Pete Hegseth just lost a key confirmation vote
Whenever a controversial and/or unqualified Trump nominee is in front of the Senate, it always comes down to a handful of Republican Senators. Getting to fifty votes requires the support of the usual fence-sitters like Murkowski, Collins, and so on. Once a few of them turned against Matt Gaetz, he saw he wasn’t going to be confirmed and had to withdraw. Now Pete Hegseth has lost a key vote as well.
Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski announced today that she can’t support Hegseth’s nomination. Thus far she’s the only Republican to do so. But the fact that she’s doing it publicly, before Hegseth can even get to his public hearings, seems like a big deal. Murkowski is, in effect, trying to kill the nomination before such hearings happen.
Now we wait to see if any other Republican Senators follow in Murkowski’s tracks. Remember, all it takes is a handful of them, and there will no longer be a path to fifty votes. So let’s keep amplifying Hegseth’s scandals and lack of qualifications and keep ramping up the pressure. This is a battle worth fighting, both because stopping Hegseth would be crucial to the sanctity of our military, and because it would be a huge blow to Donald Trump.
