Pete Hegseth might end up in charge of the Pentagon after all. One of the senators expected to block him, Republican Joni Ernst of Iowa, has reportedly caved after threats from Trump. From the New York Times:

Mr. Trump’s hard-line backers paid for ads in Ms. Ernst’s home state, questioned her Republican bona fides on social media and even threatened to launch primary challenges against her in 2026 to push her toward supporting Mr. Hegseth as the nominee.

Some prominent Trump activists, including Charlie Kirk and Stephen K. Bannon, the right-wing strategist, pushed to recruit Kari Lake, the former Republican candidate for governor of Arizona who grew up in Iowa, as a potential challenger to Ms. Ernst.

The onslaught of pressure put Ms. Ernst in a bind. Over two terms in the Senate, she has built a reputation for being a principled leader on matters of sexual assault and the military. As a combat veteran, she also holds strong views on the role of women in the military that clash significantly with those of Mr. Hegseth, who has said women should not serve in combat roles.

Sen. Ernst has not explicitly said she would approve Hegseth’s nomination, but it looks like she’s moving in that direction.

And then there’s this, from David Kurtz at Talking Points Memo:

Heritage Action is launching a pressure campaign against these GOP senators to support Trump’s nominees. It’s small, mostly nothingburger effort to allow Heritage Action to tout its pro-Trump bona fides, but it’s a reasonably good proxy for the list of GOP senators to keep an eye on:

• • Senate Majority Leader John Thune (SD)
  • Mitch McConnell (KY)
  • Lisa Murkowski (AK)
  • Susan Collins (ME)
  • Joni Ernst (IA)
  • Bill Cassidy (LA)
  • Thom Tillis (NC)
  • Todd Young (IN)
  • John Curtis (UT)

Mitch McConnell is 82 and intends to stay in the Senate until his term ends in January 2027, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he bails out sooner.

Republicans in Congress might have noticed yesterday’s report that during Trump’s first term, Bill Barr’s Justice Department was helping itself to congressional staff records looking for sources of leaked information.

Investigators also sought congressional staff members’ records to try to find the sources for a number of Washington Post articles. They included one about a secret surveillance court order against the former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, others about a Russian ambassador’s conversations with senior Trump advisers, and another about the Obama administration’s efforts to fight Russian election interference. …

… Two Democratic members of Congress and 43 congressional staff members at the time of the 2017 articles had their communications records subpoenaed by the Justice Department. Of the staff members, 21 were Democrats, 20 were Republicans, and two held nonpartisan jobs in Congress. 

Just being a Republican won’t save you over the next four years.

Stuff to read: This is a big one — You Should Be More Worried About Trump’s Planned Military Purge by Don Moynihan. Trump is going to destroy the U.S. military as we know it if he isn’t stopped.