Marc Caputo: “There are few political acts that Trump values more than defiance in the face of media scrutiny. And Hegseht’s charge on Thursday—clearly directed at an audience in Mar-a-Lago—bought him both time and goodwill. After rampant speculation that he could soon drop his nomination, there is little expectation of that now. In fact, Trump’s transition team has settled on two theories for why Hegseth should stay in: time and magnetism.”

“Aides believe that the longer Hegseth remains in contention for the post, the higher his chances of confirmation will be, simply because it subjects GOP senators to a sustained pressure campaign from the MAGA base, and because many will have a hard time scuttling him in a public vote. Those aides also believe that if Hegseth is drawing fire from critics, there will be less attention and heat on Trump’s other controversial nominees like Kash Patel (FBI), Tulsi Gabbard (director of national intelligence), or Robert Kennedy Jr. (HHS).”

Said a senior Trump adviser: “Hegseth is a heatshield. Pete can take the heat, and that’s better for everyone else.”

“This is the biggest deployment of my life, and there won’t be a drop of alcohol on my lips while I’m doing it.”

— Pete Hegseth, pledging to Megan Kelly to not drink alcohol while serving as defense secretary.

“If you want to rub elbows with President-elect Donald Trump and his incoming administration during inaugural celebrations, it’ll cost you — between half a million and $2 million, specifically,” USA Today reports.

“I think you have seen more happen in the last two weeks than you have in the last four years.”

— Donald Trump, quoted by the Associated Press.

“The high-stakes battle on Capitol Hill over Pete Hegseth’s quest to lead the Defense Department is causing no shortage of angst in the Pentagon, where officials are watching nervously to find out who their next boss will be,” Politico reports.

Said one Pentagon official: “The biggest thing I’m picking up is a level of discomfort and uncertainty. People want to know who their leadership is going to be and what they’re going to be asked to do, these are professionals who can put personal feelings aside.”

“President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the National Institutes of Health wants to take on campus culture at elite universities, wielding the power of tens of billions of dollars in scientific grants,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford physician and economist, is considering a plan to link a university’s likelihood of receiving research grants to some ranking or measure of academic freedom on campus.”

David Graham: “As the 2016 presidential election drew to an end, Donald Trump began using a new slogan: ‘Drain the swamp.’ It was a neat encapsulation of his critique of his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, and of the country’s governing establishment of both parties, which he painted as corrupt, cozy, and self-dealing.”

“These days, the catchphrase has begun to vanish from his repertoire. Last month, The Washington Post calculated that Trump had used it ‘just 59 times on Truth Social, his social media site, in the past two years—fewer times than he wrote about it on Twitter in October 2016 alone.’ The shift isn’t just semantic, either. Trump’s staffing decisions, his transition design, and his own behavior show that he is uninterested in even keeping up appearances this time. Trump himself will never say it, but the credo of his second term is coming into focus: Fill the swamp.”