The Pete Hegseth nomination may be on its way to failing after all

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Under the current Senate headcount, any given Donald Trump nominee can only afford to lose three Republican votes and still get confirmed. If they lose a fourth vote, they’re out. When it comes to controversial and unqualified Trump nominee Pete Hegseth, he’s now suddenly halfway to being out.

Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski announced earlier today that she’s a “no” on Hegseth. Shortly thereafter, her ally Susan Collins announced that she’s also a “no” on Hegseth. This means that if Hegseth loses two more votes, his nomination is over and he’ll have to withdraw.

No one really trusts Murkowski or (particularly) Collins, given the history. But when you make a definitive announcement like this, you’re staking yourself to having to stick with it. If Murkowski or Collins thought there was even a 0.1% chance they’d end up having to change their vote, they wouldn’t be making this kind of announcement. So you can expect them to remain “no” votes, not based on trust, but based on political logic.

So what’s going to happen to the Hegseth nomination? I’m not going to try to put odds on it. But I will say that Murkowski and Collins appear to be trying to kill this nomination before it can even get to the finish line, so they can take credit for having killed it (which then allows them to brag at reelection time that they’re bipartisan).

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