Oh, here we go - it's the start of the 'who's going to pay the piper for getting our asses handed to us last night' game.
And since the media can't stand Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, and since his planes and boats and stuff are the ones whose bombs hit Iran, plus J.D. says Iran cost the Republicans the election, well...let's start with him!
Inquiring minds want to know if it's a good idea.
HEGSETH NEEDS TO GO!
President Trump has been asking advisers around him and on the phone whether Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth should stay in his job, following Republicans' losses Tuesday night, multiple sources familiar with the matter tell CBS News. Some White House aides have predicted some of the blame for GOP midterm losses will be trained on Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of U.S. Central Command, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, who both played big roles in guidance on Iran war. Read more: https://t.co/Lv17RnHC9F
— CBS News (@CBSNews) November 4, 2026
...following Republicans' losses Tuesday night, multiple sources familiar with the matter tell CBS News.
Some White House aides have predicted some of the blame for GOP midterm losses will be trained on Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of U.S. Central Command, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, who both played big roles in guidance on Iran war.
I'm curious who the 'White House aides' are running their gibs. They need to go...but that's neither here nor there.
Hegseth has been the object of ire since long before he was confirmed. Giving him his walking papers would make so many on the left so very happy, and the malcontents still deeply entrenched in the DOW ecstatic.
President Trump has been asking advisers around him and on the phone whether Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth should stay in his job, following Republicans' catastrophic losses Tuesday night, multiple sources familiar with the matter tell CBS News.
Some White House aides have predicted some of the blame for GOP midterm losses will be trained on Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of U.S. Central Command, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, who both played big roles in guidance on the Iran war.
Still, other sources said the president hasn't decided to replace Hegseth. Before the election, Democrats were already trying to impeach Hegseth, and the likelihood of an impeachment effort could increase with Democrats holding strong majorities in both chambers.
Vice President JD Vance is blaming the war for the GOP defeat. "The reason we lost is the war," he said in a lengthy post on X Wednesday morning.
The one thing I will agree with J.D. on is the effect of the war, and probably it was 80% of why most independents and many Republicans bailed last night.
And it wasn't just that gas costs too much, but that action against Iran, which most of us were arguably in support of, started doing the damage we were told Trump would never allow to happen again.
The stop-and-go jerk of 'We're negotiating! We're NOT! They're back at the table! These lying bastards suck! We're talking again!' ad nauseam, when the whole world has known for forty years precisely what we are dealing with when it comes to Iran. Trump himself watched and mocked Obama and Biden getting pwned time and time again. Now it was wearing and frustrating, and none of Pete Hegseth's business.
It was all Trump.
Had Trump called a pause for that first negotiation to satisfy the international community's whining for talks and appeals for a humanitarian break, and then gone back in with a vengeance when the Iranians pulled their time-honored routine - the one we all can set our watches by - and finished them off?
That would have been fine with most everyone. In fact, I believe it's what the American people expected every time the negotiators got shafted yet again by the mullahs' henchmen. We were waiting for Trump's legendary patience to expire when being jerked around that one last time.
And it never came.
Pete Hegseth didn't do that. Dan Caine didn't do that. Neither did the admiral whose sailors had to float out at sea while Trump played on-again, off-again warlord instead of finishing the job when he held the momentum, along with the American people's good graces and best wishes for victory.
Scott Bessent's economic strangulation policy would work regardless of who or what was left standing in Tehran.
Sure, it's true that people have short memories and Joe Biden's prices were much worse when paychecks were demonstrably less. But that doesn't matter a lick when you're talking to someone paying these prices in the here and now, who sees no good reason for a stalemate with a country we drove to its knees in a week's time.
And then, inexplicably, backed all the way off.
Pete Hegseth didn't do that. What our military was asked to do, they did magnificently - damn near flawlessly.
As a dear friend said, who is now revisiting one of his truly prescient posts from March, we never 'made our point.'
@cdrsalamander Exactly. He had three months to achieve objectives. That was it. Instead he kept trying to negotiate with religious extremists.
— TheDisgruntledSubmariner (@DsgrntSub) November 4, 2026
...My support is based on what we see this beautiful March 2nd, 2026. If this degenerates into another long, drawn-out conflict where we put boots on the ground, my opinion will change. If it drags on for weeks of diminishing returns, my opinion will change.
The sooner we state, “We’ve made our point. Don’t make us come back.” the better."
We never did that...as one must do in a punitive expedition, otherwise it becomes something else.
The American people did not want another, "Something else."
Ref. A doesn't age all that poorly:
Pete Hegseth, Dan Caine, and Admiral Cooper know how to go in for the kill and would have done so with extreme prejudice had the order been given.
Donald Trump might have a killer instinct for business, but his waffling here - his refusal to commit and then stay the course - is why public opinion turned against supporting the operation in Iran.
And it's a damn shame.
Rumors are flying like mad that Hegseth, should he wind up being the head on the platter, will be incoming Tennessee governor Marsha Blackburn's pick to fill the seat she vacates when she takes her oath of office.
The thought alone of Senator Hegseth is causing so many progressive heads to explode; it's almost worth the price of admission for that alone.
🚨 WARNING What I'm hearing here on the ground in Tennessee: Trump wants Pete Hegseth OUT, and Governor-elect Marsha Blackburn is likely to appoint him to her U.S. Senate seat in January. Hegseth already established residency in Tennessee, and the move would conveniently allow him to escape the threat of being impeached and removed from his Cabinet position. Nothing confirmed, but based on what I'm hearing, I'd put the chances of this happening at 75%. The only thing worse than Secretary Hegseth would be SENATOR Hegseth.
— Chris D. Jackson (@ChrisDJackson) November 4, 2026
...Hegseth already established residency in Tennessee, and the move would conveniently allow him to escape the threat of being impeached and removed from his Cabinet position.
Nothing confirmed, but based on what I'm hearing, I'd put the chances of this happening at 75%.
The only thing worse than Secretary Hegseth would be SENATOR Hegseth.
Personally, I hate the thought of him even being on the chopping block. As I wrote the other day, the work he's doing cleaning out the overabundance of woke dead wood in the higher ranks is so critical to restoring warriors instead of professors as our generals and admirals.
But it is a political post, and you-know-what rolls downhill after it hits the fan.
Reports are also floating Ron DeSantis as his replacement, with speculation that he could be confirmed during this lame-duck session and take the oath when his governorship ends during the first week of January.
Who knows.
I just know that Hegseth and his staff have done a whale of a job, from recruiting to Latin America, Iran, and probably places we won't know about until Democrats get in and start leaking top secret info to the NY Times or WaPo again.
What he didn't do was get the GOP beaten last night.
