Screaming and Yelling: My Takeaway From Democrats’ Behavior During the Hegseth, Bondi Confirmation Hearings

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of the accompanying video from noted historian and Daily Signal senior contributor Victor Davis Hanson.

Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal.

We’re witnessing the confirmation hearings in the U.S. Senate of Donald Trump’s nominations. Many of them will not gain a lot of attention. Some did.

The two most interesting, controversial, famous, infamous—were Pam Bondi as attorney general and Pete Hegseth as defense secretary. But before we get into them, very quickly, remember what Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said to the Democrat minority: This will be an occasion that we make the argument against the MAGA Trump people, and we can do it by these basically two unqualified nominees.

So, Pete Hegseth went in. He was calm. He was relaxed. And apparently, his rope-a-dope strategy was unknown or unexpected by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, [D-Mass.], [Democrat] Sen. [Mazie] Hirono from Hawaii, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse [D-R.I.], Sen. Adam Schiff [D-Calif.] I could go on and on, but their tactic was to scream and yell at him and focus on his private life.

So, you had this Orwellian situation where senators who had been very friendly with Kamala Harris’ husband, who impregnated his nanny, and Bill Clinton, who conducted oral intercourse—I’ll be blunt—right out of the White House’s Oval Office. These same senators were then damning Pete Hegseth for an extramarital affair that he shouldn’t have engaged in but which he’s apologized for, and he’s asked for forgiveness. And of course, compared to the average Senate life, unfortunately, it’s not unknown in Washington.

But then when they started to ask him questions about defense, he answered every question spectacularly, and they got very, very angry. And it was all emblematic, at one moment, when Elizabeth Warren—who’s clever by half—she kept hammering and yelling and interrupting.

Excuse me, I’m not a sexist, but it sounded so shrill.

And at one point, she said, “Well, you vote that generals should not be in the revolving door.” And he has, and I think people are righteously skeptical of a general who comes from Raytheon like Lloyd Austin and, no doubt, will go back to Raytheon. And so, she said, “And now you’re a hypocrite because you won’t condemn it.”

And he said, “I’m not a general, senator.” End of story. So, he, in one word, kind of demolished her.

Apparently, their perception was: These people are unqualified; they’re not sober, judicious, and skilled, and intelligent like we are. But they have no idea who they [the nominees] were. Anybody who followed Pam Bondi and Pete Hegseth know they were experts in television. They look good on TV. They go on Fox News, nightly, daily. Their whole forte is extemporaneous repartee—ask me any question, I’m on air in front of 4 million people, I can do it—that’s what they do.

So, they came in here as the experts, and the rookies were the people interrogating them. And the more and more inept they seemed, the angrier and angrier—and they doubled down. It was a disaster for them, and it made Pete Hegseth an automatic confirmation.

Very quickly, Pam Bondi came in. They thought that she had been Trump’s lawyer; [they thought] she was a lightweight, she was a MAGA person. They started asking her questions. And then something very eerie happened. They started projecting what Merrick Garland and [Joe] Biden had done: “So, are you going to weaponize the DOJ [Department of Justice]? Are you going to think of the crime first, and then find the victim?”

And, as cool as a cucumber, she said, “Well, that’s what you do. So, I’m not going to target Donald Trump and then make up crimes to embarrass him or nullify his candidacy—crimes which we would never have indicted anybody for had they either been not Donald Trump or had Donald Trump chosen not to run again.”

Final thing, while this was going on and the American people saw these people hit their head against the wall and ensure the confirmation of Bondi and Hegseth—and by association, probably Kash Patel and others to come, like RFK Jr.,—we had the Los Angeles fires. And it was, unfortunately, a catastrophic exposure of the whole bankruptcy of the radical Left.

From the timber not being harvested, from the hillsides not being cleaned, from the dams not being built, from the dams being blown up, to the fire chief, the fire chief’s assistant, the mayor, the deputy. I could go on and on, but it was a case study of why you do not want those people in charge.

And then finally, we had the exit of Joe Biden, pardoning 1,500 people, pardoning people from the death penalty who were gruesome killers, pardoning his son when he had promised not to. So, put all that together, and then the protectors and defenders of all of [those terrible things] were going after two skilled nominations of people who’d spent their whole life either in the military, as in the case of Pete Hegseth, or in the courtroom, like Pam Bondi. [They] were not just familiar, but perfectly at home under the lights.

It was a bad day for the Democrats, and it will help all of Trump’s nominations to be confirmed quickly.

Thank you very much. This is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal.

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