WASHINGTON — The Senate Armed Products and services Committee voted Monday alongside birthday celebration strains to ship Pete Hegseth’s nomination to be protection secretary to the Senate flooring as President Donald Trump tries to advance briefly to get vital contributors of his Cupboard in playground.
All 14 Republicans at the committee voted in bias of Hegseth, life all 13 Democrats voted towards him. In spite of preliminary issues about allegations of sexual assault, alcohol abuse and financial mismanagement — all of which Hegseth has denied — now not a unmarried Republican senator has mentioned thus far that she or he will vote deny, that means he’s perhaps on course to be showed by way of the Senate.
Thursday is the soonest that vote would happen within the complete Senate except all 100 contributors conform to advance issues alongside extra briefly.
Trump’s determination in November to select Hegseth, 44, a former Fox Information host who served within the Afghanistan and Iraq wars with the Military Nationwide Cover, surprised many in Washington for the reason that he had restricted army command or vital control enjoy. And within the weeks that adopted, Hegseth’s nomination gave the impression at the verge of faint amid experiences that he paid a agreement to a girl who had accused him of sexual attack in a lodge room in 2017 and that he had a historical past of over the top ingesting at the process, together with at Fox Information.
Hegseth denied the entire allegations, vowed that he wouldn’t contact alcohol if he had been showed to govern the Pentagon and mentioned Trump had instructed him to “keep going, keep fighting.”
Requested next Monday’s vote whether or not he had issues about Hegseth’s inexperience, Armed Products and services Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Omit., spoke back: “I do not have those concerns and I don’t think the majority of the Senate has those concerns, nor the majority of Americans.”
“I think he’s got a lot of knowledge and, frankly, we need to shake things up in the Pentagon,” Wicker endured. “There’s too much red tape, there are too many stumbling blocks, there are too many boxes to check, and the bureaucracy has become creaky over time. And so, this is part of the Trump administration’s mandate to shake things up and do things differently.”
At his Senate Armed Products and services Committee confirmation hearing latter Tuesday, Hegseth confronted fierce questions from Democrats about his ingesting problems, allegations of infidelity, administrative center misconduct and enjoy. More than one senators puzzled him about his public comments that ladies must now not lend in battle roles. He spoke back that he now believes girls must have get entry to to battle roles so long as “standards remain high.”
However the most pointed questions got here from Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., who zeroed in at the allegation of an attack in a lodge in Monterrey, California. Native police investigated the incident, and prosecutors didn’t document fees.
“So you think you are completely cleared because you committed no crime. That’s your definition of cleared. You had just fathered a child two months before by a woman that was not your wife,” Kaine instructed Hegseth in a testy exchange. “I am shocked that you would stand here and say you’re completely cleared.”
“I was completely cleared,” Hegseth spoke back.
“The incident in Monterey led to a criminal charge, a criminal investigation, a private settlement and a cash payment to the woman who filed the complaint. And there was also a nondisclosure agreement, correct?” Kaine went on. “Why didn’t you inform the commander in chief and the transition team of this very relevant event?”
Simply 4 GOP senators may just group with all 47 Democratic senators to derail Hegseth’s nomination. Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, an Iraq conflict veteran and sexual attack survivor, was once open as a imaginable defection, together with a couple of average GOP senators who’ve damaged with Trump within the age, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.
However next Tuesday’s listening to, Ernst, a member of the Armed Products and services Committee who faces re-election in 2026, mentioned she would aid Hegseth’s nomination.
“Our next commander in chief selected Pete Hegseth to serve in this role, and after our conversations, hearing from Iowans, and doing my job as a United States Senator, I will support President Trump’s pick for Secretary of Defense,” Ernst mentioned in a commentary.
“As I serve on the Armed Services Committee,” she mentioned, “I will work with Pete to create the most lethal fighting force and hold him to his commitments of auditing the Pentagon, ensuring opportunity for women in combat while maintaining high standards, and selecting a senior official to address and prevent sexual assault in the ranks.”
