Politics

Ron who? How Trump allies brought Hegseth back from the brink

Published

2 years ago

December 10, 2024

Donald Trump’s transition team entered a critical week of nomination meetings on Capitol Hill with a new head of steam, emboldened by a swarm of grassroots support and a pressure campaign that has revived Pete Hegseth’s hopes for Defense secretary and given them confidence about other controversial nominees, too.

In recent days, allies of Trump adopted an approach that is not novel for the president-elect and his followers: Make life extremely uncomfortable for anyone who dares to oppose him. The swarm of MAGA attacks that Sen. Joni Ernst has experienced is a warning of what’s in store for others who express skepticism of his personnel choices.

Days after signaling she continued to have serious concerns about confirming Hegseth, Ernst on Monday sounded a different note. She described their conversation Monday afternoon as “encouraging,” said she would “support” Hegseth through the process, touted some of the commitments he made to her about what he would do in the role, and suggested she would only take allegations against him seriously if they come from named accusers.

The change in tune followed an aggressive push for Hegseth by top Trump allies and supporters, as well as a defiant performance by the Defense secretary nominee that has Trump’s team bullish on him getting confirmed. But it’s not just Hegseth. Trump allies believe his choice to lead the FBI, Kash Patel, and his nominee for director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, are in a stronger position as well.

Hegseth “became a cause,” said a Trump ally who was granted anonymity to speak freely. “Not even for the official Trump operation, but the movement who is going apeshit for him.”

The fortunes of Hegseth and his fellow nominees could always change, people close to the president-elect caution, and Trump’s team is carefully tracking support on Capitol Hill. With a narrow Senate Republican majority, 53-47, Trump can only afford to lose three GOP votes. But the palpable shift demonstrated how grassroots pressure, combined with the influence of Vice President-elect JD Vance, helped bolster Hegseth only days after Trump was drawing up contingency plans to tap Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis instead.

People in Trump’s orbit believed that if Hegseth’s nomination was “sacrificed” to Ernst, it would become a “feeding frenzy” with the president-elect’s other controversial picks, like Gabbard, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Patel.

And Vance over the last week was “super instrumental” in consolidating support among his Republican Senate colleagues behind Hegseth and getting Trump’s team to stay in the fight, said a person with knowledge of the transition process.

“(Vance) saw the game that was being played where these senators believed themselves to be more powerful than they are,” the person said. “There’s a widely understood belief that [Matt] Gaetz dropped out on his own — he knew there were going to be certain senators that were just not going to budge on him.”

With Hegseth, the person continued, Trump allies knew they had to “draw a red line here” to send a message to senators.

Just last week, Ernst and Sen. Lindsey Graham were openly questioning Hegseth’s nomination. It appeared he was about to follow in former Attorney General nominee Matt Gaetz’s footsteps.

Sen. Joni Ernst (right) expressed optimism about Hegseth.

But after a frenzy of criticism from MAGA activists late last week and over the weekend, Ernst on Monday expressed optimism about Hegseth, while signaling willingness to confirm other Trump nominees also seen as potentially problematic, posting her support for Patel and another photo of her smiling with Gabbard.

“I appreciate Pete Hegseth’s responsiveness and respect for the process,” Ernst said in a statement released by her office after her “encouraging” meeting with Hegseth on Monday. She said he “committed to completing a full audit of the Pentagon and selecting a senior official who will uphold the roles and value of our servicemen and women — based on quality and standards, not quotas — and who will prioritize and strengthen my work to prevent sexual assault within the ranks.”

“As I support Pete through this process,” Ernst added, “I look forward to a fair hearing based on truth, not anonymous sources.”

For his part, Hegseth described the meeting with Ernst to reporters as “very good.”

“The more we talk, the more we’re reminded, as combat veterans, how dedicated we are to defense,” Hegseth said. “I just appreciate her commitment to the process, and I look forward to working together.”

Graham said he had “a very positive, thorough and candid meeting” with Hegseth and like Ernst, said accusations should be “supported by testimony before Congress — not anonymous sources.”

Even before her meeting with Hegseth, Trump insiders on Monday believed Ernst was viewing the situation much differently from the week before.

“Joni, I’m told,” said a Trump ally with insider knowledge of the transition process, “got the message loud and clear.”

The person said Ernst was “looking for an off ramp” from her public skepticism of Hegseth after receiving an onslaught of criticism from MAGA activists. That campaign took off last week after prominent Trump allies, including his son Donald Trump Jr. and Charlie Kirk, made social media posts critical of Ernst.

“Fix bayonets — that’s what we’re doing here to make sure that we have the back of President Trump and his nominees,” Steve Bannon said Friday on his “War Room” show.

Hegseth saved himself with Trump, according to multiple people familiar with the matter, who said the president-elect was pleased with the defiance he showed last week in interviews and in meetings on Capitol Hill. He is expected to do an interview with Trump’s friend and Fox News anchor Sean Hannity Monday night.

“He stood strong and showed up to Blue Light News every day and had thoughtful conversations and meetings, and I think his media blitz was highly effective in proving he’s not going to back down,” said a Trump transition official.

People in Trump’s orbit emphasized that Hegseth’s fortunes are different than Gaetz’s, as there are no senators who have said they won’t support his nomination.

Allies of Trump, including Kirk, are already vowing to mount primary challenges against red-state Republican senators who don’t support his nominees — a plan that Trump’s team is hinting support for.

An op-ed written by Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird calling for senators to support Trump’s nominees was blasted out by the Republican National Committee press team. It was seen by some Republicans as a veiled primary threat against Ernst from a top Trump ally in Iowa.

“They have a window of opportunity right now to show to the base that they’re willing to play ball,” said Andrew Kolvet, a spokesperson for Kirk. “We’re going to see where they stand.”

The bullishness spread to some of Trump’s most loyal backers in the Senate. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who was considered for Defense secretary himself, declared on X: “I expect our Republican Senate is going to confirm all of President Trump’s nominees.

“Of the 72 cabinet secretary nominees since the Clinton transition,” he added, “only 2 nominees have ever received NO votes from the president-elect’s party. No one should be surprised that the Republican Senate will confirm President Trump’s nominees.”

Politics

A forced-labor crackdown or an end-run around Congress? Dissecting Trump’s new tariffs

Published

46 minutes ago

July 27, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

NEW YORK (AP) — The Trump administration has imposed double-digit tariffs on more than 60 countriesusing a legal justification that permits the president to levy import taxes and other sanctions against countries found to engage in “unjustifiable,” “unreasonable” or “discriminatory” trade practices.

The new tariffs announced in recent days take effect just as temporary 10% worldwide tariffs expiredand critics say they are less about cracking down on forced labor than they are a way to replace those tariffs. The expired tariffs were themselves a temporary replacement for worldwide tariffs the Supreme Court struck down in February.

The tariffs were levied on countries that the U.S. says either don’t have or don’t effectively enforce a forced-labor import ban. The affected countrieswhich account for 99% of U.S. imports, were quick to protest, calling the Trump administration’s claims unfounded and arbitrary, as nations with vastly different records on forced labor received the same tariff level. The U.S. spent four months investigating but gave few details on how it arrived at the tariff rates, which are either 10% or 12.5%.

Sidestepping Congress

The tariffs were levied under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 on countries that the U.S. determined had failed “to impose and effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor.”

During President Donald Trump ‘s first term, he cited Section 301 to impose sweeping tariffs on Chinese imports amid a dispute over the sharp-elbowed tactics Beijing was using to challenge America’s technological dominance. The U.S. is also using 301 powers to counter what it calls unfair Chinese practices in the shipbuilding industry.

“The 301s allow a permanent tariff without going to Congress to settle the dispute,” said Barry Appleton, a law professor and co-director of New York Law School’s Center for International Law. “That’s what all of this is about. The president doesn’t want to knock on the front door of Congress, so he’s trying every side door and every unlatched window to get in.”

Little evidence that countries failed to enforce import bans

The office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) said it consulted with all 60 economies under investigation and held two rounds of public hearings, elicited more than 2,100 public comments, and had “engagement” with its trading partners about what they were doing to combat forced labor bans.

It didn’t detail its talks with the countries, saying those were confidential. Experts say it is fairly straightforward to investigate whether a country has a ban or not, but it is difficult to determine the government’s exact rationale for each country’s failure to enforce import bans.

“There’s not a lot of hard evidence there,” said Scott Lincicome, vice president for general economics and trade policy at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. “It’s pretty laughable on its face to think that a country like the ones in Europe or in Norway or Switzerland aren’t doing enough to police forced labor.”

And even if countries do enact and enforce the forced-labor import bans the U.S. wants, they would still need to prove that they’re enforcing them to Washington’s satisfaction before the tariffs would be removed, said lawyer Patrick Childress, a partner at Holland & Knight and a former U.S. trade official.

“This suggests that no short-term path for countrywide relief from the new Section 301 tariffs will be available,” he said.

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Countries and industries reject the forced labor argument

Many countries have pushed back against the Trump administration’s findings.

Brazil, which faces a 12.5% forced-labor tariff, called the U.S. move “arbitrary and unjustified.” The U.S. “chose to manipulate an issue of great importance to human rights and the struggles of workers worldwide in order to accuse 59 countries and the European Union of unfair practices,” it said in a statement.

Australia also questioned the justification for its 12.5% tariff.

“We believe that amongst all of the countries in the world, Australia does take the issue of slavery, modern slavery, seriously, and will continue to do that,” Trade Minister Don Farrell told reporters in Adelaide.

Carve-outs have riled some industries. The National Council of Textile Organizations (NCTO), which describes itself as the voice of the American textile industry, protested a mechanism that exempts the Section 301 tariffs for textile and apparel imports from Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Malaysia based on those countries’ imports of U.S. cotton and textiles.

“No other industry has been more disadvantaged by forced labor than the U.S. textile industry, which employs 453,000 workers and has lost 41 plants over the past two plus years,” NCTO chief executive Kim Glas said in a statement. “We remain strongly concerned that USTR’s textile mechanism will harm the very domestic manufacturers the administration seeks to help.”

US forced-labor bans don’t always work

The U.S. has two major pieces of legislation related to forced-labor import bans. The Tariff Act of 1930 gave Customs and Border Protection the authority to seize shipments where forced labor was suspected and to block further imports. But it had a big carve-out: If there was “consumptive demand,” meaning there wasn’t sufficient supply to meet domestic demand, imports were allowed regardless of how they were produced. The Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act that took effect in 2016 eliminated that loophole.

In 2021, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act was passed. It blocks imports from China’s Xinjiang region unless businesses can prove the items were made without forced labor.

But goods made with forced labor can still make it into the U.S. In 2015, an Associated Press investigation found that slave labor was used in the fishing industry in Southeast Asia. The seafood they caught made its way to supermarkets and pet food providers across the U.S.

An investigation by The Associated Press in 2020 into the $65 billion palm oil industry found labor abuses among an invisible workforce consisting of millions of men, women and children in Asia. The fruit they harvested made its way into the supply chains of major companies, including Unilever, L’Oreal, Nestle and Procter & Gamble.

Calls for a more comprehensive approach to combat forced labor

During hearings on the tariffs this month, National Retail Federation vice president Jonathan Gold, who was representing the business coalition the Joint Association Forced Labor Working Group at the hearing, said that in order for the import bans to work, they would have to be much more extensive.

He said there need to be “clear, measurable benchmarks” tied to tariffs for countries to hit, and that the U.S. should help countries build enforcement programs.

Kenya Davis, a partner at the Boies Schiller Flexner law firm, said an effective ban needs a “comprehensive approach” that provides transparency about what the investigations consisted of, along with programs that provide countries aid in enforcing bans.

Politics

El-Sayed comes under fire for ‘ogre on a pike’ leaked comment

Published

3 hours ago

July 27, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed is facing backlash from within his own party after using controversial rhetoric to describe the stakes of his victory in a recent donor meeting.

“You put one ogre on a pike, and then everyone else gets the message, and all of a sudden starts to sound a lot different,” El-Sayed said, describing how his win could propel the progressive movement, according to audio of a Zoom meeting obtained by POLITICO.

On Monday, several Democrats were quick to slam his comments, which they took as direct reference to his Senate primary opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens. El-Sayed had not explicitly mentioned Stevens in the portion of the call Blue Light News reviewed.

“Calling your female opponent an ogre you want to put on a pike is not beating the rap that this race has some serious sexism,” Neera Tanden, a centrist Democrat and president of the Center for American Progress, posted on X. Melissa Byrne, a former staffer for Sen. Bernie Sanders, called the remark an “unforced error” that is “really bad and beneath the progressive project.”

El-Sayed’s leaked comments and the reaction to them amount to another flashpoint in a tense primary that is dividing the progressive and moderate wings of the party, and at times has been defined by accusations of racism and sexism.

“Abdul continues with personal insults and making this race about his personal political ambitions and the other 49 states,” said Arik Wolk, spokesperson for the Stevens campaign. “Haley is focused on getting things done for Michigan, and only Michigan.”

Republicans also immediately jumped on the comment, and some leaned into stereotypes of El-Sayed’s religion as a Muslim. “Michigan Islamist discusses beheading his opponents,” said Steve Guest, a former staffer for Sen. Ted Cruz, on X.

An El-Sayed campaign spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the backlash. A spokesperson had previously told Blue Light News that the candidate was “speaking metaphorically” about his intention to support a primary against Sen. John Fetterman in Pennsylvania.

This is not the first time El-Sayed has used — and defended — aggressive political rhetoric. “When they go low, we don’t go high,” the progressive said while speaking at a campaign rally earlier this year, riffing on a famous line from former first lady Michelle Obama. “We take them to the mud and choke them out.”

He and Stevens will face off in their final Democratic Senate debate Monday night, and the results of the Aug. 4 primary could have major consequences for the party as it grapples with its ideological tack ahead of the 2028 presidential election.