'So nervous': Senator points out 'noticeable' reason defense sec is 'so afraid of Trump'

[justaprogressive]

On Wednesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee to answer questions about ongoing crises both in the U.S. and overseas. And he was particularly cagey with Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) when she asked him about whether he would obey an illegal order from President Donald Trump.

In her questioning, Slotkin brought up Trump's deployment of military personnel to quell the ongoing protests of the Trump administration's aggressive approach to immigration enforcement in Los Angeles, California. And when she asked Hegseth whether he would issue an order to harm unarmed protesters — or convey such an order from Trump to military leadership — after citing a passage from former Defense Secretary Mark Esper's book in which Trump suggested shooting protesters in the legs, the Pentagon chief demurred.

"Senator … be careful what you read in books, and believing it. Except for the Bible," Hegseth said.

During a recent segment on MSNBC's "Deadline: White House," host Nicolle Wallace pointed out that Hegseth seemed "so afraid of Trump" in his refusal to give a direct answer to Slotkin's questions. The Michigan senator agreed, adding that she has seen a similar pattern among other Trump appointees.

"A lot of these political appointees have been very concerned about doing anything that would anger [Trump] because they know they'd lose their job, right? They know they'd have their nomination pulled," she said. "And there's varying degrees of it. And for Secretary Hegseth, he has always been the most nervous, most concerned, most hedging, most agitated."

https://www.alternet.org/hegseth-afraid-trump/

[Starbeach]

1. Slotkin

is a great Dem addition to the Senate. Heg looked terrified.

[DoBW]

8. former CIA ...

somrething for him to think about

[CrispyQ]

2. Hegseth is so fucking vain.

He's so hollow, I feel like if I poked him with a pin he'd just deflate. Ditto for Noem. Neither one has any intelligence in their eyes.

[crazylikafox]

3. Does Trump pick people for these cabinet positions he can blackmail?

The idea of losing a job doesn’t seem to justify the level of fear we’re seeing in these guys

[haele]

4. He picked them because they looked "good" and talked like him.

He picked them because he is vain and wants to be the bestest object in the room.
"Look at all these good looking, successful people you see on TV who respect me!"
Doesn't matter if they're D-list celebrities, they're slick and pretty and popular in his world bubble.
I've seen eight year olds with more reality awareness.

[cloudbase]

5. As well as none of them voting to invoke the 25th amendment.

[Metaphorical]

6. I have absolutely no doubt that each of them has a FULL dossier

Trump does not trust anyone. Instead, he blackmails, bullies, extorts, and threatens. He puts incompetent people in positions of power so that they are utterly dependent upon him, meaning that they won't turn on him. Musk betrayed him, and it must burn inside his seedy little mind that Musk is effectively untouchable.

I think this is what a lot of people do not realize. Trump isn't sane anymore. He's paranoid, he's always been malevolent narcissist, and he's sociopathic, but in the past, he was lucid enough to keep that under control. People believe that they CAN control him, but he always confounds them, not because he's smart, but because he's not acting rationally anymore, and he's just as likely to lash out at people he perceives of as threats in his own circle as he is those of his imagined enemies. However, after 80 years, he's put enough of a machine together to keep everyone in line that it continues, even as he no longer controls it.

[PatSeg]

7. Especially considering that a lot of these

people don't need the job. They often were better off before becoming part of Trump's administration. I have little doubt that Trump has kompromat on quite a few of his loyal people and they fear a lot more than just being fired.

Lindsey Graham is a prime example. I'd wager that Trump definitely has dirt on Lindsey who used to be relatively normal.