All the President's Nominees

Congress talks UFOs. Ukraine war ending? Pentagon waste. Your weekly roundup

Trump, Tulsi and RFK watching a UFC fight on Saturday

DC is at DEFCON 1. Donald Trump is delivering on his campaign promise to go to war with Washington and the “Deep State” this week as he announced his madcap administration. Never has a president-elect’s nominees triggered as much surprise, disgust and outrage. I think his picks are crazy. But the major media coverage seems petulant and petty, focusing on their lack of “qualifications” — as if those prevented the last 20 years of national security appointees from running U.S. foreign policy into the ground.

Head of the bitter hawk hysterics is former Trump national security advisor John Bolton. He called Trump’s pick for Attorney General, Matt Gaetz, “the worst nomination for a cabinet position in American history.” Palm Beach State Attorney Dave Aaronberg went even further, telling MSNBC that a friend said the Gaetz pick was “the worst thing that’s ever happened to the country.” Lol, come on.

But what do these nominees actually mean for national security policy? Let’s take a look at the top three on one major issue, the Ukraine war:

• Mike Waltz — National Security Advisor

  • The former Green Beret turned Florida congressman has criticized the Biden administration’s “as long as it takes” policy in Ukraine as “a slogan, not a strategy.” He’s not wrong here! Trump has said that as president, he would end the war “on day one.” Ignoring the ridiculous bombast for a moment, if Waltz meant what he said, we’ll likely see a 180-degree change in U.S. policy on the Ukraine war. And with the stalemated war nearing its third year, that’s a good thing.

• Tulsi Gabbard — Director of National Intelligence

  • An Army reserve officer and former Democratic congresswoman, Gabbard has expressed sympathy for what she calls “Russia’s legitimate security concerns regarding Ukraine’s becoming a member of NATO.” She also says the conflict has brought us to “the brink of World War III.” Hmm, I wonder if she’d support a negotiated end to the Ukraine war! 

• Pete Hegseth — Secretary of Defense

  • A military veteran and Fox News host, Hetgseth has been critical of U.S. military aid to Ukraine. Hegseth had said that the U.S. “burned two decades of money in Afghanistan and Iraq” and is “tempted to do it again” in Ukraine. He has also defended Trump’s remarks just prior to the Ukraine war calling Putin’s actions “genius” and “wonderful.” Not hard to guess where he stands on the war, either.

Rubio, Stefanick and Ratcliffe are too predictable to even merit discussion. Trump’s other picks’ skepticism of the Ukraine war, however, will be an interesting test of whether he’ll deliver on his mandate.

One of the few things all of Trump’s nominees seem to broadly agree on is the necessity of a new cold war with China, a nice little consolation prize for the aggrieved national security establishment.

Biden allows Ukraine to use U.S. missiles inside Russia. This is the latest in a string of last-minute decisions by the White House. The Biden administration is also rushing $7.1 billion in U.S. military aid to Ukraine before Trump’s inauguration, while allowing U.S. defense contractors in Ukraine to maintain American-provided weapons. “We will continue to surge security assistance to Ukraine and provide its forces the support they need for success on the battlefield,” Blinken announced right before the election.

Blinken also says that “One of the reasons that Russia is turning to these North Korean troops is that it’s desperate. Putin has been throwing more and more Russians into a meat grinder of his own making in Ukraine.” Does the Biden administration see some breaking point on the ground? Or is it an attempt to tie Trump’s hands in any negotiations with Putin?

Congress wants to believe, judging from the number of times extraterrestrial UFOs came up at a hearing on Wednesday, that we are not alone. On Thursday, the Pentagon released its annual report on UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon). The report provides an account that’s a little more down to earth, concluding that there was “no evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity, or technology.” But some in Congress think otherwise and said as much in comments that are so insane they need to be seen to be believed. Here are some of the funniest.

• Here’s Rep. Anna Paulina Luna asking about “transdimensional beings”:

• Then there’s Rep. Clay Higgins inquiring about “alien craft” and “UFO”:

• And Rep. Lauren Boebert with this doozy about Pentagon-funded cyborgs “involving the manipulation of human genetics with…non human genetic material, potentially for the enhancement of human capabilities, hybrids”:

Shoutout to the American taxpayer for funding this hearing.

Pentagon fails 7th audit in a row, yet insists it "has turned a corner in its understanding of the depth and breadth of its challenges" and that "momentum is on our side" to eventually pass one. Last year, it failed its 6th consecutive audit, the Pentagon offered an equally sunny interpretation, pointing to ‘progress sort of beneath the surface of a pass-fail..." They can’t account for only some $2 trillion dollars, so who really cares?

Meanwhile, the Washington consensus seems to be that defense spending will have to increase to take on China. What’s another trillion between friends?

Leaker of U.S. intelligence on Israel’s plan to strike Iran has allegedly been caught by the FBI. This newsletter was the only media outlet to have published those intelligence reports (review them here.) At the time there was speculation in the major media that Iran might have hacked the documents, which shows you how uninformed national security reporting is. The system on which top secret documents are stored is air gapped, meaning it isn’t online and therefore cannot be hacked from the outside by definition.

As I reported from the start, the leaker is an American, the Justice Department says, a member of the U.S. intelligence community named Asif W. Rahman who worked for the CIA. Good thing we pay the “Insider Threat” people billions to stop such things. Of course no one in the security apparatus was fired or will be.

U.S. intelligence partners with a charter school in Texas, introducing high school students to “intelligence officers who…make national security decisions [and] understand the intentions of U.S. adversaries and bad actors around the world.” I’m not saying there’s anything sinister going on here, but it’s getting ridiculous how many corners of American civic life the national security state has crept into. Does the CIA really need its own DARE program? 

U.S. special operations forces are in over 80 countries, the secretive U.S. Special Operations Command said in rare acknowledgement. (Our sources tell us it’s closer to 120 countries.) People rightly criticize our “forever” wars but what about our everywhere wars?

— Edited by William M. Arkin