Spare Trump-Hegseth - and America - Insubordinate Subordinates

The Trump 2.0 presidency is scarcely a week old and an epic struggle is already underway to subvert it from within. The problem is not simply the expected one of a hostile Deep State bureaucracy.

Rather, it’s that a number of political appointees who do not share the President’s view of the threats we face and his determination to respond to them by practicing “peace through strength” are – despite Mr. Trump’s hard experience with uncooperative personnel in his first administration – getting key positions in the second one. Some are alumni of institutions funded by anti-Trump libertarian Charles Koch.

A sizable majority of the American people voted for a change in the nation’s foreign and defense policies, not a continuation of the failed ones of the Obama-Biden years. Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth must not be represented and undermined by subordinates who disagree.

This is Frank Gaffney.