Democratic Senators unsuccessfully tried to derail the nomination of Pete Hegseth. President-Elect Donald Trump selected Hegseth to be defense secretary. Democrats pounced on his past behavior, specifically a 2017 complaint alleging he sexually assaulted a woman at a Republican conference. He was never charged. Hegseth has vowed to change the culture at the Pentagon and restore the U.S. military’s “warrior culture.”
Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island attempted to smear Hegseth as incompetent. The top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee said “A variety of sources—including your own writings—implicate you with disregarding the rule of law in combat, financial mismanagement, racist and sexist remarks regarding men and women in uniform, alcohol abuse, sexual assault, sexual harassment, and other troubling issues.”
Pete Hegseth brushed off the accusations as “ a smear campaign.” He says that under President Biden the military has come to value diversity and “wokeness” over military effectiveness. Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK), asked Hegseth more constructive questions about how Biden had made the military ‘woke.‘ “I very much appreciate your focus on lethality in war, fighting. We desperately need it. I want to provide a few examples of the Biden woke military, which is not focused on readiness or lethality, and want to get your comments on it,” he said.
He went on to say “You have a lot of experience with our military. Do you believe the military is a systemically racist organization? And if confirmed, will you commit to defend not denigrate our troops?” Hegseth responded, “…anyone who’s been on active duty in the National Guard, man, woman in units understand that it’s fundamentally false.”
Sullivan gave the nominee a hypothetical question: “If your Secretary of the Navy ends up focusing on climate change more than shipbuilding and lethality, will you commit to me to fire him?” Hegseth confidently responded, “My secretary of the Navy, should I be confirmed, sir, will not be focused on climate change in the Navy, just like the Secretary of the Air Force won’t be focused on algae-powered fighter jets or the Secretary of the Army will not be focused on electric powered tanks.”
Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI), a well-known progressive activist, got shot down when she tried to stop Hegseth. She said,“I have read multiple reports of your regularly being drunk at work, including by people who worked with you at Fox News. Do you know that being drunk at work is prohibited for service members under the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice)?” She expressed this as a simple yes or no, leaving no room for him to contextualize.
Before she could finish, he fired back by saying “Those are multiple false anonymous reports peddled by NBC News that run directly contradictory to the dozens of men and women at Fox News Channel who I worked with who came on the record and said they’ve never seen that.” Hegseth’s former coworkers backed him up and signed a document contesting the anonymous allegations that the senator cited in her rant.