On Tuesday afternoon following Pete Hegseth’s five-hour-and-15-minute-long confirmation hearing to lead the Pentagon, CNN immediately made clear it was not having a good time, continuing to peddle the alcoholism and tattoo conspiracy theories about the “Kavanaugh-esque” Hegseth, suggested he was in over his head, and Democratic senators asked apt and thorough questions.
The best reaction came at the very end of their special coverage, courtesy of Deep State flack Natasha Bertrand. As the then-Politico reporter who infamously promoted the infamous letter by intelligence officials falsely claiming the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation, her sense of fear for her sources was perhaps most welcome endorsement Hegseth supporters could want (click “expand”):
Deep State mouthpiece Natasha Bertrand of CNN -- who authored the Politico piece of Deep State officials saying the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation -- melts down over Pete Hegseth's hearing, saying "career civil servants" she knows at the Pentagon are terrified.… pic.twitter.com/Pj5mRwnnDX
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) January 14, 2025
BASH: I want our viewers to listen once again to some of the exchange that the new senator from Michigan, Elissa Slotkin, who is a military veteran who is a veteran of the CIA, had with him about some of the questions regarding what he views his role as when and if his boss, the president, asks him to do things that a U.S. military, active duty U.S. military should not do in the U.S.
[SLOTKIN VS. HEGSETH CLIP]
BERTRAND: This, to me, was probably one of the most, if not the most moments of the — most important moments of this hearing because this when you’re talking to people inside the Pentagon right now, these career civil servants, these people who have been serving for decades in the military, this is what they’re worried about. This is what they’re talking about is how is the U.S. military under Donald Trump and his second term, knowing perhaps, that he doesn’t have to face another election is how is he going to be using the military at home? That is one of the most, you know, prescient topics on people’s minds right now and he did not really explain how he would push back against perhaps using active duty troops for law enforcement, for example. He was asked if President Trump were to tell you to send the 82nd Airborne Division for domestic law enforcement at the border or for law enforcement on the streets in cities to quell protests? Again, he referred to it as a hypothetical, and he really would not necessarily not necessarily go there other than to say that he basically rejects the premise that Donald Trump would order anything illegal. So, this is one of the things that the we have reported that the military is spending some time now actually discussing informally in conversations amongst themselves at the Pentagon. What are we going to do and how are we going to respond if we see that the President, you know, orders us to send these active duty troops to the border in capacities other than, for example, administrative functions, which that has precedent? Law enforcement functions? It really doesn’t. And so, it’s weighing very heavily on them. And then, you know, I think also the conversation about purging generals and purging flag officers from the military, particularly when it comes to C.Q. Brown. Again, you know, he said that he was going to review all, every single senior officer is going to be reviewed to determine whether or not they have a place really in the military. Now. I mean, talk about politicization of the military, talking about political bias. I mean, that is something that people are going to be very concerned about. Look, we have been — there are 800 flag officers in the military. Are our political views now that we hold personally or privately going to be subject to a review or some kind of vetting by the incoming secretary of defense? That’s traditionally not the way that the military has worked, obviously. So just a lot here. I think that, again, because there was only one round of questioning, they weren’t really able to delve much into.
Back at the beginning, Inside Politics and State of the Union host Dana Bash anchored the special coverage, first gushing over Hegseth having been “under the spotlight and being really peppered” with “very heated questions from Democrats” and whined that, by his very selection, the hearing was a “pretty partisan showing for a role that has not always been that way.”
Bash listed the litany of conspiracy theories and smears:
But Pete Hegseth has been under it, under the spotlight and being really peppered on questions about everything from his view of women in combat, particularly based on what he has said in the past, his personal experience with alleged drinking, drinking too much on the job. We’ll get into that alleged sexual assault, which he denied again, questions about him recommending to Donald Trump pardoning convicted war criminals, a tattoo that he has that has been suggested that is associated with extremist groups, which again, he denied and really important questions about how he sees a job as secretary of defense vis-a-vis the commander in chief, particularly that commander in chief being Donald Trump.
Former conservative journalist-turned-liberal news anchor Kaitlan Collins declared Hegseth’s support manufactured (“clearly engineered”) because of the “large round of applause” when he entered the room and seats “filled with Donald Trump’s Republican allies on Capitol Hill” and “different organizations supporting Mr. Hegseth and people from, you know, the MAGA media orbit there to support him.”
Collins also praised the “aggressive questioning from these Democratic senators, in particular, Senator Tim Kaine himself really was drilling down on those allegations against Pete Hegseth,” which conservative Scott Jennings noted in the next hour sounded more like Kaine being a “sex pervert.”
CNN hall monitor Manu Raju was also part of the crew, comparing Hegseth to John Tower and repeatedly harassing Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Rodger Wicker (R-MS) about needing to “respond to the criticism that the FBI background check was incomplete and did not interview enough of these accusers from decades past.”
Bash went next to Pentagon correspondent Oren Liebermann, griping about Hegseth’s views of “LGBTQ members of the military” and that “[w]e heard a lot of Republicans talking about DEI in the ranks.”
In contrast, she huffed that questions by Democrats “about specific roles, specific treaties, for example, like ASEAN and coalitions, international coalitions that he will have to lead the U.S. on” didn’t result in “satisfactory answers.”
Liebermann similarly scoffed at Hegseth as a novice given “his lack of experience” having been “very much on full display,” but fretted this “broke down on partisan lines” even though Democrats were “effectively appalled by” Hegseth’s knowledge.
Without naming them, Liebermann seemed to cheer tantrums by Democrat Senators Tammy Duckworth (IL), Mark Kelly (AZ), and Elisa Slotkin (MI) and praised Elizabeth Warren (MA) by name (click “expand”):
[H]e was asked about three international security agreements that are sort of a bedrock of how the U.S. operates internationally. He couldn’t name them. He tried to say NATO, but a Democratic senator shut him down there and one is a status of forces agreement, which allows U.S. service members to operate in other countries. They effectively set a series of rules and regulations by which U.S. service members can be in that country. And he wasn’t able to name that. The Democratic senator there pointed out that it was an example of his lack of experience. He may have led to non-profits, but he hasn’t come anywhere close to leading an organization of this magnitude with this reach, with this power. So, that was one example of that point. He has also openly advocated including, I believe, in his recent book, The War on Warriors, for the firing of General C.Q. Brown. When he was asked fairly close to the end of the hearing if he would advocate for that or try to make that happen if and when he’s confirmed, he effectively tried to go back to something — a point he made repeatedly is that his goal was to get it back to a meritocracy, where officers are promoted based on merit and their qualifications, so he didn’t answer the question of whether he would try to fire the top U.S. general, an officer he has repeatedly said — or accused of — of perceived wokeness. To the point you made right at the beginning here on the status of women in combat, roles, that took up a big portion of the beginning of the hearing. He has advocated and said women should be barred from combat roles. He showed a bit of contrition when he was first asked about that, saying instead that he supports all people of all genders and all races being able to serve in roles and it’s just a question of whether you’re truly qualified and have the abilities to do that role. And yet, it is no surprise, Dana, that he was repeatedly attacked on that for his previous statements. It was Senator Elizabeth Warren who pointed out that it’s been about 30 days since he last argued for barring women from combat roles, and he seems to have had quite the transformation here. I think she called it a nomination conversion.
Bash then dropped the line alluding to a Supreme Court Justice and their 2018 confirmation battle:
BASH: The Hegseth allies, Hegseth himself — they were very strategic, of course, led by, I’m sure, Donald Trump and his aides to wage political — aggressive, political campaigns to get Republicans who were on the fence to give Hegseth another chance...[I]t was so clear that he gets it that he understands what the drill is when it comes to working for Donald Trump, communicating for and to Donald Trump. I mean, there was almost a Kavanaugh-esque approach to this hearing in that instead of being totally deferential to the Senate confirmation process, he pushed back and pushed back hard on a lot of the Democrats.
COLLINS: Yeah, Justice Kavanaugh might argue those allegations are very different. But, Dana, you make such a great point in terms of the effort and the kind of groundswell of support that was put behind Pete Hegseth going into this hearing, because you’re exactly right.
After Collins too praised Slotkin’s hypotheticals about whether Hegseth would obey illegal and un-American orders by Trump, national correspondent Jeff Zeleny provided the only sort of reality check (until Jennings came along) in saying, while he disliked only one round of questioning, the hearing “made it easier to support Pete Hegseth” and for “someone who has never been in a confirmation hearing before, he actually handled himself pretty well.”
Dismissing Republican questions as “really simple...by and large,” he did applaud “some tough questions by Democrats,” which was “pretty extraordinary in and of itself.”
CNN This Morning host Kasie Hunt also came off as resigned to Hegseth succeeding since “the reality here is that most of Pete Hegseth confirmation process was probably asked and answered last year before we ever got to this point” as he weathered the (media-concocted) firestorm.
Bash would soon go to Bertrand, but not before turning to CNN military analyst Col. Cedric Layton (Ret.) and kvetching about the “predictable sort of questions/comments from Republicans about DEI and about the kind of woke military — which is defined by different people based on where they come from and what they perceive as to be woke, but we also heard a lot of questions about specific points of view, about just world view and defense policy” that she conceded were also important.
Layton dismissed Hegseth as being qualified, citing an exchange about the Geneva Convention as proof he wouldn’t know how to legally and properly approve “rules of engagement for forces in combat, there needs to be an understanding of what the legal parameters are...so you need to combine what the operational mission is.”
And, for good measure, he also expressed dismay Hegseth did not spend enough time talking about...Ukraine.
To see the relevant CNN transcript from January 14, click here.
