President-elect Donald Trump's pick for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth spent a second day Tuesday on Capitol Hill meeting privately with Republican senators. This comes amid rising questions about his ability to effectively lead the Pentagon. Hegseth told reporters he was planning to sit down with "every senator that wants to meet." Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville is one of the lawmakers still in favor of Hegseth’s nomination.
Trump tapped the Fox News co-host, who had served in the Army National Guard, as his Secretary of Defense, typically among the first Cabinet posts to be considered by the U.S. Senate for confirmation. But Hegseth is running into questions amid a sexual assault allegation, which he has denied, and other emerging reports. Just a few detractors in the Senate could sink his confirmation.
Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville said after meeting Monday with Hegseth that he is very supportive of the nomination. But Tuberville said of the allegations: "If it's to a certain degree, people aren't going to vote to confirm him."
Hegseth is running into questions amid a sexual assault allegation, which he has denied, and other emerging reports about his work conduct and history. GOP Senator Lindsey Graham said some of the reports are "disturbing."
"I want to make sure that every young woman that joins the military feels respected and welcomed," Graham told CBS News.
The South Carolina lawmaker told the AP later that he doesn't know whether to believe the allegations, and Hegseth "has a chance to say that's true or not true."
Before he was tapped to serve as a weekend host of "Fox & Friends," Hegseth served at two veterans advocacy groups, Concerned Veterans for America and Veterans For Freedom. In new allegations this week, the New Yorker cited what it described as a whistleblower report and other documents about his time leading CVA that alleged multiple incidents of alcohol intoxication at work events, inappropriate behavior around female staffers and financial mismanagement.
NBC News reported that several unnamed current and former Fox employees who worked with Hegseth that his drinking habits raised concerns, including some who said he would show up smelling of alcohol. The Associated Press spoke to four people who had either worked at CVA or were familiar with Hegseth's time there who insisted on anonymity because they were not allowed to speak to the media or had signed nondisclosure agreements.
While the group's all-day conferences could run late and often wind up at a nearby bar, three of the four said they had not seen Hegseth intoxicated at events. One person who had been connected to CVA told the AP, however, that some employees had raised concerns about Hegseth's alcohol use but said that his departure from the group was more connected to growing ideological differences between him and the network of conservative nonprofits funded by billionaire donors Charles Koch and his late brother, David Koch.
Trump is drawing from the ranks of loyalists to fill his administration and to Cabinet positions, often stunning Washington with unusual choices that are provocative and testing the senators who will be asked to confirm them under the chamber's advise and consent role.
An early pick, Matt Gaetz, the former congressman from Florida, abruptly withdrew from consideration when it became clear that Senate support was crumbling. Gaetz, who had been investigated but never charged in a federal sex trafficking probe, faced a House Ethics investigation over sexual misconduct.
Trump's choices can only afford to lose a few detractors in the Senate, where it takes majority approval to be confirmed. Republicans will have a 53-seat majority in the new year, meaning four GOP votes could sink a nominee, if all Democrats are opposed.
Republican senators have been weighing their options.
to this report.
