Pete Hegseth, Trump’s Pick For Defense Secretary, Wins Senate Confirmation In Tie-Break Vote

Pete Hegseth, an Army National Guard combat veteran and a former Fox News host, is now the secretary of defense after narrowly passing his Senate confirmation on Friday night. Vice President JD Vance cast the tie-break vote after three Republican senators—Susan Collins of Maine, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska—went against Donald Trump’s embattled pick to lead the world’s most funded military.

Hegseth’s confirmation was the slimmest in history, with the prior four nominees for defense secretary all receiving 90 or more votes—a stark difference from Hegseth’s contentious road to the role. Every other man who has served as defense secretary came from senior positions in politics, industry, or the military. As several members of the Senate Armed Services Committee pointed out in his confirmation hearings earlier this month, Hegseth, 44, lacked the expected job qualifications for the role and, at multiple points, failed to answer specific questions directly pertaining to the job responsibilities. During Hegseth’s confirmation hearing, and in the weeks leading up to it, he was tasked with responding to allegations of sexual assault, physical and verbal abuse, regressive views toward women in the military, and financial mismanagement at the two veteran-centered organizations he ran. (Hegseth has repeatedly denied these allegations and held that he is the victim of a media attack against him.)

“The leader of the Department of Defense must demonstrate and model the standards of behavior and character we expect of all servicemembers, and Mr. Hegseth’s nomination to the role poses significant concerns that I cannot overlook,” Murkowski said Thursday in a lengthy statement. “Given the global security environment we’re operating in, it is critical that we confirm a Secretary of Defense, however, I regret that I am unable to support Mr. Hegseth.”

“While I appreciate his courageous military service and his ongoing commitment to our servicemembers and their families,” Collins said, “I am concerned that he does not have the experience and perspective necessary to succeed in the job.”

“By all accounts, brave young men and women join the military with the understanding that it is a meritocracy. This precious trust endures only as long as lawful civilian leadership upholds what must be a firewall between servicemembers and politics,” McConnell said after voting no. “The Biden Administration failed at this fundamental task. But the restoration of ‘warrior culture’ will not come from trading one set of culture warriors for another,” he added, referencing Hegseth’s promise to bring back a “warrior culture” to the Pentagon.

Hegseth is portraying his lack of high-level management experience as an asset, saying in prepared testimony for his confirmation hearing that he’d be a “change agent” with no vested interest in certain companies or specific programs or approved narratives. Photographer: Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg via Getty Images

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Like his new boss, Hegseth has been married three times. His first marriage to his high school sweetheart ended in divorce due to his infidelity. While that divorce was unfolding, Hegseth was dating Samantha Deering—who he married in 2010 and fathered three children with. That marriage ended in 2017 after his then-wife filed for divorce after Hegseth had a child with his Fox News producer, Jennifer Rauchet. In 2019, Hegseth and Rauchet said ‘I Do’ at Trump’s New Jersey golf course.

Hegseth, like Trump and several other men close to the president, has been accused of sexual assault. As Vanity Fair’s Gabriel Sherman wrote, “Trump transition officials were blindsided by an allegation of sexual misconduct by Hegseth against a woman at a Republican women’s conference in Monterey, California, in October 2017, at the same time Hegseth was still married to Deering and shortly after Rauchet gave birth to his son.” He eventually admitted to paying that woman $50,000 as part of a legal settlement, according to Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts who asked Hegseth about the incident during his confirmation hearings.

In 2018, during Hegseth’s second divorce, his mother Penelope penned a damning letter to her son—later obtained by the New York Times—calling him an “abuser of women.”

“On behalf of all the women (and I know it’s many) you have abused in some way,” Penelope Hegseth wrote in an email she has since disavowed, “I say… get some help and take an honest look at yourself…”

Hegseth has also repeatedly held that women should not serve in combat roles, a view that received harsh scrutiny throughout his confirmation hearings.

During an interview on “The Shawn Ryan Show” podcast, Hegseth claimed that “everything about men and women serving together makes the situation more complicated, and complication in combat, that means casualties are worse.” He also claimed that, while different ethnicities of men could perform similarly, women could not. “I’m straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles.”

Hegseth has also complained of “woke” military leaders who he claims have left the armed services weak and “effeminate” by promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion measures. The new defense secretary has also minimized the threat of white supremacist extremists in the military, calling the problem “fake” and has led to “rank-and-file patriots” being pushed “out of their formations.”

According to data from the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism reviewed by the Associated Press, “there were more than 480 people with a military background accused of ideologically driven extremist crimes from 2017 through 2023, including the more than 230 arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 insurrection.” The vast majority of those included in the data, according to AP, were veterans, not active-duty servicemembers.

Hegseth’s positions on military extremist and diversity initiatives are compatible with Trump’s recent executive order to remove DEI programs from all federal agencies and his aim to end investigations into extremism in the military.

Trump, while talking to reporters on his first trip to California following the wildfires, lauded Hegseth’s win, adding that he didn’t know McConnell voted no. But, he said, “winning is what matters, right?”

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