Trump’s National Security Wrecking Crew

Some in the media ridiculously speculated that perhaps Donald Trump would opt to make his second term more "normal;" so as to cement his legacy.  This fantasy ignored (i) that Trump is a malignant narcist set on revenge for real or imagined slights, and (ii) that Trump is, in my view, a Russian asset only too happy to weaken America to further Vladimir Putin's goals.   Some of Trump's cabinet nominees certainly appear to be in line with the latter and one columnist described the situation as "Trump does not so much assemble a Cabinet as cast a reality show." Living in an area with a large military presence, one has to wonder what an assault on the military leadership will do to morale and recruitment, not that Trump and/or Pete Hegseth, nominee for defense secretary, seem to care. Ditto for Tulsi Gabbard as nominee for director of national intelligence.  Putin and America's adversaries must be celebrating while allies are shuddering at what appears to be a deliberate weakening of America and sowing of chaos.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at Trump's wrecking crew: 

American voters gave Donald Trump a solid win on Election Day. But they didn’t give him a wrecking ball to destroy the country’s military and intelligence agencies.

That’s what’s so scary about Trump’s nominations of Pete Hegseth and Tulsi Gabbard as secretary of defense and director of national intelligence, respectively. Neither is remotely qualified for two of the most important management jobs in government. They’re polemicists and ideologues — wreckers, to be blunt, rather than builders. If confirmed, they would do more to doom Trump’s presidency than Democrats ever could.

Trump is a disrupter, and this latest set of nominations (including Matt Gaetz for attorney general) has shown that he hopes to overturn what he imagines as the “deep state.” Trump’s bark was worse than his bite during his first term. But now he is gathering a war cabinet for what seems to be a serious assault on the leadership of the military and the intelligence community.

Hegseth’s nomination is especially dangerous. On Fox News, he has made a career out of denouncing the senior military leaders he would direct as defense secretary. His recent book, “The War on Warriors,” includes personal attacks on Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Adm. Lisa Franchetti, chief of naval operations. He smears them, in effect, as diversity hires.

He describes what he regards as the current military ethos with an imaginary call to arms, “We will not stop until trans-lesbian black females run everything!” This is crazy nonsense.

Hegseth won’t be running a Fox talk show if he’s confirmed. He will have absolute power to fire any general officer who doesn’t meet Trump’s political standards. The Wall Street Journal reports that the transition team is already drafting an executive order for a “warrior board” to recommend generals and admirals for dismissal. A Journal editorial Thursday sounded the right warning: “The military isn’t Mr. Trump’s enemy, and a purge mentality will court political trouble and demoralize the ranks.”

Trump started off with reasonable enough nominees for his national security team. Sen. Marco Rubio and Rep. Michael Waltz, both of Florida, are solid choices for secretary of state and national security adviser. Both have worked with Democrats on defense and intelligence issues, and neither would send America’s allies and partners rushing for the exits.

Rubio, like most Republicans, has been swept up in the Trump tornado. But he worked effectively as vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee with Chairman Mark R. Warner (D-Virginia) And in private, he’s said to be a solid supporter of Ukraine’s struggle to resist Russia’s invasion. It’s a mark of Rubio’s good sense that the MAGA right reportedly wants to derail his nomination.

Waltz is a surprise choice but not a terrible one. With his service as an Army Green Beret in Iraq and Afghanistan and four Bronze Stars, he has “a high degree of respect within the SOF community,” a former head of Special Operations Command told me. During three terms as a Florida congressman, he was more than a MAGA mouthpiece, working across the aisle on some issues.

But as national security adviser, Waltz will have a vastly greater challenge. This job involves coordinating the immense overt and covert powers of the U.S. government — the “interagency” — to frame and achieve our foreign policy goals. . . . . Let’s hope Waltz is a fast learner, with a good staff.

John Ratcliffe, Trump’s choice for CIA director, won’t arrive with a meat cleaver, either. He was deferential to Trump when he served as director of national intelligence in 2020, but he didn’t undermine the 18 agencies he supervised. Ratcliffe’s biggest problem will be stemming a rush to the exits of senior CIA officers who are telling colleagues they can’t stomach four more years of serving Trump — and sustaining liaison relationships with foreign intelligence partners who are wondering whether America is a trustworthy ally.

Gabbard is a bizarre choice for DNI. This ought to be a job for an intelligence professional with enough experience to review the budgets and priorities of an intelligence community that, frankly, is too big and barely manageable. At a minimum, you’d expect any prospective DNI to have a record of standing firm against America’s adversaries.

Not Gabbard. She visited Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in 2017, said she was “skeptical” of the deeply documented evidence that Assad used chemical weapons on his people, and later claimed it was an “undeniable fact” that America funded biological weapons labs in Ukraine, even though critics said she was parroting Kremlin propaganda.

Trump doesn’t want war — except, perhaps, when it comes to China and Iran. Most of his appointees, the good, bad and ugly, have hawkish views about Beijing and Tehran. Those countries are in the firing line. But tragically, so are U.S. military and intelligence officers. That can’t be what voters wanted on Nov. 5. It’s up to the Senate to prevent it by denying confirmation of Hegseth and Gabbard.