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⏰ Tick Tock

6 days - Special session on redistricting. (12/9/2025)
30 days - Candidate filing opens for the 2026 midterm elections (1/2/2026)
37 days - Last day for candidates to file for the 2026 midterm elections. (1/9/2026)
48 days - Start of the 2026 Utah Legislature (1/20/2026).
104 days - Neighborhood caucus night. (3/17/2026)
143 days - Utah Democratic Party's state nominating convention (4/25/2026)
202 days - Utah's 2026 primary election (6/23/2026)
335 days - 2026 midterm elections (11/3/2026)
1,070 days - 2028 presidential election (11/7/2028)

📰 Above the fold

Twenty days into his Senate career, Utah’s John Curtis met his first tragic dilemma: confirm Pete Hegseth—a Fox News weekend host with a loyal MAGA following—as Secretary of Defense, or defy the pressure and sink the nomination.

Curtis said he had concerns. Hegseth had never run a large organization. Two nonprofits he led faced accusations of financial mismanagement. There were allegations of personal misconduct.

Three of his Republican colleagues had already signalled they would vote no on Hegseth’s nomination. One more and the nomination would fail.

It was almost Shakespearean, if Hamlet were a brand-new Senator in Washington.

“To confirm, or not to confirm—that is the question; whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of MAGA and Fox News, or to take arms against a sea of valid criticisms, and by opposing, end them.”

Curtis voted yes. The Senate tied. Vice President JD Vance broke the tie. Hegseth got the job.

“While there are actions from his past that give me pause, I carefully weighed these concerns against his qualifications, leadership style, and commitment to bolstering the world’s most respected military,” Curtis said after the vote. “I am confident Mr. Hegseth shares my vision of ensuring our armed services are prepared to meet the evolving challenges of the 21st century.”

Now Hegseth and the Trump administration face scrutiny over strikes on alleged drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean, after the Washington Post reported Hegseth gave a verbal order to “kill everybody” after the first strike on Sept. 2 left survivors.

The Trump administration has confirmed there was a second strike on the boat, but said the order came from Navy Admiral Frank “Mitch” Bradley, not Hegseth. The Post’s report said Bradley was following Hegseth’s directive.

Legal questions already swirled around the military operation in the Caribbean, but the second strike has fueled a more explosive debate about whether the U.S. is committing war crimes.

On Monday, Curtis told KSL that he is “concerned” about the second military strike that killed two survivors, and is “working to conduct his own oversight” into the incident.

While Curtis may have been more Hamlet before the vote, the story now reads closer to King Creon in Antigone. After the civil war between Oedipus’s sons, Creon decreed a hero’s burial for Eteocles, who defended Thebes, and left Polynices—the attacker—unburied, which was an extreme sacrilege. The Greeks believed even their enemies deserved funeral rites, and leaving a body unburied offended the gods.

The prophet Tiresias warned Creon that his actions had angered the gods, and there would be consequences.

“The Furies who destroy, the ones from Hades and the gods, lie waiting for you, ready to ambush you with the same disasters you’ve created,” Tiresias warns.

Creon finally admits his mistake, but only after his son and wife are dead.

“Alas, my errors—they’re so stubborn, deadly,” Creon wails. “Oh, my own disastrous decisions.”

Curtis’s office did not respond to questions about whether he had any second thoughts about Secretary Hegseth’s qualifications or his vote to confirm him in light of the reporting about the second strike.

In Antigone, the chorus delivers the last word—a coda that seems tailor-made for this moment.

“Wisdom is by far the greatest part of happiness. We must never be disrespectful to the gods. The great words of arrogant men are paid for with great blows, and as the years pass, these blows teach wisdom."

If the Post’s reporting holds, the consequences of Curtis’s vote may now be coming due.