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In an interview taped Wednesday for Megyn Kelly's radio show, Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth said Trump told him he wanted a "warfighter" who would clean out the "woke crap."

What "woke crap"?

The "woke crap" that allows some 15,000 qualified transgender service members -- the best estimate I could find -- to risk their lives for their country, at a time when the military is failing to meet its recruitment goals?

The "woke crap" that has led to the point that 17% of the military is female, and that has exposed the problems of sexual assault? The "woke crap" that has allowed women and minorities to overcome decades of discrimination?

Is discriminating against them really the top agenda item for the next Secretary of Defense, the leader of the most powerful military in the world?

Or is it just the best hot topic for the 9 o'clock hour for a man who is best known as a Fox talk show host? It's red meat for the crowd. You can see Hegseth being all over the news on one of Trump's first days in office, trumpeting the newly issued executive order banning transgender Americans from serving in the military. Or at least Trump could see him doing that, which is exactly why he picked him for Secretary of Defense.

It was not lost on Trump that running against transgender people (that closing ad: she's for they/them, Trump's for you) helped him win the election.

And that's what he thinks the Secretary of Defense does -- go on television to advertise the president. That's what Pete Hegseth can do better than almost everyone else in the world, which is what makes him an effective host on Fox News, where that is the job description. It's what he will do, faithfully and loyally, Trump is right about that.

But only a former talk show host himself would define the job of Secretary of Defense that way, much less consider that to be an adequate qualification for doing it.

It is a measure of how far gone Hegseth is as a nominee that no one is even following up on the "woke crap"; they are so deep in to his personal history and whether it disqualifies him from holding the job. Getting your third wife pregnant while you're still married to your second wife is the sort of thing that should have set off the alarms of vetters, if there were any. Which there clearly were not, or it wouldn't be the New Yorker breaking the news of repeated instances of drunkenness, inappropriate behavior and financial mismanagement at the veterans organization he ran. And Trump is giving him the Pentagon. Without even vetting him.

And he doesn't care. He is testing the limits. The more he loses, the more he will win.

Never has there been a president more in need of the advice and consent power of the Senate, if the Republicans have the guts to use it. Democrats find themselves in the somewhat unthinkable position of putting their faith in Mitch McConnell's commitment to make the institutional integrity of the Senate one of his two priorities. Will he really?

Whether Hegseth is qualified for the job, as well as whether he is disqualified from it, should be the subject of his confirmation hearings. Just what he plans to do about the "woke crap" that he's committed to getting rid of deserves as much scrutiny as his personal past. True, Trump is doing exactly what he said he'd do: putting loyalty, and top TV skills, above all else. And true, he won the election. But ours is a government of checks and balances, or at least it should be. And for now, those checks and balances are in the purview of a handful of Republican Senators.

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To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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