Hegseth’s Sham Hearing
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It's Wednesday, January 15th. I'm Jane Koston, and this is What A Day, the show asking Pete Hegseff, hey, buddy, everything OK? On today's show, Congress passes legislation banning trans athletes from female school sports teams. And have you heard of Red Note? TikTok users are migrating to the Chinese social media app.

But the big story is former Fox News host Pete Hegseth's confirmation hearing for the role of Secretary of Defense. And while he has two decades of military experience, he doesn't seem to have the experience needed to lead the largest employer in the United States. He even made that clear in his opening statement. Now, it is true and has been acknowledged that I don't have a similar biography to defense secretaries of the last 30 years. But as President Trump also told me, we've repeatedly placed people atop the Pentagon with supposedly the right credentials.

whether they are retired generals, academics, or defense contractor executives. And where has it gotten us? He believes, and I humbly agree, that it's time to give someone with dust on his boots the helm.

Apparently, though, for Republicans, that's fine. Also fine are allegations of sexual assault and excessive drinking. See, Virginia Democratic Senator Tim Kaine had a lot of questions about Hegs' marital history. I assume that in each of your weddings, you've pledged to be faithful to your wife. You've taken an oath to do that, haven't you?

Senator, as I've acknowledged to everyone in this committee, I'm not a perfect person. I'm not claiming to be. But no, I just ask the simple question. You've taken an oath like you would take an oath to be Secretary of Defense in all of your weddings to be faithful to your wife. Is that correct? I have failed in things in my life, and thankfully I'm redeemed by my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Look, the Lord did not ask to get involved here. And Arizona Democratic Senator Mark Kelly had a lot of questions about Hegs' history with alcohol.

An event in North Carolina, drunk in front of three young female staff members after you had instituted a no alcohol policy and then reversed it. True or false? Anonymous smears. December of 2014 at the CVA Christmas party at the Grand Hyatt at Washington, D.C.,

You were noticeably intoxicated and had to be carried up to your room. Is that true or false? Anonymous smears. Another time, a CVA staffer stated that you passed out in the back of a party bus. Is that true or false? Anonymous smears. I'm not hearing false. But according to Oklahoma Republican Senator Mark Wayne Mullen, who hasn't gotten hammered before a big work event or cheated on their wives? Just a thing everyone does. Am I right?

How many senators have showed up drunk to vote at night? Have any of you guys asked them to step down and resign from their job? And don't tell me you haven't seen it because I know you have. And then how many senators do you know have got a divorce before cheating on their wives? Did you ask them to step down? No.

And for some unknown reason, Mullen added that it's only because of how forgiving his wife is that he's not behind bars. I've made mistakes. And Jennifer, thank you for loving him through that mistake. Because the only reason why I'm here and not in prison is because my wife loved me too. I now have a bunch of questions, but they're mostly for Senator Mark Wayne Mullen.

It's more than likely that Hegseth will be confirmed, especially after Iowa Republican Senator and veteran Joni Ernst said late Tuesday that she would support him after initially expressing reservations. Anyway, one of the toughest questioners during the hearing was Illinois Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth, so I called her up to talk about what she did and didn't learn from Hegseth's responses.

Senator Duckworth, welcome to Waterday. It's good to be on. Thanks for having me. Senator, you had some very tough questions for Pete Hegseth. What did you learn from his responses to you and to other senators? Yeah, here's the thing. Those should not have been tough questions for somebody who wants to be Secretary of Defense. They were very basic questions. Yeah.

I asked him to name a country in ASEAN, which is, you know, one of the largest economic alliance of nations in the Indo-Pacific. And he couldn't name a single one of the 10. I asked him, name one of three types of treaties that the Secretary of Defense has to negotiate in international security agreements. And he could not name a single one of them. I mean, I asked him questions that were pretty basic for anybody that is going to be in leadership over the DOD. And he didn't know any of the answers.

As a veteran, I noted that you and other female senators really emphasized his apparent flip-flop on women serving in combat because apparently he had a come-to-Jesus moment about 24 hours ago. So what did you learn from that? I learned that he's willing to say whatever he needs to say to get confirmed.

I think he went to the Brent Kavanaugh school of preparing for hearings, you know, say whatever you need to do and then afterwards do whatever you want. But frankly, Mr. Hexeth did everything he could to put women on trial so that we would need to defend whether or not women are qualified to serve in combat. And Republicans did everything that they could to make this about everything else.

everything else other than Mr. Hexeth's ability to be Secretary of Defense. Even ask him how many push-ups he did today. As a veteran, what worries you most about his potential confirmation to be Secretary of Defense? His utter incompetence. And I'm also worried about the fact that he's not the guy that's going to stand out to Donald Trump. He was asked directly...

whether or not he would oppose Donald Trump if he gave an order that was unlawful, that was contrary to the Constitution, and he wouldn't answer that question. He was asked several times if he were under oath, would he answer differently? And he wouldn't answer those questions. He's just not qualified to lead the Department of Defense.

And by the way, our allies are watching, our adversaries are watching, and they know now that this man can be exploited. They know that this man is weak and not able to do his job. And we potentially are going to be confirming a Secretary of Defense who probably is someone who could be vulnerable to being blackmailed. I mean, he's already had to pay off a woman who accused him of sexually assaulting her in order to keep his last job.

You mentioned during the hearing that you haven't received Hegseth's FBI background check or financial disclosures. Other candidates had their confirmations canceled because of this. I know it seems obvious, but why are those so critical?

Well, we need to know what is in his background. So what has happened is the Republican chairman has refused to allow the members of the committee other than himself and Senator Reid to see the FBI investigation. He won't let us read it, even in a secure room. I'd like to know who the FBI talked to, because from what I'm hearing is that some of the women who have accused him of sexual misconduct have asked

asked to be interviewed, but the FBI never interviewed them.

And they are afraid to come forward. They are afraid for themselves and their very young children that they might come under attack. And yet the FBI have not interviewed them. And so I want to know what is in his background, because let me tell you, our adversaries, they're digging and they will have this information on him. What did you learn from this hearing that you're going to take away for confirmation hearings featuring people like Tulsi Gabbard or RFK Jr.? Because this is just the start, really.

What I'm hearing, unfortunately, is that my Republican colleagues care more about the MAGA base and bowing down to Donald Trump than they do about the safety and security of our nation and the wonderful men and women who wear the uniform, who protect us every single day. They're placing political ambitions and political survival over the well-being of the nation. And that's really sad. Senator Duckworth, thank you so much for taking the time. Thanks for having me on. That was my conversation with Senator Tammy Duckworth.

While senators were grilling Hegseth over his drinking habits and his treatment of women, Trump's former White House strategist Steve Bannon was continuing his all-out verbal war on Elon Musk. During an interview with Politico Tuesday, Bannon tried to minimize any influence Musk will have on Trump's White House. What's shocking to me is he doesn't have much power.

Why do you say that? Well, because he doesn't have the ability to actually make decisions and inform those decisions and drive those decisions. And last week, Bannon told an Italian paper that Musk is a, quote, truly evil person. This is a real worst person you know moment for me.

So what's all this about? And when will I get my most loathed people cage match? Well, Bannon and Musk represent opposite sides of an intramarital war that's broken out over the H-1B visa program. It's a legal immigration pathway for certain high-skilled workers, usually in fields like engineering and tech.

Musk is a previous H-1B visa holder and is all in favor of the program. He says his companies like SpaceX and Tesla rely on these visas. And when this MAGA fight broke out online around Christmas, he told his opponents very politely to, quote, fuck yourself in the face. On the other side, Bannon and his ilk of nativist MAGA diehards oppose all forms of immigration, even legal immigration.

So for more on the debate over H-1B visas, I spoke with Roger Karma. He's a staff writer at The Atlantic where he covers economics and economic policy. Fun fact, we used to work together at Vox and The New York Times. Roger, welcome to What Today. It's great to be here, Jane. Can you tell us a little bit more about the H-1B visa? Who qualifies? What industries use them a lot? And why does the U.S. have this program in the first place?

So the idea behind this program is that having highly skilled foreign workers come into the U.S. is a good thing. It's good for national competitiveness. It is good because oftentimes there's a shortage of skills in industries like whether it's chip making or engineering or IT. And so the idea was let's bring let's have a program that brings the best and the brightest here to the U.S. to help our business ecosystem, to help our competitiveness.

The H-1B program in practice allows about 85,000 foreign workers per year. The requirement is that they have to have at least a bachelor's degree and have some kind of special experience or knowledge. That is at least the theory. In practice, there are some flaws in implementation, but that's the sort of basics of the visa.

You write that the debate over H-1B visas is dividing both parties right now. But it seems to me, at least publicly, outside of independent Senator Bernie Sanders, it's people on the right who are screaming at each other over it. Why are these visas such a lightning rod on the right? I think when Donald Trump came into office, he was elected by a pretty broad coalition.

And that coalition included two very distinct groups. It included far more groups, as you know. But two of the distinct groups is what you can think of as sort of the tech right and the nativist right. The tech right is much more concerned with economic growth, with deregulation, with sort of laissez-faire economic policies. And the nativist right is much more concerned, the much more blood and soil national identity constituency of the party is.

And these two camps broadly agree on an issue like illegal immigration. They generally agree in sort of border security. But when it comes to highly skilled immigration, you see one of these divisions because what you have is a conflict between

The sort of economic growth, grow the economic pie tech right, which wants these workers for their industry, which really cares about national competitiveness with China. And on the other hand, the nativist right has the same sort of critique of this kind of immigration as they do with illegal immigration, that it disrupts the national identity of the country and sort of erodes what they see as a sort of Christian civilizational aesthetic. I will put as that's how I'll put it.

Now, to put as kind a gloss on the nativist right as I can, is there any truth to one of their arguments and one that I've heard from some corners of the left that people who hold H-1B visas are taking away high-paying jobs from Americans or suppressing their wages? So before I get into that critique, I should just say that

That while this debate began over the merits of the H-1B visa, it became very clear very quickly this was not the primary concern of a lot of the nativist right. Laura Loomer, who is the notorious MAGA influencer who kicked this whole thing off.

had a – her original tweets were about – some of them were about H-1B. They were about immigration, taking jobs from American workers. But they pretty quickly devolved into her calling the people coming on these visas third world invaders from India. There were lots of other tweets of that nature. And so I don't want to totally glance over that aspect of it. Right, right. That said – It's difficult to do. Yeah.

That said, there is this good faith economic critique that actually does have some merit to it. The H-1B program has significant flaws that even a lot of its supporters admit. One of them that Bernie Sanders referred to, that a lot of the more good faith folks on the right have referred to, is that

Up to a quarter of these visas are actually used by so-called outsourcing firms, which are firms that basically they're located in other countries. And their goal is to bring in these workers to train them up and ultimately have them either coordinate offshore teams or just go back to their home country and work at a fraction of the cost.

So basically, what that critique gets right is that there are a lot of ways to game the system. I think there are some things that it gets wrong on the whole. Almost every careful experimental study that's been done on the H-1B program, most of them find pretty significant positive effects.

because the companies that get these workers often grow much faster, they often innovate much more, and that ends up creating more jobs for native workers too. And so it really is this mixed bag where on the one hand, there are real flaws with the program that folks can point to, and on the other hand, it does seem like it's a program that is serving a lot of the intended purpose it was supposed to serve.

We're going to take a quick break, but we'll have more of my conversation with Atlantic staff writer Roger Karma after some ads. If you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, watch us on YouTube, and share with your friends. Back in a few.

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actually cares about your health at thrivemarket.com slash get started for 30% off your first order and a free $60 gift. Let's get back to my conversation with Atlantic staff writer, Roger Karma, about the fight over H-1B visas.

It's interesting, and you mentioned this a little bit, that Trump's coalition includes both Silicon Valley tech elites like Elon Musk or Vivek Ramaswamy, who thinks that the real issue is that Americans idolize Corey Matthews from Boy Meets World. And they favor legal immigration for high-skilled workers. And then you also have, you know, Stephen Miller or Steve Bannon, who hates Elon Musk and who's very in favor of a hardline immigration agenda, including a crackdown on legal immigration. Now,

One of the funny things has been that Trump has so far sided with Musk and Ramaswamy on this issue. But how do you see this debate playing out within the right once he takes office? I think the key phrase there is once he takes office. Right. Because during Trump's first term, he often turned over the substance of his immigration policy to a man that you just mentioned, Stephen Miller.

Stephen Miller is probably the most prominent member of the nativist right in the Trump administration. He was given a lot of deference in Trump round one, including severely limiting the H-1B program. Stephen Miller was the one pushing the

For H-1B to be completely suspended during the pandemic and he succeeded. That's what the Trump administration did. And so – and now he has been tapped for an even larger role in Trump's second term. And so I think what we're gearing up for is a sort of intra-coalitional, intra-administrative fight between Musk and Miller –

And I don't think it's very obvious which way it's going to go, especially because Miller has been known for just understanding the bureaucratic minutiae of immigration policy better than almost anyone else. And Musk and Ramaswamy are going to be busy trying to make the government more efficient. And so I don't think anyone really knows exactly how this is going to turn out. Right. And Musk has vowed to, quote, go to war in support of H-1B visas. He is the richest man in the world and a person who, if I recall correctly,

benefited from the H-1B visa. So he has considerable resources to do that, and he cares a lot about this. But has he met his match in the extremely online MAGA faithful and Stephen Miller? I think the way I look at it is almost the inverse. There was no one in Trump term one who was a match for Stephen Miller. The emergence of Musk has made me think that now what you're going to have is these two power centers and

I think a lot of it will come down to, is Elon Musk actually willing to go to war on this issue? Or is he going to become, as the man often does, sidetracked by a combination of Doge and the fact that he also is running a bunch of other companies? My concern is that Stephen Miller is...

sort of has less of a platform, but has like a singular focus on restrictionist immigration policy, where Elon's is much more scattered in his attention, even if he has a lot of power and influence. Right. I mean, he's got to spend a lot of time tweeting. Very busy. A lot. So much time. So Democrats are a little bit at sea right now as they try to reposition the party after losing the 2024 election and getting shut out of power. How do you see the election shaping how Democrats approach

niche immigration topics like H-1B visas? Are we going to see a resurgence of kind of how Bernie used to sound back in 2015, 2016 on immigration, kind of the late representative Barbara Jordan, kind of a immigration restrictionist-ish argument? I think that's what at least we're seeing a preview of now.

So as we sort of mentioned earlier, Bernie Sanders interjected in this whole intramaga debate by basically coming out for not an argument that is the same as the nativist right, but pretty close when it comes to the economics, saying that calling H-1B visa holders indentured servants, saying they're here to replace native-born workers is…

And that's a very different line that Democrats have taken on immigration, right? Like Democrats have become, I think, branded as the sort of more loose on immigration policy. I think after the 2024 election, there has been a reckoning within the party, a realization that the Democratic Party's brand on immigration is toxic and needs to be changed.

And I consider Bernie's intervention here as really the first shots fired. He's sounding a lot more like Bernie 2015 did when Bernie in 2015 told our former colleague Ezra Klein that open borders was a Koch brothers proposal that would make everyone in America poorer. The difference is back then, Bernie received widespread criticism from the left.

Now he's making very similar arguments, and he's gotten mostly silence and some nods from other Democrats. And we'll see. I think Bernie's fired the first shot, but I definitely don't think he's going to fire the last. Roger, thank you so much for joining me. It's been such a pleasure, Jane. Thanks for having me. That was my conversation with Roger Karma. He's a staff writer at The Atlantic where he covers economics and economic policy. We'll link to his story in our show notes. Here's what else we're following today. Headlines.

An overwhelming majority of Americans believe that men don't belong in women's sports and that we must allow common sense to prevail. On Tuesday, the House passed a Republican-led measure restricting transgender students from playing on women's and girls' sports teams. Florida Republican Representative Greg Stubbe of Florida introduced the bill, saying it will, quote, restore the integrity of women's sports.

Two Democrats sided with Republicans in the vote. But New York Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slammed the legislation on the House floor. She said Republicans now want to pretend that they care about women. And why? To open up gender and, yes, genital examinations into little girls in this country in the so-called name of attacking trans girls.

And to that, today, what we have to say are two words: not today. The majority right now says there's no place in this bill that says it opens up for genital examinations. Well, here's the thing: there's no enforcement mechanism in this bill. And when there is no enforcement mechanism, you open the door to every enforcement mechanism.

The bill, known as the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, would amend Title IX to recognize a person's sex as, quote, based solely on a person's reproductive biology and genetics at birth. It also threatens to take away federal funding from schools that let a, quote, person whose sex is male participate in an athletic program designated for women or girls. The legislation is now expected to head to the Republican-controlled Senate.

On Tuesday, the Department of Justice released part one of former special counsel Jack Smith's investigative report into President-elect Donald Trump. It covers his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Smith dropped that case and another related to Trump's mishandling of classified documents shortly after Trump was elected in November. Smith cited the DOJ's rule that sitting presidents cannot be federally prosecuted. Smith's report was highly anticipated after he resigned from his post last week.

In it, Smith said he was confident Trump would have been convicted if the election interference case went to trial. He wrote that the evidence showed that Trump used the, quote, big lie as a, quote, weapon to defeat a federal government function foundational to the United States democratic process.

Smith also stood by his decision to go after the president-elect in court, saying that he and his team, quote, stood up for the rule of law in their investigation. A federal judge has temporarily blocked the release of the second part of Smith's report on the classified documents investigation.

On Tuesday, Ukraine launched one of its biggest drone attacks on Russia since the war began. The attacks were focused mostly on southwestern Russia and are another example of Kiev's determination to prove it can strike deep inside the country. Ukraine used U.S. and U.K.-made missiles. Russia's defense ministry said Ukraine also launched more than 140 drones. It said, quote, These actions of the Kiev regime, supported by Western curators, will not go unanswered.

Ukraine's efforts to appear strong ahead of Donald Trump's inauguration come amidst concerns he might abandon support for the country. Maine Independent Senator Angus King asked Trump's Defense Secretary pick Pete Hegseth why he didn't mention Ukraine or Russia in his opening statement at a Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday. Is this code for we're going to abandon Ukraine? Senator, the president, this is, that's a presidential level policy decision. He's made it very clear that he would like to see a end to that conflict.

We know who the aggressor is. We know who the good guy is. We'd like to see it as advantageous for the Ukrainians as possible. Trump has vowed to end the war once in office. Russia's top diplomat said Tuesday the Kremlin is open to a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and Trump. As the fate of TikTok hangs in the balance of the Supreme Court, a new social media platform is gaining traction in the U.S. On Tuesday, the popular Chinese social media platform RedNote became the most downloaded app in the U.S.,

TikTok users are reportedly flocking there ahead of January 19th, the deadline Congress imposed on TikTok to divest from its Chinese-owned parent company ByteDance over concerns about national security. The mass migration is basically a middle finger to lawmakers who claim that the Chinese government could use TikTok to surveil American users, a claim that they still haven't provided any evidence to support.

Many TikTok users who have made Red Note accounts have made posts using the viral hashtag TikTok Refugee, which was viewed 100 million times on Tuesday. The Supreme Court is set to rule on the looming TikTok ban in the coming days. If the justices side with the federal government, 170 million users in the U.S. could lose access to the app this weekend. And that's the news. ♪

Before we go, this week on Strict Scrutiny, hosts Leah, Melissa, and Kate dive into an already packed year, digging into how Republicans are attempting to steal a North Carolina Supreme Court seat. They also break down the just-argued TikTok case and dissect Donald Trump's mounting legal challenges. Tune into Strict Scrutiny wherever you get your podcasts or on YouTube. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, beef up your LinkedIn resume so you can finally get that cabinet position, and tell your friends to listen.

And if you're into reading, and not just about how it seems kind of telling that Republicans seem to want to argue that everyone gets drunk and cheats on their wives and anyone who says they don't is lying, which raises new and interesting questions, like me, What A Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Jane Koston, and seriously, don't be like Pete Hegsa. What A Day is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producers are Raven Yamamoto and Emily Foer.

Our producer is Michelle Aloy. We had production help today from Johanna Case, Joseph Dutra, Greg Walters, and Julia Clare. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison, and our executive producer is Adrienne Hill. Our theme music is by Colin Gillyard and Kashaka. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.

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