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Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth finds himself under fire again — this time from political skeptics or foes across the political spectrum. But just as the case was during the recent presidential transition period, when Trump opponents resuscitated the discredited 2018 Brett M. Kavanaugh/Christine Blasey Ford playbook in an attempt to derail Hegseth’s nomination, the stakes now are much higher than Hegseth’s job security helming the Pentagon.

When he was up for the nomination, Democrats and many in the media went all-in in an attempt to destroy Hegseth. Like the anti-Kavanaugh campaign in September 2018, when the then-pending Supreme Court nominee was accused of everything from sexual assault to gang rape (and denied the claims), the recent anti-Hegseth operation accused the two-time Bronze Star-decorated veteran of recurring alcoholism, having a ruinous Bill Clinton-esque libido and, yes, sexual assault (he has also denied the claims). But the concerted effort to sink Hegseth’s nomination was not actually about Hegseth. It was an attempt to chum the waters, demonstrate Trumpian vulnerability and sabotage the incoming administration before it even took office. Thankfully, the cynical effort failed. And military recruitment, perhaps Hegseth’s single most important Day 1 priority, has already greatly benefited.

Fast-forward a bit. Hegseth was one of the main Trump administration officials caught in the crosshairs of last month’s “Signalgate” group chat controversy, which saw sensitive military information about the United States’ attack plans on the Yemen-based Houthi terrorists inexplicably delivered to the editor in chief of the Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg. The contents of the leaked chat revealed a Trump administration that is internally divided on matters of foreign policy — in particular as it pertains to Iran and its regional proxies, such as the Houthis. Iran doves and anti-Israel provocateurs tendentiously seized the opportunity to attempt to excise a convenient “hawkish” scalp — whether that be Hegseth or national security advisor Michael Waltz. But both Hegseth and Waltz kept their jobs.

Since Signalgate, there have been two additional Hegseth-related developments. Last Sunday, the New York Times reported that Hegseth had shared sensitive information about the Houthi attack plans in a second group chat that included his wife and his brother, among others. Hegseth admitted to this second chat’s existence but claimed no harm was done. Around the same time, three high-ranking Department of Defense officials — Deputy Chief of Staff Darin Selnick, longtime Hegseth friend and confidante Dan Caldwell and the chief of staff to the deputy defense secretary, Colin Carroll — were first placed on leave, and then fired, amid an ongoing Pentagon leak investigation.

The cashiering of Caldwell is notable because of his relationship with Hegseth. The dismissal suggests that Hegseth is committed to leaving no stone unturned and is willing to go scorched-earth on onetime allies if need be, to regain operational control of his leak-addled Pentagon. But the reaction to the firings, and Caldwell’s immediate conduct afterward, are highly telling. What the Pentagon firings aftermath reveals, in short, is the same thing last month’s original leaked Signal chat revealed: a Trump administration deeply divided on issues of foreign policy, especially pertaining to Iran.

Caldwell, who has worked for various isolationist outfits, is an Iran dove. In the earliest days of the Biden administration, Caldwell even went so far as to praise Robert Malley — Biden’s execrable choice for special envoy to Iran, and previously the chief American negotiator for President Obama’s 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Shortly after being fired from the Pentagon, Caldwell promptly went on the popular show of the nation’s best-known Iran dove, Tucker Carlson — a man who just referred to Iran hawks as “enemies” of the United States — to tell his side of the story. Caldwell’s narrative was pure victimhood: He argued that his Pentagon tenure threatened “established interests,” and he dismissed leak accusations. Given that his old ally Hegseth fired him and is now recommending he be prosecuted, Caldwell’s tale doesn’t pass the laugh test.

But the entire saga is illuminating.

One must wonder why many supposed allies of President Trump would decide to capitalize on the reporting from the New York Times and try to throw Hegseth under the bus at a vulnerable moment. Shouldn’t “allies” have followed the lead of Vice President JD Vance and Trump himself and defended Hegseth to the hilt? Curt Mills of the magazine the American Conservative said the quiet part out loud: “The reality is operational — Hegseth is just not up to this.”

In other words, the Hegseth smear campaign continues, but now it takes on a different hue: The target this time is all Iran hawks.

The backdrop for all this high drama, adding yet another twist to this elaborate puzzle, is the administration’s ongoing Iran nuclear negotiations, which are led by Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff. Those negotiations will resume this weekend in Oman. Witkoff is a billionaire real estate investor with no particular knowledge of the Middle East. In 2023, Witkoff sold his Park Lane Hotel in New York City to the Qatar Investment Authority for $623 million, and perhaps not coincidentally, in January 2025 he went on TV to praise Qatar for “doing God’s work.” In the Carlson interview, Caldwell referred to Witkoff as a “godsend,” and Carlson hailed him as an “instrument of peace.” Carlson, notably, recently hosted the prime minister of Qatar and praised him for seeking to stop military action against Qatar’s ally and trade partner, Iran.

One starts to see what is really going on here.

The good news is that Trump himself is clear-eyed on matters pertaining to Iran. So too, it seems, is his secretary of Defense. One must thus conclude that Hegseth’s detractors are expressing frustration that the president is not as Iran-curious as they are. That would explain why certain purported administration “allies” are yet again attempting to destroy Pete Hegseth.

Josh Hammer’s latest book is “Israel and Civilization: The Fate of the Jewish Nation and the Destiny of the West.” This article was produced in collaboration with Creators Syndicate. @josh_hammer

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An Indiana Joint Committee was discussing a sex education bill. There was concern because Republican State Senator Gary Byrne amended the bill to remove the part about teaching consent. To worsen the problem, he admitted that he made the decision arbitrarily, without consulting with any experts, and tried to kick the can down the road, claiming that it was a local control issue:

STATE REP ANDREA HUNLEY: What groups were consulted with in the removal of the section about consent? What groups?

STATE SEN GARY BYRNE: Nobody come to me as a decision that I made to not have it in there.

HUNLEY: And so, I’m confused though because your expertise is not in human sexuality instruction that I’m aware of. And so, I’m wondering, did you consult with any experts about whether or not this is suitable to be removed, especially in a state where right now it’s one in five or one in four of our teenage girls experience a sexual assault or sexual abuse or sexual harassment before they leave and leave high school. And so, I’m just wondering what experts were consulted with.

BYRNE: Yeah, so I appreciate your concerns. Again, this is a sensitive subject for many. I believe it may be different thoughts in different communities and this is what the bill does. It leaves for the most part local control on making those decisions and so that’s my response.

In another clip from Heartland Signal, State Rep Tonya Pfaff explained the importance of consent. Byrne agreed with what Pfaff said bur refused to budge and wouldn’t allow a uniform, statewide approach to the subject.

The fact of the matter is that it’s not a local issue. Byrne is using that lame excuse for kicking the can down the road and trying to weasel taking a firm anti-rape stance. Rape and sexual harassment has been part of the GOP culture for decades. By far, the clearest example is the man they voted to be president. They praised a man who was legally adjudicated to having raped a woman, who openly bragged about sexually assaulting women and who was repeatedly pictured with known sex traffickers and even considered one to be the nation’s top cop. But the part just blew it all off as no big deal.

As they say, it’s not a bug, it’s a feature with the GOP.

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Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers issued a memo to state staff on what they should do if they encounter ICE agents. It’s pretty standard language and is based on advice from the National Immigration Law Center:

However, MAGA Rep Toxic Tom Tiffany got his undies in a bundle over it and started running around like the proverbial Chicken Little, crying to every right wing radio squawker he could find that would give him the time of day and xitting all over himself on the dead bird app. Tiffany even went as far as threatening to tell Attorney General Pam Blondie. GOP Chair Brian Schimming, who is still hurting from losing yet another supreme court race, wasn’t any more mature:

U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, who represents northern Wisconsin and is considering a run for governor in 2026, said the memo amounts to “ordering state employees to block ICE from doing their job.”

“Wisconsin deserves better,” Tiffany posted on X. He copied U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi on his message.

Wisconsin Republican Party Chairman Brian Schimming called it an order to “impede justice.”

“This blatant defiance of law and order, in direct opposition to the Trump administration’s focus on public safety, puts our communities, families, and children at risk,” Schimming said in a statement.

A lot of Tiffany’s melodramatics can be explained by the fact that he wants to run for governor. Even though he got screamed at at his last town hall meeting, he still hasn’t figured out that people are pissed off at the MAGA bullshit already.

But all the tantrums are typical for MAGA these days. They’re basically bullies. And bullies are cowards at heart, trying to make it throught life with a lot of bluster and empty threats. But the minute they receive and resistance and any push back, they go running and crying.for momma or big brother to protect them, but they’re nothing but bluster and bloviation as well.

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Another day, another WTF moment starring Pete Hegseth, U.S. Secretary of Defense.
Call to Activism tweeted:

“Pete Hegseth just said he will examine the promotion of ‘fat’ people to
leadership positions in the military and seek to stop them.”

Signalgate Part Two, DOD Make Up Studio

As Secretary of Defense, Hegseth is taking on the day’s important issues. The former Fox News host turns his MAGA wrath on overweight members of the military while blaming the media after his second Signalgate scandal.

It seems like a ‘Veep’ episode, but the United States Secretary of Defense wants a makeup studio in the Pentagon. CBS News reported Hegseth “ordered a makeup studio that can be used to prepare for television appearances.”

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The DoJ has canceled hundreds of ongoing grants that funded everything from services for mental health care for police officers (oh well, who needs that?), to support programs for victims of crime and sexual assault, so that the Trump administration can give MASSIVE tax breaks to billionaires. Via Reuters:

At least 365 grants from the Office of Justice Programs, the department’s largest grant-making arm, were terminated late on Tuesday, said two of the people, who were granted anonymity to discuss details that have not been made public.

In fiscal year 2023, that office collectively awarded $4.4 billion in funding, according to the Justice Department’s website.

Among the programs that are being targeted include grants that supported victims of crime, including some specialized for transgender victims, hotlines used by crime victims, human trafficking grants awarded to organizations that work with immigrants and refugees, programs to curb juvenile delinquency and safeguard incarcerated youth, and funding to help state-run hate crime reporting, according to a partial list of terminated grants seen by Reuters.

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GOP Rep. Austin Scott gave away the game during an interview on Fox Business Network this Monday, while pretending their plan won’t end up causing people to lose coverage.

Here’s the exchange with Scott and Mornings with Maria guest host Cheryl Casone:

CASONE: So Congressman, the White House seems very confident they’re going to get this one big beautiful bill despite a lot of different comments coming from some of your colleagues in the House.

SCOTT: Yeah, well, let’s talk about what, Medicaid and FMAP is, and the intentional confusion here from the, from the left.

So, FMAP is the federal medical assistance percentage, and it ranges from 50 percent in the country to 76.9 percent.

Now when the, when the Dems expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, they made that percentage match 90/10, so the federal government is paying 90 percent of the Medicaid expansion.

And so what we have talked about is moving that 90 percent level of the expansion back towards the more traditional levels of 50 to approximately 80 percent, instead instead of the 90/10, 90 percent being federal, 10 being being state match.

That that’s what we’ve talked about and nobody would be kicked off of Medicaid as long as the Governors decided that they wanted to continue to fund the program.

And so we, we are going to ask the states to pick up and pay some additional percentage of the Medicaid percentage, more than the 10 percent, and it’s amazing.

You would think that these liberal governors around the country would be be champing at the bit, and offering to pay more than than 10 percent if they thought the program was important.

But we, we have talked about changing that formula and Medicaid expansion that the Democrats did, which is 90 percent fed, 10 percent state, to more closely align with what the traditional match is, which ranges between 50 percent for wealthy states and about 75 percent for some of the lower income states.

CASONE: No, and I appreciate the clarification because you know when you hear that that Medicaid is being targeted, in a general sense, I agree with you that we need to, so thank you for telling us that those discussions are actually underway.

SCOTT: Medicare, they’ve said Social Security, those are both boldfaced lies and now, and now they’re absolutely misrepresenting the Medicaid scenario.

We are going to ask the states to pay a larger percentage of the Medicaid.

Marin Scotten at The New Republic explained what this will mean for the states:

House Republicans are trying to drastically cut Medicaid coverage and blame it all on the states.

When Democrats expanded Medicaid coverage under President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act to include adults with incomes of up to 138 percent of the poverty level, states that implemented the expansion received a 90 percent federal medical assistance percentage, or FMAP, from the federal government. That means the federal government covers 90 percent of the costs for those enrolled in the ACA expansion, and the state covers 10 percent.

The GOP wants to drastically decrease the federal match rate for the ACA expansion and shift more financial responsibility to states, Republican Representative Austin Scott told Fox Business Tuesday. […]

The cut would be devastating to the 20 million Americans who currently rely on the expansion for health insurance coverage—many of whom reside in red states—and would leave some 40 states that have adopted the ACA expansion to fend for themselves with their limited budgets. […]

According to an analysis from the health nonprofit KFF, if states had to pay a higher match-rate percentage, many would likely abandon the ACA program altogether, resulting in millions of lost coverage for low-income Americans. Twelve states currently have laws in place that would end the expansion immediately or require immediate changes if the federal match rate were to drop, KFF pointed out.

Here’s more from the article at KFF:

What are the potential impacts on Medicaid spending and enrollment?

This analysis does not make assumptions about specific state behavioral responses and instead examines the impact of eliminating the ACA expansion match rate under two scenarios. These scenarios are designed to illustrate the range of potential policy change effects; in practice, each state may respond to the policy change differently. While some states may choose to continue ACA Medicaid expansion coverage with substantially reduced federal funding, many likely would not given the extra spending that would be required. The analysis also excludes secondary effects such as people who lose coverage through the Medicaid expansion enrolling in Medicaid under other eligibility pathways or enrolling in private health coverage. The estimates presented here are not directly comparable to the estimates of federal savings from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) because CBO’s estimates account for assumptions about state behavioral responses and other secondary effects.

• Scenario 1: All expansion states pick up new expansion costs. Expansion enrollment and total spending would remain constant while costs shift from the federal government to the states.
• Scenario 2: All states drop the ACA Medicaid expansion, resulting in changes to enrollment as well as total, federal, and state spending.

Eliminating the enhanced FMAP for adults in the Medicaid expansion could reduce Medicaid spending by nearly one-fifth ($1.9 trillion) over a 10-year period and up to nearly a quarter of all Medicaid enrollees (20 million people) could lose coverage. Under scenario 1, federal Medicaid spending would decrease by $626 billion or 10% across all states over the 10-year period, with the federal government providing matching funds at the standard rate rather than 90%. If all states picked up those costs and retained the Medicaid expansion, that would mean an additional $626 billion in state spending or a 17% increase in state spending across all states over the 10-year period. Under scenario 2, all state and federal financial support for Medicaid expansion is withdrawn, resulting in a $1.7 trillion dollar or 25% cut to federal Medicaid spending and a $186 billion dollar or 5% cut to state Medicaid spending across all states, including non-expansion. Combined, Medicaid spending would decrease by 18% or $1.9 trillion over the 10-year period. The cuts are even larger when looking among expansion states alone, resulting in a 31% decline in federal spending, a 6% decline in state spending, and a 22% decline in total spending. Under this scenario, an estimated 20 million Medicaid enrollees eligible through expansion would lose coverage, decreasing total Medicaid enrollment by 24% (by year 10).

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Paula White, Trump’s White House Faith Office, told Real America’s Voice that a wife must submit to their husband’s decisions and agree to do whatever they decide.

Trump signed another executive order to ‘bring religion back into America’ and recreated the Faith Office initially brought into the White House by George W. Bush.

White, a televangelist, told her views about women to Steve Gruber, another religious fanatic who claims there’s a migration back to churches by men.

This is the way for women in the MAGA evangelical base.

WHITE: Men are the fastest returning to church.

GRUBER: She’s saying there again, men? We need more fathers more husbands, more real men.

WHITE: Absolutely, you know I just… I am — they are becoming the bedrock, which is how God designed it.

GRUBER: It has to be that way. But real men. Men, stand up and stand up for their wives, for their families, for their churches, for their communities.

Steve, preach! You’re preaching because God has an order. Now God in his Grace — look, the head of my household is my husband, Jonathan King, period.

And we have a loving amazing relationship, but if there’s ever a time that a decision has to be made, and we don’t agree on something, he’s the head. It’s not hard to submit. People were like, ‘Well, how could you have pastored or how could you have done this and stuff by default because two men failed? And I was sent under spiritual authority to carry a load which is very hard because at heart, I’m an evangelist I’m an evangelist. I’m a Bible teacher.

The Daily Beast reports that White has been criticized by many MAGATs as “a heretic” for preaching the “prosperity theology,” which teaches that God rewards the truly faithful with material wealth and personal success.”

She’s also been divorced several times. I guess she only submits when she’s televangelizing.

Another kook appointed to Trump’s administration.

And churches of all denominations are in decline, especially for women.

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Fox News political analyst Brit Hume tells viewers that Trump is pushing Ukraine to accept a surrender to Russia as a peace deal and sees Putin as being the person who is hard to deal with.

Special Report host Bret Baier began by playing video of Trump bashing President Zelensky as being hard to deal with.

Hume became the arbiter of honesty on Fox News.

HUME: Well, you know, he keeps pounding Zelensky and saying it’s harder to deal with him than it is with Putin.

Putin, so far as I can tell, hasn’t agreed to much of anything, except, yes, he’d love to annex Crimea, which is part of the proposal that’s before him now.

That’s no concession.

That’s just, all that is, is taking a gain.

Zelensky resists that because Crimea, up until the Russians invaded it 10 years or so ago, was part of Ukraine.

So I’m not exactly sure what the president is talking about when he says that Zelensky has been more difficult to deal with than Putin.

You know, there have been a series of ceasefire proposals.

Putin either hasn’t agreed to them or has immediately broken them.

I’m not sure what concessions Putin will ever be willing to make, but he certainly hasn’t made very many so far.

The amount of concessions Ukraine has to make in Trump’s peace deal is a complete surrender to Russia.

Meanwhile, the concessions Russia has supposedly agreed to are meaningless.

The only time Trump makes believe he’s angry with Putin is on one of his meaningless TS posts that are tame compared to his constant berating of Zelensky.

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Donald Trump’s AI press secretary told the media that he’s frustrated by the Ukraine president because he is litigating the peace deal in the press.

That something Trump does every day.

the US putting forth a Russian stamp of approval surrender deal is not what Pres. Zelensky or the Ukrainian people have in mind after suffering from Vladimir Putin’s reign of murder.

LEAVITT: And in order to make a good deal, both sides have to walk away a little bit unhappy.

And unfortunately, President Zelensky has been trying to litigate this peace negotiation in the press.

And that’s unacceptable to the president.

These should be closed-door negotiations. The president’s national security team, his advisors, have exuded significant time, energy, and effort to try to bring this war to an end.

The American taxpayer has funded billions of dollars in this effort.

And enough is enough.

The president’s frustrated, his patience is running very thin.

He wants to do what’s right for the world.

He wants to see peace.

He wants to see the killing stopped.

But you need both sides of the war willing to do that.

And unfortunately, President Zelensky seems to be moving in the wrong direction.

Trump wants to give Putin the keys to Ukraine in exchange for Russia to stop murdering civilian. And it’s Putin who is violating even the most basic tenets of any “peace deal.”

Putin’s puppet is very loud today.

Critics want to know: What does Putin have on Trump?