Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday headed out to the battlefield to help boost morale among those fighting to contain a dangerous threat from the enemy that’s expected to only grow increasingly more perilous over the next few months, with the top leader of the US military’s schedule taking him to a number of frontline posts scattered across an impoverished hinterland full of violent religious fanatics who wish to destroy democracy and inflict widespread suffering.
Per CBS News, one of Hegseth’s stops in Iowa will be at a campaign event for Congressman Zach Nunn, an Air Force Reserve colonel who faces a serious threat from Dem challenger state Senator Sarah Trone Garriott, and thus totally appropriate for the Secretary of Defense to help defend an endangered Republican incumbent. Plus he’s a military officer so the campaign event can be military themed with a lot of pledges of allegiance and salutes from men in camo cargo shorts.
Since they’re CBS News and would’ve written “It is highly unusual for a current defense secretary to campaign for candidates. Previous secretaries rarely if ever attended events for candidates while defense secretary,” even if they hadn’t been hijacked by wealthy fascists, that watered-down MSM pablum is as close to the article gets as a “subjective” remark on the visit. The national network then cited zero examples to support the assertion of “unusual” versus “first time it happened.”
Factual gap aside, it’s actually strangely the right register for this blatant Hatch Act violation and defilement of the constitution. Even if it’s outrageous, are you truly outraged? Forget even just “being numb to” all the high crimes and major federal felonies, and ask if do you feel particularly angry over Hegseth’s campaigning given the at best null effect this is going to have on Nunn’s chances? Like are there undecided voters out in Bucklefuck County, Iowa who are going to walk in off the street to see a Princeton bro with a scarred liver and a string of NDA-sealed rape settlements spew racist dogwhistles and show off his Crusader tattoos and then walk out already sold on reelecting Nunn? There are less colorful ways to describe it, but when you get down to the bottom line that’s Pete’s mission on the “battlefront” in Iowa, where Trump won by 13 percent in 2024.
Actually 13.21 percent if you want to be precise. Republican seats in Iowa are in danger and that’s why Hegseth is visiting since his fat orange boss is too busy watching Fox News to go and help Nunn hang onto the seat to protect him – and Hegseth, Todd Blanche, etc – from being impeached.
But if you do want some rage-a-hol, contrast it to where Hegseth is not showing up to help boost morale and invigorate America’s fighting spirit: The USS Abraham Lincoln, which reportedly no longer has hot water for showers, the latest in an escalating string of privation for sailors dealing with shitty food, backed up toilets, and the isolated misery of being stuck on the longest deployment in US Navy history. That’s where Hegseth is not, possibly because he’s afraid the sailors and marines would mutiny and hold him hostage the second he stepped off the helicopter.
Must read.
Reality check — aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln — from @CENTCOM Commander, Admiral Brad Cooper.https://t.co/xrC5MHhuS8
— Pete Hegseth (@PeteHegseth) August 16, 2026
Not sure how much of that last sentence was a joke. Only one way to find out, Pete.