WashingtonPresident-elect Donald Trump’s troubled choice for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, dismissed rumors on Wednesday that he would resign and claimed to have spoken with Trump, who encouraged him to keep fighting.
This morning, I had a conversation with the president-elect. “Keep going, keep fighting,” he added. You have my full support. In the Capitol on Wednesday, Hegseth told CBS News. Why would I give in? I’ve been a fighter all my life. For the fighters, I am here. For me, this is intense and intimate.
As he moved between meetings with the Republican senators whose votes he will need to confirm, Hegseth, a former Fox News anchor and veteran of the military, made his comments.
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However, on Tuesday and Wednesday, a string of news headlines that questioned his treatment of women and his past with drinking seemed to seriously jeopardize his nomination. Ten current and former Fox staffers told NBC News on Tuesday that Hegseth’s drinking worried his coworkers at Fox News. Colleagues occasionally claimed he smelled of booze or mentioned being hungover before he went on broadcast.
Penelope Hegseth, Hegseth’s mother, defended her son on Fox and Friends on Wednesday. She also addressed an email she wrote in 2018 during his divorce accusing him of mistreating women for years. The New York Times revealed the email’s details last week.
Hegseth has refuted claims that he sexually assaulted a lady in Monterey, California, in 2017 and denied mistreating women, characterizing the interaction as consensual. Last year, he and the woman came to an undisclosed deal.
A Trump transition official responded to the NBC article regarding Hegseth’s drinking by calling the accusations “wholly false and unfounded.”
Each of Trump’s nominees can afford to lose just three GOP votes if all Democrats vote against them, as Republicans will hold a 53–47 majority in the Senate the next year. Hegseth’s journey to confirmation is therefore exceedingly perilous:According to several GOP sources familiar with the process, up to six Senate Republicans are hesitant to back Hegseth’s attempt to head the Pentagon, and there might be more.
On Wednesday, Hegseth showed no signs of retiring. Hegseth met in his committee office in the morning with Roger Wicker, R-Miss., the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Hegseth met with newly elected majority leader Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., at midday.
Hegseth directed reporters to a taped interview he had earlier in the day with former Fox News host Megyn Kelly in reaction to the accusations made against him. He stated that he is concentrating on the task that Donald Trump requested of him in the interim. It is your responsibility to instill in the opponent a spirit of warfighting. It is your responsibility to ensure that it is lethal. Everything else is gone, and nothing else should be happening to divert attention from that. Senators in that advise and consent process are giving me that message. It has been an amazing process.
In order to meet with members of the Republican Study Committee, the largest conservative caucus on Capitol Hill (although House members do not vote on executive branch nominees), Hegseth also made the quick trek across the Capitol to the House side.
Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, an Iraq war veteran and survivor of sexual assault and domestic abuse, was scheduled to meet with Hegseth later Wednesday. His name is among dozens that have been put forward to succeed him in the event that he withdraws.
Trump is thinking of replacing Hegseth in light of the opposition to his nomination, according to an NBC News story on Tuesday night.According to people familiar with the decision-making process, Trump may also choose to appoint Ernst, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a former primary opponent who later backed Trump, Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., Trump’s former ambassador to Japan, and Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., Trump’s current national security adviser.
Trump has already lost one prominent Cabinet candidate. Another Republican from Florida, former Representative Matt Gaetz, resigned his attempt to become Trump’s attorney general before the Thanksgiving holiday after encountering resistance from Republican senators. Additionally, Chad Chronister, a Florida sheriff and Trump’s choice to head the Drug Enforcement Administration, announced on Tuesday that he was taking his name off the list.
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