chatter.
Tennessee has no shortage of homegrown hopefuls, either. US Representative Tim Burchett (R-TN), who just won his own reelection, told the AP he wants a shot at the job. “Absolutely. Absolutely,” Burchett said.
Hegseth moved his family to Tennessee in 2022, according to the Knoxville News Sentinel. A few years in the Volunteer State doesn’t add up to deep roots, and the people making this choice grew up there.
The Soft-Landing Story Was Always the Second Half of a Firing Story
Follow the rumor back one step and the plot gets clearer. A Senate seat only matters to a sitting Defense Secretary if somebody plans to push him out of the Pentagon first.
Breitbart News reported that sources close to the White House said President Trump had talked with advisers about firing Hegseth after the Democrat wave. CBS News sources said some aides expect the blame for the losses to fall on Adm Brad Cooper, the head of US Central Command, and Gen Dan Caine, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who both played big roles in guiding the Iran war.
But Donald Trump keeps saying the opposite on camera. He told reporters Hegseth is “doing a very good job,” and White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said the President “has full confidence in Secretary Hegseth.”
Trump even tossed out a kind word about the Senate idea. “I actually think he’d be very popular if he did that,” he said.
That’s the consultant class’s oldest trick. Hand a man a golden parachute in the papers, and his firing starts to sound painless, maybe even generous. Everybody shakes hands, and nobody has to explain why the Pentagon chief got shown the door.
Granted, The Hill says Hegseth wanted the seat, and wanting a job isn’t a crime. Plenty of men keep an eye on the next rung while doing the current job well. Interest in Tennessee doesn’t prove a single person in the West Wing wants him gone.
Left-wing bloggers skipped that nuance entirely. PoliticusUSA crowed that Hegseth’s “escape plan falls apart” and treated his departure from the Pentagon as a done deal, the same ending Democrats have been writing for months.
The War Sellers Would Rather Find a Villain Than Do the Math
Underneath all the gossip sits the Iran war and the question of who gets stuck with the bill.
Voters already mailed the invoice. NBC News exit pollsters asked voters straight out whether the US made the right call in taking military action against Iran, and 63 percent said it didn’t. That bloc handed Democrats 83 percent of its ballots. Still, 15 of every 100 doubters voted Republican anyway, a sign the unease ran right through the GOP’s own coalition.
And the neoconservative pundits and hawkish advisers who pushed President Trump toward that war would love an easy way out for themselves. A fired Defense Secretary or a reassigned admiral makes a handy villain. A villain means nobody has to dig up the rosy timelines they sold on cable news.
Washington Already Tried Overruling a Governor’s Senate Pick
The capital’s power brokers have tried this stunt before. It went badly for them.
In December 2008, federal agents arrested Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich on charges that he tried to sell the Senate seat Barack Obama left behind. Blagojevich appointed Roland Burris to the seat anyway, and Senate Democrats under Majority Leader Harry Reid vowed that no Blagojevich pick would ever sit in their chamber.
On January 6, 2009, Burris showed up to take the oath. Senate officials sent him back out into the cold and rain. Nine days later, Reid and his leadership team folded, and Vice President Dick Cheney swore Burris in without a single objection on the floor.
The 17th Amendment lets state legislatures give governors the power to fill Senate vacancies, and Tennessee lawmakers gave it to theirs. No consultant in a K Street conference room gets a vote.
But the same principle covers the Cabinet, and Democrats want to grab that pen too. Senate Democrats have floated Hegseth’s ouster as the price of their cooperation on must-pass defense bills in the lame-duck session, according to The National News Desk. US Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) told The Hill a resignation could clear the way for more bipartisan work on the annual defense bill. That’s a hostage note on fancy letterhead.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) sounded awfully sure of himself once the votes came in. “He’s got to go,” Jeffries told NPR, calling Hegseth “the most unqualified secretary of defense in American history.”
But ask Jeffries whether Democrats will actually impeach, and the tough talker suddenly goes shy. “I don’t want to get out ahead of the caucus,” he said. Voters heard that same coy routine in 2018, right before Democrats impeached Donald Trump twice.
And the hit list doesn’t end at one Cabinet secretary. Jeffries said the House Judiciary and Oversight committees will investigate the administration, while outgoing US Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY), who lost his primary to a Trump-backed challenger, plans to refile his impeachment articles in the lame duck. Hegseth looks like the warm-up act. The headliner has Trump’s name on the marquee.
So when the new Democrat majority settles in come January, who decides who runs the Pentagon: the President voters elected in 2024, or the same consultants who already tried to hand out a Senate seat that never belonged to them?
Sources: Breitbart News, “Report: Pete Hegseth Not a Contender for Tennessee Senate”; Associated Press, “Hegseth is not under consideration as jockeying begins for Tennessee Senate seat, AP source says”; The Hill, “Hegseth not in consideration for Tennessee Senate”; Mediaite, “Pete Hegseth Reportedly ‘Angling’ for Senate Seat as Impeachment Fears Grow” (citing Puck); PoliticusUSA, “Pete Hegseth’s Escape Plan Falls Apart”; NPR, “‘He’s got to go’: Hakeem Jeffries calls for Hegseth’s removal but stops short of impeachment”; The National News Desk, “Massie says he will reintroduce impeachment articles against Hegseth after midterms”; NBC News exit poll; Roll Call, “Burris Arrives, Is Turned Away”; NPR, “A Drama Ends: Burris Sworn Into Senate”; PolitiFact, “Reid flips on Senate Democrats seating Burris”
