Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has withdrawn the nomination of Rear Admiral Michael P. Donnelly for Vice Admiral, after learning that drag performances were held aboard the USS Ronald Reagan while under his command.
An exclusive story by The Daily Wire stated that Donnelly’s confirmation was pulled because when he was in command, from April 2016 to September 2018, Yeoman 2nd Class Joshua Kelley was performing as a drag queen under the name “Harpy Daniels.”
On top of that, the department billed it as a “Morale, Welfare, and Recreation” event. Yikes.
Donnelly was nominated for the promotion back on June 18 by President Donald Trump and would have also taken command of the 7th Fleet, which is the largest overseas force in the Navy.
A DOD source told The Daily Wire that Hegseth withdrew his nomination after repeated media inquires and is currently looking for another candidate to replace Donnelly.
The most disturbing part of the story is how Donnelly was able to get past Trump’s vetting team in the first place. This isn’t the first roadblock Donnelly has faced over concerns about his woke antics.
Various articles from all the way back in 2018, from outlets like The Military Times and The Daily Caller, already covered this story in detail.
Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama also held up Donnelly’s promotion to rear admiral, as part of an attempt to block Biden-era Defense Department promotions.
William Thibeau, director of The American Military Project at The Claremont Institute told The Daily Wire: “The USS Ronald Reagan drag shows of 2017 and 2018 were not random acts of entertainment for sailors, but were sanctioned Navy programs under the Morale, Welfare, and Recreation (MWR) department of the ship.”
Was this a smart decision?
He added, “As commander of the ship, Captain Donnelly would have been ultimately responsible for this program.”
Allowing drag performances on a naval aircraft carrier demonstrates an extreme lack of judgement and moral clarity.
At the very least, Donnelly priorities are extremely mixed up. At worst, he’s a radical that doesn’t belong within the ranks of our armed forces’ leadership.
An aircraft carrier is a place that needs to be prepared to go to war at all times. It is not the forum for flaunting sexualized cross-dressing performances.
The biggest takeaway, however, is that Trump nominees aren’t being vetted properly and mistakes from the first term may comeback to haunt this administration.
Hegseth seems to be doing his best. He took steps back in June to eliminate the politicizing of ship naming, by changing the USNS Harvey Milk to the USNS Oscar V. Peterson.
Milk was a gay left-wing activist known for serving in local San Francisco government back in the 1970s and for raping a 16-year-old boy.
Peterson on the other hand, was a Navy veteran and hero, who sacrificed his own life for fellow ship-mates earning him a posthumous Medal of Honor.
“We are taking the politics out of ship naming,” he said, in a video posted to social media. “We’re not renaming the ship to anything political. This is not about political activists, unlike the previous administration. Instead we’re renaming the ship after a United States Navy Congressional Medal of Honor recipient. As it should be. People want to be proud of the ship they’re sailing in.”
Yet despite Hegseth’s best efforts, federal agencies are still seemingly in need of more resources and manpower to smoke out others like Donnelly, before it’s too late.
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