to understand where we are.

Vital context for what happened today at the confirmation hearing for a very different person.

A man named Pete Heggseth, who went before the Senate Armed Services Committee today.

Fox News Weekend host Pete Heggseth, to put it mildly, is no Jim Mattis.

No, not even by Trump standards. If anything, the through line of Trump's picks to lead the petting on from General Jim Mattis to Mark Esper to Pete Hegseth represents and perfectly encapsulates the complete erosion of standards that ironically Pete Hegseth likes to complain about.

And I think this is a new low. This is our new normal. But I also think the Democrats failed to

score any knockout blows. They beat them up a little bit. Cain was effective. Jillibran was

effective. But a lot of it missed. And right now, Hegset is in

good standing. But we've got a couple days left. And I think in 2025, we have to be ready for

anything to come out because the FBI report was not comprehensive. Didn't talk to his two ex-wives,

didn't talk to his accuser. And I think now comes that moment where there's kind of a race between the vote and whether or not anything else or anyone else will come out.

Is it sustainable, though, to have only one party care?

No. No. And this is the most important position in my view in the cabinet. And that's why Trump is leading with it.

He knows that if he can take the Pentagon and he can shift culture there and he can block the guardrails and put his loyalists in, then everything else becomes easy.

So it's obviously a defining point for the Republicans and for the Democrats.

But I think for kind of two years, we've been holding our breath on both of them, and both of them have failed.

So this is a true crisis for our democracy and most urgently for our national

security. This nominee's sort of troubled past came in the opening statement by Senator Jack

Reid. The military veteran himself, been around Senate in a long time, very reasonable,

very objective, and it surfaced all the reasons why you could or should vote against this nomination.

And it's a provocative nomination.

By the way, not half as provocative as the incoming commander in chief.

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