The Campaign Moment: Will Biden issue more pardons?
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If you had to pardon a member of your family, who would it be and what specific crime would it be for?

Oh, no, I would get in trouble with a member of my family for saying that. I think I'd have to issue a blanket pardon. I think I'd have to sort of do what President Biden did and issue a pardon for all offenses committed in the last 10 years. For who, though? For everybody? Maybe for everybody, yeah. You would just be completely self-serving with your pardon powers and take it to new heights as far as helping your family out. Yeah.

I guess I would do a preemptive pardon for my children for the rest of their lives. Leigh-Anne stole my answer. No. Welcome to The Campaign Moment on this Friday, December 6th. I'm Aaron Blake, senior political reporter and author of The Campaign Moment newsletter. From now through Inauguration Day, I'll be stepping in to host these Friday roundtable discussions, guiding you through the top politics and presidential transition stories of the week.

With that bit of housekeeping out of the way, today I'm joined by two great guests to help me break down this week in politics. First is White House editor and author of one of my favorite books on politics called The Thumpin', Naftali Ben-David. Hey, Naftali. Hey, thanks for having me. And back again with us is Leanne Caldwell, who is co-author of the Early Brief newsletter and a Washington Post live anchor. Thanks for coming back, Leanne. Thanks for having me.

Okay, so here's what we're going to be talking about today. I first wanted to get into what's going on with Pete Hegseth. Hegseth is, of course, President-elect Donald Trump's pick for defense secretary. He's a veteran and former Fox News host. But a string of allegations about his past behavior have made it look increasingly challenging for him to be confirmed by the United States Senate, even as Republicans have a majority there. I think that's safe to say that he's in some real trouble, right, guys? Yes.

Yeah, I think that that is true. And one of the things that's kind of noticeable, at least for me, is that President-elect Trump has not come out guns blazing to defend his nominee, making public statements and private lobbying. Yes, for sure. And we're going to get into all of that as the show progresses. Later in the show, I also want to talk about the political fallout from a move by President Joe Biden last weekend to issue a sweeping and extraordinary pardon for his son, Hunter Biden.

So we'll get into how Democrats and others are reacting to that and how it's fueling talks about other preemptive pardons that Biden could issue to Trump critics and various other figures.

And finally, we'll do some updates on control of the house, which was recently decided with the last race being called. To start, we've talked about Hegseth on this show before, but Neftali, can you get us started and just give us a brief rundown of the latest information about what's endangering his nomination?

The allegations against Hegseth have included things from mismanaging a nonprofit that he ran to sexual misconduct to allegations of excessive drinking. He has strongly denied all of those allegations. But one thing that's kind of emerged to the fore recently in terms of the conversation is allegations of excessive drinking. And I think for a lot of senators, the notion of somebody who may or may not have that problem at the head of the Pentagon, at the head of the U.S. Armed Forces, is a very, very important thing.

is something that's very daunting. And we should add here, too, that Trump, while he's been accused of sexual misconduct on his own and perhaps might be feeling defensive on that score, he does not drink. And so he may view somebody who, again, Hexeth does not concede to having a drinking problem. But if that is something that arises, that could be a really dangerous thing, I think, for his nomination. Yeah. And I think we should note that Trump's brother also died. And Trump has talked extensively about the role that alcohol played in his life. And he's

you know, made the case that ambitious people should not drink. He's talked about how he doesn't want his own children to drink. So this could be a significant issue. Leanne, I was I was really struck this week by the full court press that we suddenly saw, not necessarily from Trump himself, which we'll get to, but from Hagstaff doing interviews with favorable media outlets and

These are the kinds of things that we don't generally see until later in the process. What does that signal to you about where he stands in this? So I know we're going to talk about Trump role later, but it's actually combined with what's happening here. And that is because

Trump has told Hegseth, according to our sources, that it's up to him to go out and fight for it. That people, Republicans we've talked to, aides and senators, say that Trump has said it's up to the nominees to essentially sink or swim. And if he can find 50 votes, then great. If he can't, then that's his problem. And so...

So Hegseth has done a lot of media this week. And the reason is because he still has a major uphill battle in the Senate. And so he has engaged his allies to help, including his mother.

His mother, of course, was reported by the New York Times last week to have written an email in 2018 basically saying that he had abused women in his life. Yeah. Yeah. And so now his mother is saying that she loves him. She didn't mean it. And I want people to look at Pete and judge people or understand him for who he is today and to disregard the media. That was seven years ago.

And most of it is misinformation. And that he would be great for this job. Pete is a new person he's redeemed, forgiven, changed. I think we all are after seven years.

I believe he's the man for the job. So yes, it is a coordinated campaign driven by HAGSETH and even Trump's staff, but Trump is still quite removed from this process, seeing if he can make it through. And if I can mention that I think part of the defense is this real redemption narrative that is often a

appealing to Republicans and conservatives. He's not saying I never did anything wrong. He's saying I made mistakes in my life, but I found Jesus and I found my wife and now I'm a better man. And I'm not saying that's not true, but it's also true that that narrative has been used in the past by people seeking to get support from Republicans after things have been reported about their past.

And the other thing I think maybe to mention is just that the hearings could be important. He could get to a point where he has hearings, and if that's the case, then suddenly, you know, how he performs in those could make all the difference. And as we all know, snippets from hearings get circulated, either positive or negative,

And often hearings don't matter. Often it's kind of a predetermined outcome. But you could picture Hegseth getting to a point where, in fact, hearings could be riveting and important. Yeah, and I think we're all kind of wondering if they even want to let it get to that point. I think it's worth noting right now that we've been talking about Trump, you know, not really going to bat terribly hard for Hegseth. He did put out a message on social media this morning on Truth Social saying, quote,

Pete Hegseth is doing very well. His support is strong and deep, much more than the fake news would have you believe. He was a great student, Princeton Harvard educated with a military state of mind. He will be fantastic, high energy, secretary of defense, one who leads with charisma and skill. Pete is a winner, and there is nothing that can be done to change that. I'll get your guys' reactions, but I read that and I'm like,

That's kind of thin gruel. You know, it's not Trump saying, I'm going to go after the people who oppose him. It's not Trump saying, I'm standing by him no matter what. And of course, in the background of all this, we have reported the Washington Post that Trump is actually

I mean, that was a very lovely message from Donald Trump on Pete Exess' behalf.

But, yes, like you said, he is not threatening Republicans. Which has been a very effective thing for him over the years. That is exactly what his tactics have been. But Trump has also, as of last night, not picked up the phone and called senators.

asking them to support Hegseth and that is also quite telling. One way to look at this is that this is Trump in somewhat characteristic fashion trying to position himself to take credit if Hegseth does well but not to take blame if Hegseth falls short and that would be sort of a typical tactic for many politicians but certainly for Trump. So he's putting out just enough support to say uh

you know, if Hegseth passes, that was because I was behind him, but also that, well, he just couldn't do it if he does happen to fall short. And you brought up DeSantis, and there's a really interesting dynamic there, because DeSantis at this point is kind of Trump's top alternative. And DeSantis and Trump talked about this most recently at a funeral in Palm Beach earlier this week. But

There's a lot of people on Trump's staff who do not want DeSantis to have this job. And so there is a division. Because the two of them ran against each other in the presidential primaries and he was viewed as disloyal. Yeah, there's still hard feelings among Trump world. Trump's chief of staff, campaign manager, incoming chief of staff, Susie Wiles, she had a

deep falling out with DeSantis, and they have not necessarily healed those wounds. And so there is this interesting dynamic internally in Trump world about this nominee where Trump's staff is still trying to push Hegseth because they don't want DeSantis. And Trump is very open at this point to DeSantis taking this role.

Neftali, I wanted to get into something that you brought up, which is this idea that potentially Trump, you know, by not pushing Hegseth too hard, could avoid taking the blame if he goes down. I don't doubt that that's the calculus that he might be making with this. But I also think it's worth noting that if Hegseth does go down, that would be both an attorney general pick going down and Matt Gaetz.

and a defense secretary pick going down in Pete Hegseth. We really haven't seen picks for such high profile cabinet nominations going down that quickly.

How can this not be viewed as a setback for him? I mean, I think it probably would be viewed as a setback for him. And also, we shouldn't forget that his would-be nominee for DEA administrator also ended up having to withdraw. And there are some other people on the bubble, whether it's Kash Patel or whether it's Tulsi Gabbard. Patel is the pick for FBI director and Gabbard is the pick for director of national intelligence. I mean, I do think this would be a setback. But

Trump does sometimes seem to operate by different political rules than other people. I mean, I think if a president-elect came in and immediately lost several picks, it would be considered a political disaster. It would be thought of as his party abandoning him and as immediately showing, even before he takes office, that he actually doesn't have a lot of clout. And Trump may have miscalculated here. I mean, I'm not saying that because he thinks he wouldn't suffer a political price, it means he actually—

Wouldn't he may have been feeling invulnerable. I mean, let's not forget, he just won an election. A lot of people thought he couldn't win, thereby making a lot of court cases that a lot of people thought he couldn't win go away. A lot of presidents, when they come in, they feel pretty powerful and it's not unusual for people to overreach. And I wonder if, you know, if some of that may be affecting what's going on with Trump. So I would not suggest that he wouldn't suffer politically if this happens.

I do think he's a different kind of politician who may not care in the same way that others would. Right. So, Leanne, to Naftali's point, we have a 53 to 47 incoming Senate. That means that if all Democrats are voting against these nominees, basically four Republicans could make the difference. Can you tell me who you're really watching for right now to get a sense for where this is headed?

So, of course, the two Republican women who are always up in the air, that's Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, who we should not expect to be a Trump rubber stamp throughout Trump's term. Outgoing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. And then, of course, there's Senator Joni Ernst, a Republican of Iowa. She is a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

She is a sexual assault survivor. She is a veteran. And she has had worked for years to tighten sexual assault accountability in the military, which she was successful at. So this is very personal for her. And another thing that also really bothers Senator Ernst about Hegseth is not only the allegations about

womanizing and drinking, but also that he has been open about women not serving in combat roles. And so she essentially said on Fox News that she is not a yes. It doesn't sound on your answer that you've gotten to a yes. If I'm wrong about that, correct me. And if that is the case, it sounds to me as if the hearing will be critical for his nomination. Am I right about that?

I think you are right. I think for a number of our senators, they want to make sure that any allegations have been cleared. So, you know, my sources told me that Hegseth could probably get 47 or 48 Republican votes, but that won't cut it.

And the thing about somebody like Ernst is she can bring people along or turn people away. People will look to her. If she announces her support in some kind of a definitive way, it gives a lot of people cover to vote for a guy like Hagseth. And if she announces her opposition, it makes it much tougher for others to do so. So she's not just one vote. I think she carries probably several votes in her decision. Yeah, and she's been choosing her words very carefully. Guys, I wanted to briefly touch on a couple of the other cabinet picks that Trump has made.

both early in the transition and recently. We've mentioned Kash Patel for FBI Director, Robert F. Kennedy for Health and Human Services Secretary, and former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence. These haven't been as big a focal point as HEGSETH is right now, but I think it's safe to say we will have a thorough discussion about each of them moving forward. There has been Republican resistance to at least a couple of them.

Which of these picks do you guys think might face the most problems and why? I mean, I would look at Tulsi Gabbard. I mean, you know, to be director of national intelligence, when you're someone who traveled to Syria and met with Assad, and when you're somebody who has seemed...

close to Russia or at least to its positions in several key areas. I think that is a tough sell for a lot of Republicans who do care about this sort of thing. Gabbard, in a couple instances after the Russia-Ukraine war started, has reposted or said things that some senators saw as repeating Russian talking points, and that made some Republicans very uncomfortable.

I also think that she's a lifelong Democrat, so her ties within the party, therefore, are not only nonexistent but perhaps antagonistic. Trump may like the fact that she's essentially a recent convert to his camp. Other Republicans may not feel quite so comfortable with that. And, you know, I think it's not an accident that Trump has picked some of the least orthodox and most disruptive candidates for areas like defense, intelligence, and criminal justice, because that includes Kash Patel as another guy who might run into trouble.

These are professions that have strong ethical codes that he ran up against the first time he was president. And I think he wants to ensure that he has not just loyalists but almost people who are antagonistic to those departments in their culture at the top of them. And I think they're going to be a tough sell. And Kash Patel, of course, has spoken openly about basically targeting Trump's enemies. And even last year he publicized –

a list of 60 members of the so-called deep state. He said that the top levels of the FBI should be fired. So a pretty significant battle ahead potentially there. Leanne, who are you interested to see when they finally kind of get their public hearing? Yeah, I agree with Naftali. I think that Tulsi is going to be the most difficult for senators to

RFK Jr., I am getting all sorts of signals that he's most likely going to be fine, that it's not going to be a very controversial process.

People are telling me that, you know, there's a lot of skepticism in the health world among Americans. And he had a lot of support when he was running. And so it seems like that is definitely a nominee where Republican senators are going to give the president deference to put in place the person that he wants.

Interesting. After the break, we're going to dig into another controversial development from this past week that is earning some criticism even from the side that did it. I'm talking, of course, about President Biden's pardon of his own son, Hunter. That's next. This episode is supported by Rocket Money.

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So let's get into another major story. At the beginning of the week, President Joe Biden issued a broad pardon for his son, Hunter Biden. Hunter has been convicted of lying on a form he filled out to purchase a gun and of tax evasion. But the pardon actually went well beyond that. President Biden effectively pardoned his son for anything he did during a nearly 11-year period of

ending this Sunday. Naftali and Leanne, can you summarize the reactions that we've seen to this, especially from Democrats? There was a lot of Democratic pushback to this. On the one hand, you have people who came out very quickly. There were members of Congress who said that this is not what President Biden should be doing. Senator Elizabeth Warren told me

Wrong is wrong, and this is wrong. Wrong is wrong, and we have to be willing to say that, whether it's a Democrat or a Democrat who's in the process. So there are people who believe that this opens the door for Donald Trump to take advantage and scrutinize

girth the boundaries or push the boundaries when he is dealing with pardons or the Department of Justice, etc. The ones, the Democrats, though, who have been quiet, who have not been so outspoken, there's a lot of chatter that people are actually cheering President Biden on for doing this, saying, look, what President Biden does is not going to have any sort of impact on

of what Donald Trump is going to do in the future. Donald Trump was going to push the boundaries anyway. So the party internally is quite split, but the fact that there was such public dissent among Democrats is telling.

Yeah, I think for a lot of Democrats, this came just as they're preparing to sort of gird their loins to take on Trump. And they felt like it really was going to make that a lot harder and just make the sort of moral contrast that they like to draw just a much fuzzier thing. And Trump immediately seized on it and started talking about the January 6th defendants. So there's no question that he's going to use that for his own purposes.

I think also felt like Republicans, including Trump, have long been very critical of Hunter Biden, suggesting he's guilty of all kinds of financial wrongdoing. And they've suggested that they would go after him on that basis if given the opportunity. And I think that's what President Biden is trying to protect his son from.

I think from Joe Biden's point of view, first of all, it shouldn't be underestimated how protective he feels about his son. This is a man who has lost two children and he lost his first wife as well. And Hunter has suffered from addiction and other issues. And so I think he just felt very personally protective. Hunter was targeted for being the president's son. And so his feeling is these guys get to target him for political reasons, but I don't get to defend him for political reasons. So I think it was a very...

personal and human drama playing out here as well as a political one. Yeah, and I think Leanne mentioned the thing about how Democrats think this will make it easier for Trump to, you know, pardon various people if he wants to. I think it's worth noting that Trump's pardon record in his first term was already very political in its nature. He pardoned lots of allies. He pardoned his

son-in-law's father, who he's now appointed to be ambassador to France. And I wanted to get into another aspect of the pardon story. The Washington Post and others are reporting that President Biden's aides are discussing preemptive pardons of other figures who could face investigation or prosecution after he leaves office.

Trump and his allies have often talked about investigating or prosecuting foes as retribution, sometimes without any actual wrongdoing cited or citing very thinly substantiated theories. And some congressional Democrats are actually publicly pushing for the Biden team to consider these preemptive pardons to stop that from happening.

Naftali, can you tell me who are the people that aides are talking about and how kind of serious is this proposal being taken right now? Well, President Biden has not made a decision on it, but it does seem to be a very serious conversation within the White House led by the president's chief of staff and the White House counsel. So these are not low-level staffers that are talking about this. I think they want to prepare a proposal or an option, I should say, for the president, and then he can decide. But it's

It's definitely serious. And some of the people that we know from our reporting are being looked at are Dr. Fauci, who led the COVID response under Trump and under Biden. Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, who has been quite critical of Trump. Adam Schiff, the incoming senator from California who led the first impeachment trial.

fight against Trump. And then Liz Cheney, who of course was a very outspoken Republican critic of Trump. And I think that the reason that this discussion is happening is that Trump and some of his allies, including some of those like Hash Patel, who will soon potentially have very powerful positions, have been really explicit about going after these people. And I think the question has arisen, well, given that, does there need to be some preemptive

protection for them. There are some questions that arise, not least, do these people want pardons? I mean, it's not at all clear that they're happy about this. In fact, Schiff has specifically said he doesn't need it. The thing about a pardon is it sounds like you're guilty. You know, right or wrong, people will interpret this as, well, if you didn't do anything, why do you have to be pardoned for it? And it also implies a certain lack of faith that the system of justice, the judges and so forth, would be able to fight back against

any abuse of this power. So it's a complicated discussion, but it does reflect a lot of where we are politically at this moment. I was just going to say, thinking about it from a political perspective, it seems like it would be more politically advantageous for Democrats if president does not issue these

preemptive pardons. And then should Trump go after these people for no other reason other than being opposed to Trump? That would be very bad, I would think, politically for Republicans and for Donald Trump. Yeah, I think there's a school of thought here that like going after these people, while it might be bad for those people, could actually work against Trump in the end because it would look vindictive and it would look like retribution. Neftali,

I think a question that some people have asked this week is like, does the president have the power to preemptively pardon people for things that aren't specific crimes and over large periods of time like this?

Well, we can certainly say that this whole idea of a broad preemptive blanket pardon is largely untested in the American judicial system. However, this court in particular, the Supreme Court, has given a lot of deference to presidents and their power. And in general, the Supreme Court tends to give

presidents, when they're carrying out their core constitutional obligations, a lot of leeway. So while this hasn't been tested, there's no real reason to think that it would be challenged or struck down in any significant way. And Leanne, just before we wrap up, I wanted to get into another interesting dynamic, which I know you're paying attention to. We actually learned this week after waiting for a few weeks for all the votes to be tallied, we got the final call and the final House race.

All 435 races now decided. And so we know the exact margin for Republican control of the House of Representatives. And Republicans still control that chamber, but they actually lost a net of one seat in this election. So they came into it with basically a 221 to 214 majority. Now it's going to be 220 to 215. And notably, as a percentage, that majority is the second smallest in history.

I've got some thoughts on this, and I wrote about it this week, but I wanted to get your reactions to what the very slim majority in the House is going to mean moving forward.

Yeah. So it's 220. But remember when on January 3rd, when the new Congress gavels into session, there's only going to be 218 Republicans because Matt Gaetz has resigned his future seat and Mike Waltz, who's going to be the national security advisor. And then after Elise Stefanik, a

who is going to be confirmed to be United Nations ambassador, which is supposed to be a very easy confirmation process and could happen relatively quickly. That will be 217 to 215. Of course, those seats will be filled, but it will be a couple months.

And so this is a very tumultuous time for Republicans, especially a raucous Republican majority that likes to fight and doesn't like to always row in the same direction. But I will say Republicans right now have on their rose colored glasses.

And they think that it's going to be fine. Everything's going to work out because they have the Senate, they have the House, and they have Donald Trump, who is going to pressure Republicans to fall in line and just do what the party is doing. And so Republicans feel confident that they are going to get all of their members to always vote in the same way on some of these big pieces of legislation that they're going to take up on immigration, energy, taxes.

et cetera. We'll see if they're going to be able to do it. It's not easy. Yeah, we saw, of course, over the last two years, lots of discord in the House Republican conference. We saw House Speaker removed for the first time. We saw them struggle to muster the votes for various big ticket items. And in a lot of cases, House Speaker Mike Johnson was

actually relied on Democrats to pass these major bills because his party was so divided. I do think it's a little bit different now because it will be the Republicans' agenda. You know, before they had to work with Democrats to pass anything, they had to get it signed by a Democratic president. So it's a little bit of a different situation. Neftali, what do you think this House, Slim House majority means? Well, I think it's worth remembering that this House Republican conference has been pretty hard to govern historically.

I mean, since Newt Gingrich. I mean, if you go back and look at the various leaders of that conference and the Republican speakers, from John Boehner to Kevin McCarthy to Paul Ryan, I mean, very few of them have left in their own terms or any sort of sense that they had command of their Congress. This is a fractious bunch. A lot of them came not to make Congress work, not to make the government work, but in a way to show their opposition.

opposition to government and to Congress and to compromise. And so Speaker Johnson is going to have a situation where he can lose just a few people on the left or on the right. I mean, some of these Republicans did win in districts that Biden won, and they're not going to they're going to want to be careful about just following Trump's agenda.

And then on top of that, Trump's not going to be very understanding. He doesn't understand why a Republican Congress won't just do whatever he says. And so he may turn on them if things don't go his way. So I don't envy Speaker Johnson. I think between trying to corral his troops and then also deal with President Trump, I think he's got his work cut out. Right. That's it for today's episode. Thank you so much, Leanne and Naftali. Thank you for having us. Thank you so much.

Naftali Ben-David is White House editor for The Post, and Leanne Caldwell is the co-author of the Early Brief newsletter and a Washington Post live anchor. If you're tuning in via Post Reports, we will keep bringing you these conversations on most Fridays. And as always, you can find us on the Campaign Moment podcast feed.

Our team also includes Maggie Penman, Monica Campbell, Ted Muldoon, Alana Gordon, Ariel Plotnick, Bishop Sand, Renny Svernovsky, Sabi Robinson, Emma Talkoff, Sean Carter, Peter Bresnan, Allison Michaels, Renita Jablonski, Martine Powers, and Elahe Izadi. I'm Aaron Blake. Have a great weekend.

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