Trump Doubles Down on Hegseth as Nomination Hits the Skids
Pete Hegseth’s nomination as Secretary of Defense is hanging on by a thread as hardline MAGA Republican senators wage a public pressure campaign against their colleagues to secure the embattled former Fox News host’s confirmation. On Friday morning, President-elect Donald Trump stepped into the fray himself.
“Pete Hegseth is doing very well,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, “His support is strong and deep, much more so than the Fake News would have you believe.”
“He was a great student – Princeton/Harvard educated – with a Military state of mind. He will be a fantastic, high energy, Secretary of Defense Defense, one who leads with charisma and skill. Pete is a WINNER, and there is nothing that can be done to change that!!!” Trump added.
Hegseth responded on X, formerly Twitter, writing: “Thank you Mr. President. Like you, we will never back down.”
But while the president-elect is projecting confidence in his DOD pick, things are much more precarious behind the scenes.
“I think most people do not expect Hegseth to make it,” one Republican senator told The Hill on Thursday. “It’s on the death watch.”
“There’s seven or eight [Republican] votes against him. It’s a matter of time,” they added.
Another GOP senator told the publication that Hegseth’s candidacy was “trending” in the wrong direction. One Republican Senate aide added that while there may be around eight votes against Hegseth, lawmakers remain reluctant to publicly declare their position for fear of backlash from the MAGA wing of the party.
True to form, Trump’s most vocal allies in the upper chamber are pressuring colleagues who remain publicly hesitant to vote “yes” on Hegseth.
“We’ve got to be very careful here not to allow any very small group of Republican senators to exercise a de-facto veto,” Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) said in an interview Thursday. “I think some of those who expressed reluctance privately or publicly are going to find it’s much more difficult to vote no.”
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), meanwhile, told CNN that it’s actually not the Senate’s job to weigh in on the president’s nominations (it literally is).
“Who are we to say that we’re a better vetter and picker of people than Donald Trump?” Tuberville said. When questioned by CNN about the Senate’s role to provide “advice and consent,” the senator accused fellow Republicans waffling on Hegseth’s nomination of “throwing rocks at Donald Trump […] they’re saying well ‘we don’t believe you did the right vetting, and we don’t believe he can do the job.’ That’s not our job to do that.”
By the admission of Trump’s own advisers, Hegseth was not vetted as thoroughly as he should have been. As previously reported by Rolling Stone, Trump’s transition team was furious that he had not been transparent about a past sexual assault allegation during his initial conversations about the nomination, instead allowing the news to break publicly without giving the transition team time to prepare.
This could have something to do with why Trump is reportedly leaving Hegseth to sink or swim on his own. According to a Thursday report from The Washington Post, the president-elect has not been directly lobbying senators on Hegseth’s behalf. In a separate report from ABC News, sources told the publication that Trump felt Hegseth should have been more honest about his potential liabilities.
The nominee himself is plowing forward, meeting with senators on an almost daily basis, and even recruiting his mother to defend him in an interview on Fox News after a 2017 email in which she called her son “an abuser of women” was leaked to The New York Times.
Hegseth has even gone so far as to promise members of the GOP he’ll stop drinking after reports emerged of an alleged longtime, problematic relationship with alcohol.
On Thursday, Hegseth told reporters in the Capitol that he doesn’t “answer to anyone,” but “President Trump.”
“As long as Donald Trump wants me in this fight, I’m gonna be standing right here in this fight,” he added.
Trump doubled down on his support for Hegseth on Friday, but it was reported this week that the president-elect has been considering Florida Governor Ron DeSantis as a potential replacement for Hegseth should things continue to go south. DeSantis will reportedly join Trump at the Army-Navy football game on Saturday.
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