Missing in the US Senate: Manliness!

Opinion The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill Missing in the US Senate: Manliness! Comments: by Bill Press, opinion contributor - 08/11/26 11:00 AM ET Comments: Link copied by Bill Press, opinion contributor - 08/11/26 11:00 AM ET Comments: Link copied

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., departs the U.S. Capitol prior to a confirmation vote for acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Friday, Aug. 7, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth makes no bones about it. His goal is to restore what he calls a “warrior ethos” to the military. He started out by summoning 800 admirals and generals to a special meeting where he told them to shave their beards, cut their hair, lose weight, work out, pass a physical test twice a year and meet the “highest male standard” for combat. Note the word “male.”

Since then, Hegseth has blocked the promotion of several female officers, fired three top-ranking female admirals, eliminated the Pentagon’s Advisory Committee on Women in the Services, and required every member of the military over 30, male and female, be tested annually for testosterone. All toward making the military more “manly.”

But if Hegseth is concerned with a lack of manliness, he should focus not on the Pentagon but on the U.S. Senate — which has seldom seen a sadder display of lack of manhood than watching Republican Sens. Thom Tillis (N.C.), John Cornyn (Texas) and Bill Cassidy (La.) vote to confirm Todd Blanche, President Trump’s nominee for attorney general.

All three senators struggled to defend their vote, but their explanations fell flat for two reasons. First, Blanche is simply not qualified to be attorney general. For 20 years, he was just another ho-hum lawyer in New York, until he became Donald Trump’s personal lawyer in 2023. In that capacity, he defended Trump against hush money charges in the Stormy Daniels case, charges of stealing presidential documents, and charges of trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election, first in state capitols and then by summoning a mob to the United States Capitol on Jan. 6.

Based on his display of abject loyalty, Trump nominated Blanche as deputy attorney general under Attorney General Pam Bondi. When he fired her, Trump named Blanche acting AG, in which position he personally put together a $1.8 billion slush fund to reward those who participated in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and a sweetheart deal granting President Trump immunity from any oversight by the IRS.

As if that’s not reason enough to vote against Blanche, Cornyn, Tillis, and Cassidy had one other huge reason: Trump had stabbed each of them in the back.

In 2025, after Tillis voted against Trump’s One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act, Trump accused him of being “a talker and a complainer” and vowed to recruit someone to primary him in 2026. Having had enough of the Republican Party infighting, Tillis decided not to run for reelection, abandoning a seat that Democrat Roy Cooper is generally considered most likely to win in November.

Cassidy was Trump’s next target. To punish Cassidy for voting to convict Trump in his 2021 impeachment trial, Trump recruited Rep. Julia Letlow (R-La.) to run against him. She did, and she won. A humiliated Cassidy thus became a lame duck.

During his first term, as part of Senate leadership, nobody was more loyal to Donald Trump than Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). But that wasn’t good enough for Trump. In May, after branding him a “RINO,” he endorsed Cornyn’s primary opponent Ken Paxton. Cornyn will soon be out of the seat he first won in 2002.

The political careers of all three loyal Republicans were destroyed by the leader of their own party. None of them owed anything to Trump. Each of them had good reason to get even. Everybody would understand why they would vote against the man who’d betrayed them. Yet, instead, each of them caved and voted for Blanche, in the most shameless way.

Cassidy broke down in tears explaining his vote, saying he wasn’t crazy about Blanche but feared that, if not confirmed, Trump might nominate somebody even worse. And Cornyn made the most pathetic argument of all, telling reporters: “There is nothing we can do to rein in the president.”

That statement alone says what’s wrong with today’s Republican-controlled Congress. According to the Constitution, not only can Congress do many things “to rein in the president,” that’s their job. That’s why the Founding Fathers gave Congress, and not the president, such unique powers as enacting new laws, declaring war, approving treaties, or authorizing and approving spending. And one way Congress can “rein in the president” is by voting against unqualified nominees — which Tillis, Cassidy and Cornyn lacked the backbone to do.

One thing for sure. We’re a long way from “Profiles in Courage.” If JFK wrote a book about Senate colleagues today, he’d have to call it “Profiles in Cowardice.”

Bill Press is host of The Bill Press Pod. He is the author of “From the Left: A Life in the Crossfire.”