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.
‘There won t be a drop of alcohol on my lips’
Hegseth responded to the accusations by directing reporters to an earlier-day taped interview with former Fox News host Megyn Kelly, in which he denied raping a woman in Monterey, California, in 2017 and claimed he did not have a drinking problem.
“Definitely not. When questioned if he had raped the woman, he said, “Absolutely not.” “I’ve been upfront with law enforcement about the interaction…. Even though I was intoxicated, I was still alert enough to recall every single detail.
He went on, “I’m not here to say that my conduct was good,” “It’s not acceptable to be in a hotel room with someone who isn’t your significant other. I acknowledge that.
As a well-known individual, Hegseth claimed that he had to pay the woman a settlement in the lawsuit, although he regretted doing so. “I paid her because I had to, or at least I thought I did at the time,” he stated. “My profile was better because I was legally married and open to possible positions in the administration. We’re going to out him in the end if you don’t come forward and pay money, according to the lawyers she got in touch with.
“I did it to protect my wife, I did it to protect my family, and I did it to protect my job, and it was a negotiation,” he stated.
In response to allegations of excessive alcohol use, Hegseth stated, “I never had a drinking problem,” claiming that he has “never sought counseling” for his issue and has never been contacted or informed that he had one.
If confirmed as secretary of defense, Hegseth declared that he will “not have a drink at all.” He stated that he wants Trump, senators, and American troops to know that he is available at all times and will be “fully dialed in.”
There won’t be a drop of booze on my lips during this, the largest deployment of my life.
Additionally, he denied accusations made by The New Yorker that he mismanaged finances when leading a veterans’ advocacy group during the interview. “Disgruntled people who are fired for cause, who are jealous or want a little bit of retribution,” Hegseth added, are probably spreading the majority of the accusations.
Meetings continue
As he meets with senators, Hegseth told reporters on Capitol Hill that he is “focused on what Donald Trump asked me to do.”
“Your job is to bring a war-fighting ethos back to the enemy,” he said. “It is your responsibility to ensure that it is lethal. The rest is gone. Anything else that takes attention away from that shouldn’t be taking place. 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. Sens. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., and former Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., were among his allies.
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.Ernst, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a former primary opponent who later endorsed Trump, Hagerty, Trump’s former ambassador to Japan, and Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., Trump’s current national security adviser, are additional candidates Trump may choose to appoint to lead the Pentagon, according to people familiar with the decision-making process.
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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