Here's why I remain bearish about the PH nomination despite some positive recent statements by Ernst and others. (Which I trust you will take with a grain of salt given my position in this market.)

1. The fundamentals. PH would still be the least experienced SecDef in history. There's a strong tension between this and the "focus on merit and effectiveness not ideology" position that PH himself has been articulating.

2. Trust and personal issues. There's been a lot of noise on the basis of anonymous accusations, but it remains the case that, according to PH's own attorneys' view of the situation, PH was successfully blackmailed over an extramarital encounter and then failed to disclose this to the transition team. That's a problem for someone nominated for a position of trust in national security.

3. Trump doesn't need PH to implement his agenda. It seems like Trump likes PH and this pulls in favor of him supporting the nomination in the long term. But many other individuals are available who could be substituted. Trump tends to be strategic and very willing to switch people out when doing so advances his goals.

All this said, I think there remains a huge amount of uncertainty. Confirmation hearings haven't even started yet, it's not clear whether any of the various anonymous allegations reported by the mainstream press will be substantiated in the hearings, and only a handful of senators have made statements one way or another.

Another related question: which anonymous accusers will come forward publicly? https://manifold.markets/jb456/which-currently-anonymous-pete-hegs

https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2024/12/04/congress/hegseth-in-a-lot-of-trouble-00192629

@thomas_baes Ernst, Thune and Murkowski have changed their tone in the last couple of hours. Only need one more.

@KwameOsei appreciate the heads-up. I'll try to read their statements when I'm not busy

WSJ reports Trump is considering replacing Hegseth with DeSantis. Given his lack of qualifications and allegations of personal misconduct, he has a nasty confirmation fight ahead of him, if his name isn't pulled before.

Potentially related market: https://manifold.markets/jb456/which-trump-cabinet-picks-will-with

He’s not got sufficient qualifications IMO, but there have been past defsecs with similar or worse creds. Senate is under dons thumb so I don’t doubt he will be confirmed.

Who's been worse?

@zax By results thus far Rumsfeld. By qualifications arguably also Rumsfeld in his first stint.

Pete hegseth is only one year older than Rumsfeld when he became secdef.. and according to Wikipedia that was a record Rumsfeld set that stands till today.

@parhizj The comparison with Rumsfeld in terms of qualifications seems a little misplaced. Rumsfeld had served several terms in Congress, had several different high-level positions in the Nixon and Ford administrations. He had a lot of legislative, executive, and foreign policy experience before he became SecDef.

@jb456 I did say arguably. How much of that experience was related to actual strategic/foreign policy though? (From skimming his background it was mostly domestic & economic policy?)

@parhizj Fair enough. In answer about how much of Rumsfeld's experience was strategic/foreign policy, seems like the two main things are being chief of staff, and then before that he was US representative to NATO. Seems like he was also somewhat active on foreign/defense policy in Congress.

@jb456 After thinking about it more, it does seem you are right. Pete is less qualified than even Rumsfeld was originally (those positions Rumsfeld held as chief of staff and nato rep amount to less than 3 years so it’s something but not a huge amount of experience, but maybe Rumsfeld’s time in congress taken together amounts to relatively more substantial experience serving on some relevant subcommittees).