if he made clear stopping Hegseth’s nomination were his absolute priority, of course there is. it probably isn’t his absolute priority! and probably correctly so! you can’t threaten armageddon on everything and expect anything but a bluff called or worse, not-a-bluff actually exercised.

( yes. in a floor vote if 53 vote for, he’s confirmed. but leadership can delay votes. if it’s clear other priorities would suffer egregiously from the confirmation, numbers would change. again, this would require a level of threat perhaps not called for here. but these are choices!)