You’re reading an excerpt from the WorldView newsletter. Sign up to get the rest, including news from around the globe and interesting ideas and opinions to know, sent to your inbox on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. SINGAPORE — After spending the past months bashing diversity initiatives and prioritizing, in his words, “warfighting over wokeness” in the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth faces a rather different task this weekend. He will appear at Asia’s preeminent security forum, held annually at a ritzy hotel in this cosmopolitan city-state, and attempt to reassure a cohort of regional defense officials and diplomats that the United States remains a reliable and solid partner.

That may be a tougher pitch than it ought to be, considering the many decades of Pax Americana in the Asia-Pacific. President Donald Trump’s intensifying confrontation with China is a source of unease in the region, with many countries in Southeast Asia eager to not have to pick sides. The White House’s unleashing of a sprawling trade war that slapped tariffs on geopolitical allies and adversaries alike has prompted many long-standing partners to question their trust in the U.S.

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In February, Singapore’s then-Defense Minister Ng Eng Hen said that Trump’s actions had eroded the U.S.’s “moral legitimacy” and shifted its image in Asia “from liberator to great disrupter to a landlord seeking rent.”

In an interview Thursday, José Ramos-Horta, president of East Timor, bemoaned the Trump administration’s abdication of some of the U.S.’s traditional soft power. He warned that the gutting of USAID, which presided over numerous development and aid projects in Asia, was “killing the vanguard of your diplomacy.”

Trump’s coercive tactics and the mounting pressures on an international order once-authored by the U.S. are driving global politics in a perilous direction. “We are sleepwalking into a lawless world, we are cascading into chaos,” Ramos-Horta told me, “because the center, which is the U.S., is receding and there is no substitute.”

French President Emmanuel Macron delivered the keynote address Friday at the Shangri-La Dialogue, the security forum that has been convened in Singapore for more than two decades by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a British think tank. He called for “new coalitions” between Europe and Asian countries anchored around principles of open trade and the “rules-based order” — an implicit riposte to Trump’s America First nationalism. In its presummit report, IISS noted that Trump’s return to the White House had “raised the level of anxiety among regional and global policymakers.”

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Macron arrived amid a six-day swing through the region where he touted the capacity of France and other leading European powers to present an alternative amid great power competition between the U.S. and China. On Tuesday, at an address in Vietnam, Macron warned of a fragile global moment where, “on the impulse of a superpower, everything can change.”

Hegseth, who takes the stage Saturday morning, is expected to offer a tough line on China. “Secretary Hegseth is going to make the case to Asian allies about why the United States is a better partner than the [the Chinese Communist Party],” a senior U.S. defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, briefed reporters this week.

But that may not be the message many of the assembled Asian defense officials in the room want to hear. For some countries, Trump’s trade war and erratic methods may be as much a source of disquiet as China’s assertiveness in places such as the South China Sea or across the Taiwan Strait. Rather than confrontational bluster, most Southeast Asian governments would probably prefer clear signals from both Washington and Beijing that neither power wants to provoke an unnecessary escalation in tensions. And perceptions that the U.S. is complicit in Israel’s brutal devastation of Gaza has also stoked public anger in Muslim-majority countries, including Malaysia and Indonesia.

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Though that conflict and the war in Ukraine also shadowed the Biden administration’s efforts in Asia, Trump’s predecessors are broadly credited with bolstering security partnerships with a host of Asian countries and shoring up U.S. credibility. The Biden administration also took a more humble approach to Asian geopolitics.

Former defense secretary Lloyd Austin “understood the limitations of American power, but he also said, ‘Within the constraints that we have, here’s how we can be helpful,’” Evan Laksmana, senior fellow for Southeast Asian security and defense at IISS, told me, framing the Biden administration’s strategy. “That, for me, is a much more resonant message in the region than ‘Let me tell you how we’re not China.’ That message has gone stale.”

Top U.S. military officials have insisted that, for all of Trump’s disruption, there’s not much rupture in the U.S.’s Asia strategy. In a Foreign Affairs essay this week, Ely Ratner, a former assistant defense secretary in the Biden administration, argued the foundations remained for the White House to push for a far-reaching “collective defense pact” to counter China in the Pacific.

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“As far as defense matters are concerned, there has been far more continuity than disruption to date,” Ratner wrote. “Provided the administration avoids debilitating economic measures targeting U.S. allies, the trends pointing the way toward collective defense in the region are likely to endure.”

More fraught, though, is the state of U.S.-China ties. “The two big powers themselves need to find a new equilibrium, starting by building on their tentative efforts toward ending the trade war that Trump’s ‘liberation day’ tariffs initiated,” observed a report by the International Crisis Group.

In a sign of how distant a meaningful détente may be, China took the unusual move to not send its defense minister or other top defense officials to Singapore, where they could have engaged their U.S. counterparts in the meeting rooms of the Shangri-La hotel. New salvos in the sprawling contest between the two countries continue, with the latest being the Trump administration’s announcement that it would “aggressively revoke” the visas of potentially thousands of Chinese students studying at U.S. universities.

SINGAPORE (AP) — U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reassured allies in the Indo-Pacific on Saturday that they will not be left alone to face increasing military and economic pressure from China, while insisting that they also contribute more to their own defense.

He said Washington will bolster its defenses overseas to counter what the Pentagon sees as rapidly developing threats by Beijing, particularly in its aggressive stance toward Taiwan. China has conducted numerous exercises to test what a blockade would look like of the self-governing island, which Beijing claims as its own and the U.S. has pledged to defend.

China’s army “is rehearsing for the real deal,” Hegseth said in a keynote speech at a security conference in Singapore. “We are not going to sugarcoat it — the threat China poses is real. And it could be imminent.”

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The head of China’s delegation accused Hegseth of making “groundless accusations.”

“Some of the claims are completely fabricated, some distort facts and some are cases of a thief crying ‘stop thief,” said Rear Adm. Hu Gangfeng, vice president of China’s National Defense University. He did not offer specific objections.

“These actions are nothing more than attempts to provoke trouble, incite division and stir up confrontation to destabilize the Asia-Pacific region,” he said.

Hegseth says China is training to invade Taiwan

China has a stated goal of ensuring its military is capable of taking Taiwan by force if necessary by 2027, a deadline that is seen by experts as more of an aspirational goal than a hard war deadline.

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China also has built sophisticated, artificial islands in the South China Sea to support new military outposts and developed highly advanced hypersonic and space capabilities, which are driving the United States to create its own space-based “Golden Dome” missile defenses.

Speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue, a global security conference hosted by the International Institute for Security Studies, Hegseth said China is no longer just building up its military forces to take Taiwan, it’s “actively training for it, every day.”

Hegseth also called out China for its ambitions in Latin America, particularly its efforts to increase its influence over the Panama Canal.

He urged Indo-Pacific countries to increase defense spending to levels similar to the 5% of their gross domestic product European nations are now pressed to contribute.

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“We must all do our part,” Hegseth said.

Following the speech, the European Union’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas pushed back at Hegseth’s comment that European countries should focus their defense efforts in their own region and leave the Indo-Pacific more to the U.S. She said that with North Korean troops fighting for Russia and China supporting Moscow, European and Asian security were “very much interlinked.”

Questions about US commitment to Indo-Pacific

Hegseth also repeated a pledge made by previous administrations to bolster the U.S. military in the Indo-Pacific to provide a more robust deterrent. While both the Obama and Biden administrations had also committed to pivoting to the Pacific and established new military agreements throughout the region, a full shift has never been realized.

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Instead, U.S. military resources from the Indo-Pacific have been regularly pulled to support military needs in the Middle East and Europe, especially since the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. In the first few months of President Donald Trump’s second term, that’s also been the case.

In the last few months, the Trump administration has taken a Patriot missile defense battalion out of the Indo-Pacific in order to send it to the Middle East, a massive logistical operation that required 73 military cargo aircraft flights, and sent Coast Guard ships back to the U.S. to help defend the U.S.-Mexico border.

Hegseth was asked why the U.S. pulled those resources if the Indo-Pacific is the priority theater. He did not directly answer but said the shift of resources was necessary to defend against Houthi missile attacks launched from Yemen, and to bolster protections against illegal immigration into the U.S.

At the same time, he stressed the need for American allies and partners to step up their own defense spending and preparations, saying the U.S. was not interested in going it alone.

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“Ultimately a strong, resolute and capable network of allies and partners is our key strategic advantage,” he said. “China envies what we have together, and it sees what we can collectively bring to bear on defense, but it’s up to all of us to ensure that we live up to that potential by investing.”

The Indo-Pacific nations caught in between have tried to balance relations with both the U.S. and China over the years. Beijing is the primary trading partner for many, but is also feared as a regional bully, in part due to its increasingly aggressive claims on natural resources such as critical fisheries.

Hegseth cautioned that playing both sides, seeking U.S. military support and Chinese economic support, carries risk.

“Economic dependence on China only deepens their malign influence and complicates our defense decision space during times of tension,” Hegseth said.

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Asked how he would reconcile that statement with Trump’s threat of steep tariffs on most in the region, Hegseth he was “in the business of tanks, not trade.”

But Illinois Democrat Sen. Tammy Duckworth, who is part of a congressional delegation attending Shangri-La, objected to pressuring regional allies.

“The United States is not asking people to choose between us and the PRC,” Duckworth said, in reference to the People’s Republic of China.

Australia’s Defense Minister Richard Marles welcomed Hegseth’s assurance that the Indo-Pacific was an American strategic priority and agreed that Australia and other nations needed to do their part.

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“Reality is that there is no effective balance of power in this region absent the United States, but we cannot leave it to the United States alone,” he said.

Still, Marles suggested the Trump administration’s aggressive trade policies were counterproductive. “The shock and disruption from the high tariffs has been costly and destabilizing.”

China sends lower-level delegation

China usually sends its own defense minister to the conference, but Dong Jun did not attend this year in a snub to the U.S. over Trump’s erratic tariffs war. His absence was something the U.S. delegation said it intended to capitalize on.

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“We are here this morning. And somebody else isn’t,” Hegseth said.

Asked by a member of the Chinese delegation how committed the U.S. would remain if Asian alliances like ASEAN had differences with Washington, Hegseth said the U.S. would not be constrained by “the confines of how previous administrations looked at this region.”

“We’re opening our arms to countries across the spectrum — traditional allies, non-traditional allies,” he said.

He said U.S. support would not require local governments to align with the West on cultural or climate issues.

You’re reading an excerpt from the WorldView newsletter. Sign up to get the rest, including news from around the globe and interesting ideas and opinions to know, sent to your inbox on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. SINGAPORE — When pressed on the thorny matter, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth offered a quick zinger. He was here at Asia’s preeminent security forum to talk “tanks, not tariffs.” Concerns over the White House’s protectionism and its impacts on a region knitted together by trade were, in other words, not his remit.

Hegseth was shrugging off a question that came from an audience of delegates that had heard his Saturday morning address at the Shangri-La Dialogue, a summit convened annually in Singapore for more than two decades. His speech received a mixed reaction. Hegseth urged Asian partners to emulate a handful of European nations that have boosted their defense spending to 5 percent of gross domestic product, raising eyebrows in a part of the world where military spending is already spiking and many developing countries are still working fitfully to lift citizens out of poverty.

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But the Pentagon chief also spoke in terms that were probably welcome at the forum, which is organized by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a British think tank. He said the Trump administration was “not here to preach” to other countries about human rights and climate change or to cajole Asian countries to “embrace or adopt policies or ideologies.”

Rather, Hegseth said, the United States wants to “work with you where our shared interests align for peace and prosperity.” He reiterated that the Trump administration did not seek conflict with China, but warned of the “imminent” threat posed by a China that wants to shift the military balance in the Asia-Pacific region. He said the U.S. “will not be pushed out of this critical region, and we will not let our allies and partners be subordinated and intimidated.”

Unlike previous years, Beijing did not send a top defense official to offer a riposte to the U.S. on Sunday. Hegseth told Asian leaders in the room that “we share your vision of peace and stability, of prosperity and security, and we are here to stay,” stressing that the Indo-Pacific was the “priority theater” for Washington strategists.

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“There was a constant reiteration that America’s strategic intent is peace, and that’s welcome,” Richard Marles, Australia’s deputy prime minister and defense minister, told me, referring to Hegseth’s remarks. He cheered Hegseth’s embrace of the region’s strategic importance and pointed to how Australia is already engaged in “the biggest peacetime increase in our defense spending since the end of the Second World War.”

For other leaders, President Donald Trump’s trade war was harder to set aside. A week prior, it had loomed at the center of deliberations during a leaders meeting of ASEAN, the main bloc of Southeast Asian states. Major exporters such as Vietnam and Cambodia face some of the biggest tariffs imposed by Trump, apart from the 145 percent levy slapped earlier on China. Unlike Beijing, most other governments do not want to pursue retaliatory measures against the U.S., but may find themselves leaning further into their deep economic partnerships with China in a bid to offset the blow of Trump’s tariffs.

In his special address, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim decried “the onslaught of arbitrary imposition of trade restrictions” imposed by the Trump administration and insisted that trade was not simply “a soft power indulgence” but at the heart of all that stabilizes and brings growth to Southeast Asia.

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“What holds true for us holds true elsewhere — where trade flourishes, stability follows,” Anwar said. “When it falters, the consequences ripple far beyond any one region.”

There was skepticism about U.S. demands for boosting defense spending. Gen Nakatani, Japan’s defense minister, pushed back against suggestions that his government would pursue new military acquisitions from the U.S. as part of a deal to ease new Trump administration tariffs.

Mohd Faiz Abdullah, chairman of the Institute of Strategic and International Studies in Malaysia and a top adviser to Anwar, said it was “mind boggling” and “nonsensical” to expect Asian governments to drum up 5 percent of their GDP in military acquisitions. It would be far better, he suggested, for the U.S. to deepen economic engagement in the region.

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“The ideal [U.S.] role would be to muscle up for the economy. Show that you really want to spend in ASEAN, you want to cooperate, you want to buy, you want to sell,” Faiz told me. “Take away all that unpredictable, whimsical trade policy. Once the economy is pretty strong … the geopolitical side will take care of itself.”

For now, the uncertainty provoked by Trump is sending jitters across continents. Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat, also came to Singapore and used her moment on the forum’s podium to stress how economic interdependence can be its own military deterrent. She seemed to position her continental bloc as a productive collaborator with Asia — and perhaps an alternative to a more erratic, protectionist America that doesn’t seem as invested in the rules-based international order as it once was.

“The countries around the world are really looking at us because we are the predictable and reliable partner,” Kallas told me on the sidelines of the meeting. “Superpowers sometimes overestimate their own strength. But I think it is a time of alliances.”

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French President Emmanuel Macron, who delivered the keynote address Friday evening, made a similar argument, extending his own vision for “strategic autonomy” for Europe to form “new alliances” with Asia. Despite the vagueness of the gesture, Macron settled on a theme echoed throughout the weekend: that “division between the two superpowers and an instruction to all the others that you have to choose a side” between the U.S. and China is something no one wants.

In all of California, there may be no better political launching pad than the office of attorney general.

As the state’s top cop as well as its chief consumer advocate, the attorney general resides in an electoral sweet spot; California voters tend to be tough on crime and jealous of their civil protections.

Several who’ve held the job, including Jerry Brown and his father, Pat, made the leap directly to the governorship. Kamala Harris parlayed the role into a U.S. Senate seat and, eventually, the vice presidency. (Part of the reason she was chosen by Joe Biden was Harris’ relationship with his late son, Beau, who overlapped for a time as Delaware attorney general.)

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The current officeholder, Rob Bonta, appeared well positioned for a 2026 bid for California governor, until he took himself out of the running and announced he would instead seek reelection.

Being attorney general, Bonta said recently over breakfast in San Francisco, is “powerful and … meaningful on normal days. And in abnormal days, when you have a president who’s threatening democracy, the rule of law and the Constitution, it’s very important.”

Read more: Barabak: Forget Reagan and Schwarzenegger. In California governor’s race, boring can be beautiful

Bonta, who’s been a party to several lawsuits seeking to rein in Trump, said the fight against his rogue-elephant administration is, in some ways, personal.

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He spoke of his father’s involvement in the civil rights movement and his parents’ life under dictatorship in the Philippines. He mentioned his eldest of two daughters, who married a woman from Brazil, and expressed concern whether same-sex marriage will remain legal in the United States.

But first, Bonta talked about his decision to forgo the race for governor after giving the campaign long and careful thought.

He began weighing the contest, Bonta said, soon after winning election to a full term as attorney general in November 2022. (Bonta was appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in March 2021, to fill the vacancy left when Xavier Becerra become Health and Human Services secretary in the Biden administration.)

Birds fly. Fish swim. Politicians, as Bonta put it, “look downfield, at what’s immediately next.”

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With Newsom termed out and a rare open-seat race for governor availing itself, Bonta suggested it would have been political malpractice not to consider running. He conducted polls. He discussed staffing and fundraising. He thought about what his message might be and sized up other candidates, and potential candidates.

Read more: Who is running for California governor in 2026? Meet the candidates

Things changed when Harris lost the White House — and not just because of the possibility she could enter the governor’s race and immediately become the heavy favorite to win.

If Harris was in the White House, Bonta said, the state would have had “a great partner who loves California, who knows what our concerns and needs are.” It would have been, he said, “very attractive to be a governor working hand-in-hand with a president who works for the success of California to tackle our problems.”

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Instead, the country has a would-be autocrat, with a Mt. Whitney-size grudge against California, seeking to establish himself as King Donald the First.

Once it was clear “what his [approach] was and the actions that he would take would be and what my critical role in addressing those is,” Bonta said, “I wanted to stay” as attorney general.

A waitress came and went. Bonta, who intermittently fasts and tries not to eat before noon, was sticking to black coffee.

There is, he said, a circular nature to his legal battle with Trump and his work to thwart the wayward president’s unprecedented power grab.

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Bonta was born in the Philippines, his mother’s country, while she and Bonta’s father, a Ventura County native, were serving as missionaries.

“They had to make a very important decision, probably the most important decision ever made in my life,” said Bonta, who arrived in California as a 2-month-old. “They asked themselves if they could raise me in the Philippines and guarantee that I had the things that were nonnegotiable for them: freedom, democracy, human rights, civil rights, the rule of law, due process. And their answer was, No.”

(As the child of a U.S. citizen, Bonta was automatically a U.S. citizen, thus he has no personal stake in the effort to block Trump’s attempt to overturn birthright citizenship.)

Bonta, who was first elected to the Alameda City Council before moving onto the state Assembly and appointment as attorney general, said his political career was inspired by his father’s role as a voting rights organizer in the South and his parents’ work helping unionize California farmworkers.

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Funny thing: “I didn’t expect that decades later I’d be in public office, fighting the rise of a dictator in a country that I came to to flee a dictator,” Bonta said.

Two other issues strike home.

Bonta’s daughter Reina is a soccer pro who met her wife when they played together in Brazil. Two months after a proposal, they had a hurry-up ceremony in Alameda, wanting to ensure they were wed before Trump took office. “Who knows the future of marriage equality?” Bonta said.

He also wonders whether his daughter-in-law might someday be excluded from the United States.

Trump “is willing to keep people out who used to be part of a very lawful asylum program. Some who worked side-by-side with American forces in other countries,” Bonta said. “It’s an attack, seemingly, on ‘others,’ however that’s defined …. It’s often, unfortunately, defined as if you’re Black or brown or you’re not of European descent.”

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Read more: Barabak: Pick your battles or all-out opposition? Our columnists debate Trump vs. the Democratic resistance

From breakfast, Bonta headed to the California State Building in San Francisco, for a hearing on judicial appointees.

Apart from burying the Trump administration in litigation, there’s plenty to keep Bonta busy on top of his regular workload. He also has a reelection campaign to run; while a second full term seems likely, it’s not guaranteed.

And he didn’t foreclose a future bid for governor, keeping the possibility propped open with this rhetorical doorstop: “Never say never.”

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At age 52, Bonta has plenty of opportunity ahead of him. And in Trump he has, for now, the perfect foil to pad his political resume.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Can Americans still have a sensible and friendly political discussion across the partisan divide? The answer is yes, and we prove it every week. Julie Roginsky, a Democrat, and Mike DuHaime, a Republican, are consultants who have worked on opposite teams for their entire careers yet have remained friends. Here, they discuss the week’s events with editorial page editor Tom Moran.

Q. While it is not yet a sure thing yet, negotiators finally struck a cease-fire deal in Gaza. I want to ask how this war affected the generation gap in America regarding Israel. According to a Pew poll, those under 30 now say they have more sympathy for Palestinians than Israelis, and by 2-1 margin find Israel’s conduct in this war to be “unacceptable.” It’s the exact opposite among those over 65. What does that mean for this alliance over the long run?

Mike: It reminds me of Winston Churchill’s great line, “If you’re not a liberal at 20, you have no heart. If you’re not a conservative at 40, you have no head.” This maxim holds true in this foreign policy morass. Many young people perceive Israel as the establishment, so therefore take the side of the seemingly oppressed underdog. Older folks have a greater institutional memory of why Israel exists. If you are in your 40s or older, you knew Holocaust survivors and World War II veterans in your life. If you’re in your 30s or older, you remember the terrorist attacks of September 11th and could never sympathize with murdering and raping terrorists like Hamas.

Israel Hamas ceasefire: 77 dead in strikes overnight on Gaza

Warning: this report contains distressing images. pic.twitter.com/C4oAJOnrz7 — Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) January 16, 2025

Julie: As a general matter, none of this would be happening if Hamas had not unconscionably raped and murdered over a thousand people on October 7th, and yet somehow that has all been forgotten by a large segment of our population. Part of that is Israel’s reluctance or inability to do the necessary PR around the world to remind people of that basic fact. Often, I watch their spokespeople on TV and find myself shaking my head at their pride in going it alone and in giving anyone who dares to disagree the middle finger. But the bottom line is that Israel cannot go it alone. It needs the United States in its corner and there is no doubt that if things continue on this trajectory, eventually American politicians won’t find it expedient to support Israel. I am deeply worried about the long-term effect that this Israeli reluctance to play for hearts and minds will have on American support for a Jewish state.

This was Biden’s deal, but as much as I hate to say it, he couldn’t have done it without Trump — not so much Trump’s performative threats to Hamas, but his willingness to tell Bibi bluntly that the war had to end by Jan. 20.

And that’s damning. 1/ https://t.co/ZIItKNaOT9 — Tom Malinowski (@Malinowski) January 15, 2025

Q. President Biden, in his farewell address, warned of a “dangerous concentration of power” in the hands of a small group of super wealthy individuals. “Today an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead.” Is he right?

Mike: Biden might be right Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg are falling all over themselves to curry favor with the incoming president, in hopes to protect their influence and wealth, but Democrats whining over it misses the political point that Trump ran as a populist. His supporters don’t think he’s beholden to the rich. Trump gained support of the little guy while working class voters fled the Democratic party. Democrats trotted out celebrity after celebrity for Harris, making them look like the party of the rich, famous, and out of touch. And Democrats keep using words like oligarchy or fascist as if those words actually connect with the average person. As Julie has often said, Democrats have a communications problem, and Biden mumbling about oligarchs is a prime example.

Can all Americans, left and right, agree on these common-sense reforms proposed by Biden this even during his farewell address?

– A ban on stock trading in Congress.

– An 18-year term limit for Supreme Court Justices, paired with ethics reform.

– An end to dark money in… pic.twitter.com/938mCFL5ea — Brian Krassenstein (@krassenstein) January 16, 2025

Julie: Mike is right about Democrats trotting out Beyonce, George Clooney, Lady Gaga and other people whom the average American voter considers way out of touch. If I were Harris, I would have gone to Texas to do Joe Rogan and not a Beyonce concert. But you know who is even more out of touch? The billionaires who are now effectively running our government and our media. If you think Elon Musk (who will now have an office in the White House complex) gives a damn about the price of eggs, you are in for a very rude awakening.

Joe Biden ended his presidency with:

2.9% inflation.

4.1% unemployment.

43k Dow Jones.

Manufacturing boom.

Gaza ceasefire.

Medicare D $2k prescription drug cap.

Infrastructure boom.

Fastest economic recovery.

Covid handled.

But go ahead, tell me he’s a bad president. — Aes🇺🇸 (@AesPolitics1) January 15, 2025

Q. In confirmation hearings this week, Republican senators lined up behind Pete Hegseth as Defense Secretary, despite the drinking problem, the alleged sexual assault, the financial mismanagement of non-profits, and the lack of management experience. Did you hear a good argument in favor of his confirmation?

Mike: I saw the pettiness of American politics, from both sides, in the Hegseth drama. Hegseth needed to prove he’s qualified, and Democrats needed to prove he’s not. But all Democrats proved is that Hegseth isn’t a very good guy, while Republicans argued that he’s qualified. Democrats proved he has a checkered personal history and some financial mismanagement along the way. But guess what? Americans just voted for someone exactly like that for president.

Remember that the witnesses to and victims of Hegseth’s misconduct were not anonymous, but offered to meet in person with Republican senators (anything but anonymous) who offered zero meetings, and now call these real people anonymous.https://t.co/k00rXeruJF — Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) January 15, 2025

Mike: Democrats posed precious few questions on the challenges we face with China’s increased military and technological capabilities, a territorially aggressive Russia, a strengthened North Korea, and a weakened but hate-filled and nuclear aggressive Iran. Is the military prepared for a changing geopolitical landscape? Should we return to a military policy that resembles the Cold War more than the terrorist fighting post-9/11 era? Are we prepared for warfare that hacks our communications systems or shuts down our energy supply? What do our intelligence capabilities look like? We didn’t get those answers because we have weak posers as leaders of the Democratic Party who care more about their anti-Trump base than their responsibility as the loyal opposition that challenges the party in power.

Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq War veteran who was wounded in combat, says that Pete Hegseth has “not earned” his place as secretary of Defense.

“You, sir, are a no-go at this station.” https://t.co/xRgYQxM3OV pic.twitter.com/ZlqvyOaWN1 — ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) January 14, 2025

Julie: Oh boy. Where to begin? Pete Hegseth’s background is deeply relevant in a military plagued by sexual assault. I have interviewed servicewomen who have told me that it is a question of when and not if they will get raped on deployment. Hegseth published a column that claimed assaulting an unconscious woman is not rape, because she is unable to deny consent. How should women in our military feel about that?

To think that women shouldn’t be serving in combat fundamentally misunderstands how our military operates and why we’re the best fighting force in the world.

This isn’t 1940 — this is modern warfare. Pete Hegseth is not qualified to be our next Secretary of Defense. pic.twitter.com/rAexj25WEu — Mikie Sherrill (@MikieSherrill) November 22, 2024

Julie: He could not identify the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or which countries are in it (hint: neither Korea nor China, the countries he mentioned, are in Southeast Asia). He has mismanaged every organization he has ever run and his own colleagues at Fox think he is an alcoholic. Is that someone you want getting that 3 AM phone call when Russia drops a dirty bomb on Kiev?

Mike: This illustrates my point. Julie can connect these dots in a way US Senators — or their communications directors — can’t seem to.

You have to watch this @Timodc rant on the Hegseth hearing pic.twitter.com/qqYIY5Am6d — Colin Jones (@colinjones) January 14, 2025

Q. In his State of the State address, Gov. Phil Murphy proposed a ban on cell phones in all K-12 schools. Eight states now ban or restrict the devices in schools. Good idea? Will Murphy get it through the Legislature?

Mike: All parents struggle with the distractions that social media and the access our kids have to supercomputers in their pockets pose. Doing away with these distractions during the school day would be ideal, but of course parents also want to text their kids about pick up times or after school activities, especially as they are older and more responsible.

Mike: Gov. Murphy’s goal is good, so I applaud him pushing the conversation, but I am wary of a Trenton-based fiat that treats 1st graders the same as 11th graders. Let’s push the goal, and let individual schools define how they help our kids live productively with their phones, rather than simply taking them away. Smart phones are a way of life, so students should learn their appropriate and beneficial uses, understand their dangers, and also know when and how to put them down to concentrate on the task at hand.

Julie: Bravo, Governor Murphy. If you need to get in touch with your kids, call the school. Otherwise, they can call you once school is over. Phones are a major distraction and are completely unnecessary in the classroom.

Q. Meanwhile, leading congressional Republicans in Washington, including Speaker Mike Johnson, say they want to place conditions on aid for California’s wildfire victims. Johnson mentioned fire management policies, but others insisted on unrelated policy changes as well. “We want to be able to help our colleagues in New York, California and New Jersey, but those governors need to change their tune now,” said Rep. Zach Nunn (R-Iowa), citing “these blue states who have run away with a broken tax policy.” Thoughts?

Mike: I love the Iowa guy, who certainly has his hand out every year for the Farm Bill, lecturing New York and New Jersey — what a tool. Let’s be clear that federal aid almost always comes with conditions, but we should not hold it up in times of crisis. That’s wrong.

Julie: I would not go down this road if I were the Speaker. One day – and I pray that day is soon – Democrats will have leaders who know how to play hardball. When Louisiana, Mike Johnson’s home state, has another hurricane, he will need Democrats to help pass a relief package. If he conditions aid to Democratic states, Democrats better remember that the next time Moocher States, as Rep. Gottheimer calls them, come begging hat in hand. If they want to break norms, go ahead and break norms. Two can play that game.

Q. Finally, the Washington Post seems to be in a free fall. Its online audience was over 22 million when Biden took office and has plummeted to 2.5 million in the latest count. It’s losing $100 million a year and it laid off 100 more employees this week. And several of its top journalists have quit in protest over the decision by owner Jeff Bezos to kill an endorsement of Kamala Harris a few weeks before the election. We’ve seen a million papers go under, including the Star-Ledger as of Feb. 2. But what happens to our democracy if the big papers like the Post start to fail?

Mike: There were no TV news crews, radio shows, podcasts or online news outlets when the Bill of Rights was passed. Freedom of the Press is a concept, not a physical newspaper. Journalism must take a new shape to stay relevant. The government must guarantee the right of this freedom, but it doesn’t guarantee a newspaper’s commercial success. The business model must continue to evolve to stay relevant.

Julie: Legacy media did it to itself. I remember when a governor of New Jersey couldn’t sneeze without five Ledger journalists being all over him or her. Now, this paper has become the governor’s stenographer – not because there are not wonderful journalists covering him, but because the appetite to invest in investigative reporting is largely gone. When the Star-Ledger stopped emphasizing real journalism, readers tuned out. I feel for the reporters in New Jersey who are doing the best they can with the scant resources they are given. It’s a disservice to them and to the people of this state, who pay taxes without anyone telling them how that money is really spent.

In Will Lewis’s first year at ‘Washington Post,’ readers and staffers flee

My story for NPR:https://t.co/wUud3Yj0AJ — David Folkenflik (@davidfolkenflik) January 15, 2025

Julie: You see this on a national level, too. When the Washington Post became a mouthpiece for MAGA, readers tuned out. When some cable news networks decided to both-sides the circumference of the earth, viewers tuned out. News consumers aren’t stupid. They want real news, real analysis and real facts. That’s why independent outlets are doing so well – because journalists and analysts whom consumers have trusted at legacy media are flocking there once the existing model fails them.

Julie: I can tell you, from personal experience, that my Substack Salty Politics has been going gangbusters since I launched it right before the election, and that’s in part because readers of this column are unhappy that it is going away and want to continue the discussion and analysis elsewhere. Ultimately, people who care about news and analysis would rather pay a few bucks to a content creator who gives them what they want, rather than to a legacy media outlet that runs listicles of the best bagels in Essex County.

What a bunch of whiny snowflakes MAGA is https://t.co/gihHJCTYKe — Julie Roginsky (@julieroginsky) January 16, 2025

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Rep. mike Turner says “it’s absolutely true” that Russian propaganda has “infected” the GOP:

“To the extent that this propaganda takes hold, it makes it more difficult for us to really see this as an authoritarian vs democracy battle,which is what it is”

pic.twitter.com/bCd8CTMkmB — Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) January 16, 2025

A note to readers: Mike and Julie are deeply engaged in politics and commercial advocacy in New Jersey, so both have connections to many players discussed in this column. DuHaime, the founder of MAD Global, has worked for Chris Christie, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, and George W. Bush. Roginsky, a principal of Comprehensive Communications Group and author of the Salty Politics column in Substack, has served as senior advisor to campaigns of Cory Booker, Frank Lautenberg, and Phil Murphy.