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During an appearance on MSNBC on Saturday morning, former Naval War College professor, and current columnist for the Atlantic, Tom Nichols implored Republicans to look elsewhere for a replacement for Donald Trump's choice to be the next secretary of defense.

Speaking with host Ali Velshi, Nichols made the case that Fox News personality Pete Hegseth is fooling himself and everyone else by claiming he can handle the the job because he lacks the experience and character to make sound decisions and advise the president.

"Yes, he was a major in the Army," Nichols conceded. "I taught at the Naval War College. I taught dozens and dozens of young majors and they are fine men and women, but that doesn't make him qualified to be advising the president in the middle of a crisis or potentially even a nuclear crisis."

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"The secretary of defense is a job that that is always reserved for someone who can meet both the intellectual experience and character standards that's required to be at the top of the Pentagon," he continued before later adding, "There's a real threat of real bad things happening in the world for which we need the people who have the best and most sober judgment and the most sober temperament –– and I don't mean that as a pun on the allegations of drinking."

"I mean a level and steady temperament," he elaborated. "And I don't think there's any evidence of that with Pete Hegseth who, again, other than having served in the military and been a morning talk show host and has no business being secretary of defense."

He then predicted, "I'm uncomfortable with the civilian/military relationship where the president calls the Pentagon and the secretary of defense says, ''We're not going to do that,' or in this case the secretary of defense says, 'Sure, whatever you want to do, Mr. President."

According to one columnist, Democrats have nothing to fear in the future with Donald Trump unable to run again in 2028 and, therefore, they should bedevil him at every turn and make the next four years unbearable for him.

In a column with the none-too-subtle headline of "Shove the Presidency Down Trump’s Throat," Jason Linkins of The New Republic suggests heaping problems on the president-elect to the point where they "Wake him up early and keep him up late."

Donald Trump is being warned he needs to tap the brakes on some of his most prominent initiatives lest he find himself alienating voters who gave him the benefit of the doubt.

In a blunt editorial from the Wall Street Journal opinion page editors, the president-elect, who will assume power on Monday, was admonished that "half the country still dislikes him" and that he is on a short leash.

According to the editors, "Mr. Trump has political running room, though it’s not unlimited. His victory was solid but no landslide," before adding, "... the GOP majority in the House is so narrow that a couple of willful Members can kill anything. Mr. Trump could quickly find himself in trouble if he exceeds his mandate from voters."

On CNN's newly launched "Table for Five" with host Abby Phillip, journalist Cari Champion butted heads with attorney Arthur Aidala during a heated discussion over companies abandoning their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies.

Conservative complaints about DEI has led to unfounded and unjust attacks on a multitude of government and corporate employees who are not white and male and Champion pointed out that if one if not white with an Ivy League education you become a target.

"You think about Ketanji Jackson, our [Supreme Court] Justice and I think of this woman and how hard she worked and they said she was a DEI justice," she stated. "And I thought to myself –– or like when you look at Kamala Harris or people who have went to Harvard and Yale and have the same exact, the same exact resume as their white counterpart, their white male counterpart, DEI is so trendy."

ALSO READ: Inside the parade of right-wing world leaders flocking to D.C. for Trump's inauguration

"And when it comes from someone from a conservative side and they label that, it becomes this truth," she noted. "I often ask my question when I look at [Fox News personality] Pete Hegseth, I wonder, if they say he's a DEI candidate, would that be unfair to say? I don't know why we can't use them? Cha cha cha cha cha. Why we can't use the same words?"

As attorney Aidala leaned into her reply, she added, "I know, I'm gonna let you get to it. But why can't we use the same words that they use on us? "

"But it comes from the United States Supreme Court," the attorney interjected. "The decision last year about the Harvard admissions, and they just said it violated the 14th Amendment and it really had to do with, I think, Asian students who were being excluded from going to Harvard because there were too many Asian students."

"Their grades were very high and so that's where this all comes from," he added. "Corporate America is basically following, well, if they did it to Harvard –– don't worry, I can't even spell Harvard so, you know, I'm not from Harvard –– if they're going to rule there the next stop is corporations because you're only hiring this person because of the DEI.''

"That's just not true!" Champion exclaimed as CNN host Phillip stepped in.

Steve Bannon — President-elect Donald Trump's former chief White House strategist — may have just gotten an edge over his rival, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, thanks to a bill likely to pass with bipartisan support.

The New Republic's Greg Sargent wrote Saturday that one provision in the Laken Riley Act currently being debated in Congress could be exploited by what Bannon calls the "populist right" to get a major edge in his immigration-based civil war with the Silicon Valley wing of the MAGA movement (which is led by billionaire executives like Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy). Should the bill become law, language that allows state attorneys general to sue to block the admission of migrants from specific countries could throw a wrench in the gears of the H-1B visa program, which corporations rely on to hire foreign workers.

Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi's appearance this week before a Senate committee considering her nomination to the Donald Trump's next U.S. attorney general drew no small amount of scorn on MSNBC on Saturday morning.

Reacting to Bondi's answers, many of which avoided the topic altogether, MSNBC host Michael Steele singled out one exchange with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) that he found stunning.

Speaking with his co-hosts on "The Weekend," Steele noted that Bondi was given an obvious free ride by many of the Republican senators on the committee.

ALSO READ: Inside the parade of right-wing world leaders flocking to D.C. for Trump's inauguration

"What is stunning to me is that level of questioning was not put on Pam Bondi," he told his co-hosts. "And the moment, to me, what made the hearing a real sort of slack-jawed, whacked-out moment was the exchange with, you know, the senators around Donald Trump in his election results."

"You know, she and Ted Cruz having this, finishing each other's sentences moment where they're talking about, you know, the election and she's like, '"Oh yes, 77 million people," he laughed as he mimicked her voice.

"You know, it's like really? I mean, I know you're concerned about the one and not the 330 million. So this is, I don't know, I think you said it right, Symone [Sanders Townsend], you know," he continued. "Going to find out –– y'all going to find out a whole lot of stuff and people going to be running around looking for help for people who aren't there and that's going to be a big problem."

Watch below or at the link.

There's more to the story behind House Speaker Mike Johnson's (R-La.) decision this week to replace the chairman of one of the most powerful committees.

Politico's Rachel Bade reported Saturday that when Johnson fired House Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Turner (R-Ohio), it actually "wasn't about Donald Trump," despite the speaker mentioning there were "concerns from Mar-a-Lago" about Turner remaining in his role. In fact, Bade reported that Trump distanced himself from the Louisiana Republican's decision and "accused Johnson of trying to paper over his own political considerations."

Former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is facing a new wave of pressure to step into the breach and derail one of Donald Trump's most controversial Cabinet nominees.

According to a report from the New York Times, polio survivors and family members are urging McConnell –– a polio survivor himself –– to stop Trump from successfully handing the job of being his next secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

An announcement by Donald Trump of a new appointee to his administration precipitated a wave of unhappiness from his supporters late Friday night with one MAGA fan accusing him of letting them down.

On Truth Social, the president elect wrote, "I am pleased to announce that Peggy Schwinn will be our next United States Deputy Secretary of Education. Peggy has a strong record of delivering results for children and families. She previously served as the Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Education and, at the Texas Education Agency, as the Deputy Commissioner of Standards and Engagement, Deputy Commissioner of Special Populations and Monitoring, and Chief Deputy Commissioner of Academics. She was also the Assistant Secretary of Education of Delaware, and holds a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins, as well as a Ph.D. from Claremont. A former teacher herself, Peggy became the founding principal of a charter school, because she believes in the power of School Choice, and is committed to delivering the American Dream to the next Generation by returning Education BACK TO THE STATES."

Days before he is set to be officially inaugurated as the country’s 47th president, Donald Trump announced his latest money-making scheme had arrived.

A new meme coin.

A heated discussion broke out Friday night over a pair of reports in The New York Times that President Joe Biden's inner circle shielded him for years, and that Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) begged him in July not to seek a second term.

The Times put out the reports late Friday.