To the Editor:
Re “Pete Hegseth Is Sworn In as Defense Secretary After Being Confirmed by Slim Margin” (nytimes.com, Jan. 25):
To those Senate Republicans who voted to confirm Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense (and Vice President JD Vance, who broke a 50-50 tie): Unfortunately, you are far from the first members of the U.S. Senate to disgrace themselves through cowardice. But you have done so in historic terms.
By confirming such a wildly unfit nominee and ignorant hatchet man as Mr. Hegseth, you, who trumpet belief in America’s greatness, have actually just severely weakened the United States and greatly endangered your constituents.
Tom Wolfson
Washington
To the Editor:
Senator Mitch McConnell’s vapid vote against the confirmation of Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense is meaningless. This senator, as well as most of his Republican colleagues, had two significant chances to put an end to such unfolding calamities through impeachment votes against Donald Trump. They chose not to do so.
Now they, as well as our country and the wider world, must live with the consequences. Senator McConnell’s leadership was absent when it really mattered. He will long be remembered not for this one vote to withhold confirmation but for twice voting not to convict the president of the United States.
Peter Gilmour
Chicago
To the Editor:
Senator Joni Ernst could have stopped Pete Hegseth, an unfit nominee, from being confirmed as secretary of defense. Yes, she was threatened with the end of her career as a Republican senator from Iowa. Does she value that career so much that she can’t do something else of worth?
A primary challenge with MAGA forces aligned against her could take a heavy toll, but she could have drawn centrist Republicans and benefited from a likely national fund-raising effort. A tough choice. Still, she chose self-interest over the public interest. How does that differ from what Donald Trump does?
Edward G. Muszynski
Rochester, N.Y.
Trump’s Tariff Bluster
To the Editor:
Re “The Debate Over Trump’s Favorite Word Needs a Reset,” by Peter Coy (Opinion newsletter, nytimes.com, Jan. 20):
In his piece calling for better debate over tariffs, Mr. Coy offers valuable policy analysis. However, it rests upon the flawed premise that an administration led by Donald Trump engages in informed, good-faith policy debates. That is not the case.
Mr. Coy held up a comment that Scott Bessent made in his nomination hearing for Treasury secretary as an example of the Republican perspective on tariffs. When I asked Mr. Bessent whether Americans or foreign countries will pay them, Mr. Bessent gave a garbled response about “optimal tariff theory” and “various elasticities.” Other conservative academics, like those Mr. Coy quotes, give similarly dense answers about how Mr. Trump will design precisely targeted tariffs to fix all sorts of problems.
Mr. Trump immediately showed why it’s a waste of time pretending any of those factors influence his decision making. Last Tuesday, Mr. Trump blurted out that he will apply 25 percent tariffs to imports from Mexico and Canada starting this week. On Wednesday he announced his blanket China tariff. Over the weekend, an immigration spat led him to threaten a tariff on imports from Colombia, essentially a tax on everybody’s morning coffee.
The reality is, Mr. Trump governs on a whim, seeking headlines rather than results. Take the steel and aluminum tariffs from his first term, which got big headlines when he announced them, but accomplished little more than lobbying, side deals and exclusions.
The only people who benefit from treating the Trump administration as a serious policy shop are Mr. Trump himself and the extremists who surround him. Better to be realistic about the fact that Mr. Trump is a reckless president and, as with his tariffs, Americans often pay the price.
Ron Wyden
Portland, Ore.
The writer, a Democrat, is a U.S. senator from Oregon.
Silencing Health Officials
To the Editor:
Re “Trump Administration Temporarily Mutes Federal Health Officials” (news article, nytimes.com, Jan. 22):
The new administration has imposed a gag rule on federal health agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In light of the expanding bird flu epidemic, this is especially chilling.
China was excoriated for concealing the Covid-19 outbreak, allowing it to become a deadly worldwide epidemic that turned the world upside down, the effects of which we are still trying to overcome. Meanwhile, President Trump is shutting down the borders, claiming a health crisis due to immigrants with alleged diseases imperiling our country.
The true peril in this country is the present occupant of the Oval Office.
Helen Ogden
Pacific Grove, Calif.
Reducing Fraud and Waste: A Simple Solution
To the Editor:
Re “In Late-Night Purge, President Fires at Least 12 Inspectors General” (news article, Jan. 26):
Remember when President Trump thought that Covid could be controlled if we did less testing and stopped reporting new cases?
Well, now there will be no government waste, fraud and abuse because there will be no one left or permitted to investigate or report it. Problem solved, and another promise kept.
Wallis Cooper
Chapel Hill, N.C.
Views of Longevity, One From a Centenarian
To the Editor:
Re “If You Want to Live to Be 100, Family Connection Can’t Hurt” (front page, Jan. 9):
I never understood the fascination with human longevity. What difference does it make if someone lives 70, 80 or 100 years? For me, it is more important that you have a healthy and happy life, not a long life. Moreover, it is what you do with those years that is important, not how many years you are around. So, let’s stop obsessing about longevity and what is responsible for it.
Clearly, everything plays a role — genes, environment, food, stress, etc. Thus, longevity is multifactorial, and identifying a single factor responsible for it is a fool’s errand. Just enjoy life regardless of how many years you live.
Ultimately, we are all going to die, as every other species does. You have one life. Stop worrying about longevity, and just make the best out of it while you are on this planet!
Michael Hadjiargyrou
Centerport, N.Y.
The writer is a professor of biological and chemical sciences at the New York Institute of Technology.
To the Editor:
I turned 100 on Dec. 28. Nobody in my family even got to the 90s, so it can’t be the genes!
I feel it has been my optimism and active lifestyle that have kept me going so long. I have always worked as a writer and editor from my days as editor of The Daily Cardinal at the University of Wisconsin in 1944-45, to freelancing in Paris in 1951, to heading a women-owned editorial business in the Washington suburbs, and now as a senior editor at Moment magazine, no longer writing articles but still editing copy online.
I have never had cancer or heart disease, and when I was hospitalized briefly last year with a slight case of pneumonia it was the first time I had ever been in a hospital except for two childbirths. So I don’t think family connection is the principal factor in my longevity.
Eileen Martinson Lavine
New York
