Pete Hegseth, Trump’s Pentagon pick, faces Senate confirmation hearing 

Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News host tapped by United States President-elect Donald Trump to lead the Pentagon, has come under fire at his Senate confirmation hearing.

On Tuesday, Hegseth was the first high-profile Trump nominee to face confirmation proceedings, and senators pressed the would-be secretary of defence on his past statements about diversity in the military, as well as allegations of sexual assault and excessive drinking.

“Mr Hegseth, I do not believe that you are qualified to meet the overwhelming demands of this job,” Democratic Senator Jack Reed, the committee’s ranking member, said in prepared remarks.

“The challenge of the Secretary of Defense is to remove partisan politics from the military. You propose to inject it. This would be an insult to the men and women who have sworn to uphold their own apolitical duty to the Constitution.”

Hegseth’s service in the army national guard is widely viewed as an asset for the job, and he has the support of Trump and the Republican Party.

But the 44-year-old also has been criticised for allegations of sexual assault that he strongly denies, drinking during previous employment roles, and derisive views about women in military combat roles, minorities and “woke” generals.

“ To denigrate LGBTQ service members is a mistake,” Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat, told Hegseth. “If you are a sharp shooter, you’re as lethal regardless of what your gender identity is, regardless of who you love.”

Hegseth is among the most endangered of Trump’s cabinet nominees, but Republicans are determined to turn him into a cause celebre for the president-elect’s governing approach. Trump is to be inaugurated on Monday.

“He will be ripped. He will be demeaned. He will be talked about,” Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville said of Hegseth at an event supporting the nominee before the hearing. “But we’re going to get him across the finish line.”

Hegseth himself sought to present himself as politically neutral, walking back some of his previous controversial statements.

“We are not Republicans. We are not Democrats. We are American warriors. Our standards will be high and they will be equal, not equitable. That’s a very different word,” he told senators on Tuesday.

He tried to emphasise his bipartisan credentials in an exchange with Senator Gillibrand.

“ Senator, I volunteered to deploy to Afghanistan under Democrat President Barack Obama. I also volunteered to guard the inauguration of Joe Biden but was denied the opportunity to serve because I was identified as an extremist by my own unit for a Christian tattoo,” he explained.

Hegseth nevertheless returned to several conservative “culture war” talking points during the hearing, including by denouncing “woke” efforts to assure healthcare for transgender troops.

Soldiers, he argued, “want to focus on lethality and war-fighting and get all the woke, political prerogative, politically correct, social-justice political stuff out of the military”.

Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, a member of the Armed Services Committee, described Hegseth as “a guy with a track record of being so drunk at work events that he needed to be carried out on multiple occasions”.

“Can we really count on calling Hegseth at 2AM to make life and death national security decisions? Nope,” she said on the social media platform X.

Hegseth can afford only three Republican rejections and still be confirmed, should every Democrat and independent vote against him.

During the hearing, Hegseth repeatedly faced scrutiny for his comments that women should “straight up” not be in combat roles in the military, a view he has softened after recent meetings with senators.

He also defended the military itself, calling it “one of the least racist institutions in our country” despite concerns about discrimination.

Two former female combat veterans, Republican Joni Ernst of Iowa and Democrat Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, were among those who questioned him on Tuesday.

“He can try to walk back his comments on women in combat all he wants, but we know what he thinks, right?” said Duckworth, an Iraq War veteran who lost her legs and partial use of her right arm when the Black Hawk helicopter she was piloting in the army national guard was shot down.

“He’s the most unqualified person to ever be nominated for secretary of defence.”

Ernst, meanwhile, appeared more sympathetic to Hegseth’s nomination, telling the Senate committee that she had spoken at length to the defence nominee.

She asked him to clarify:  As secretary of defense, will you support women continuing to have the opportunity to serve in combat roles?

“Yes, women will have access to ground combat roles, combat roles given the standards remain high, and we’ll have a review to ensure the standards have not been eroded in any one of these cases,” Hegseth replied.

“That’ll be one of the first things we do at the Pentagon is reviewing that — in a gender neutral way — the standards ensuring readiness and meritocracy is front and centre.”

Hegseth also repeatedly denied allegations of sexual assault on Tuesday, dismissing them as anonymous and false charges: “I was falsely accused in October of 2017. It was fully investigated, and I was completely cleared.”

Hegseth’s lawyers have indicated that the woman involved was paid an undisclosed sum, as part of a confidential settlement. The Associated Press had previously reported that police in Monterey, California, where the alleged assault took place, recommended the case be reviewed by the local district attorney’s office.

Cabinet nominees almost never lose Senate votes because they typically are withdrawn if they seem to be in trouble.

The last nominee who was defeated was former Senator John Tower, also a nominee to be secretary of defence, in 1989. Tower was investigated over claims of drunkenness and inappropriate behaviour with women.