Confirmation hearing highlights and analysis: Pete Hegseth pressed by Senate

The hearing ended shortly before 2 p.m. ET and surfaced nothing particularly revelatory about Hegseth that hadn’t already been reported. And there weren't any surprises in how the committee members approached their line of questioning. 

Democrats were alone in pressing Hegseth on the allegations against him and on his own public comments about women in the military. As my colleague Hayes Brown pointed out, Republicans displayed no real concerns about Hegseth; Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., even joked at one point, “Brother, I’m pulling you along, trying to help you here.”

GOP Sen. Tim Sheehy of Montana engaged in a whole performative masculinity thing with Hegseth, asking the defense secretary pick how many genders there are (“two,” Hegseth dutifully replied) and how many pushups he can do. Hegseth responded that he did give sets of 47 this morning. 

That sounded like a weirdly specific number at first — at least, it did until I remembered that Trump is slated to be the 45th and 47th president as of next week. I don’t know if that’s what motivated him, but if Hegseth is shaping his exercise regime into a show of devotion to Trump? That feels weird!

Notably, Hegseth did not quite give a direct answer to questioning from Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., about whether he would decline to carry out an illegal order by Trump.

“I reject the premise that President Trump is going to be giving [an] illegal order,” Hegseth said, later adding that there are “laws and processes inside our Constitution that would be followed.”

Many Democratic senators are making a point of noting Hegseth’s refusal to meet with them, as he did with many of their Republican colleagues, ahead of today’s hearing.

Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly kicked things up a notch. The Democrat said Hegseth has claimed to have overcome personal issues in his past and has said he’s an “open book,” but that Hegseth and his GOP allies aren't divulging many details about what those issues were.

Kelly ran through the laundry list of allegations against Hegseth, including allegations of public intoxication. Hegseth said the claims are “anonymous smears,” though Kelly noted this wasn’t exactly a denial. Kelly also raised the question of whether Hegseth was made aware of a reported settlement between an organization he led and a female employee of a strip club, who said she was sexually assaulted by one of the organization's members. Hegseth said he “was not involved in that.” 

“Just as concerning as each of these specific disqualifying accusations are, what concerns me just as much is the idea of having a secretary of defense who is not transparent,” Kelly said.

There’s been a lot of chatter in past weeks about how Hegseth’s nomination was on shaky ground. That hasn’t appeared to be the case in today’s hearing, as the Republicans on the Armed Services Committee have all seemed completely on board with reporting his nomination to the full Senate for confirmation. All of the questions from the GOP have been more about making sure Hegseth gave the right answers than waylaying any doubts that they might have behind closed doors.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma is using his time to be Hegseth’s biggest cheerleader and claim that his Democratic colleagues are being hypocritical in their questioning:

[Sen. Tim Kaine] starts bringing up the fact that what if you showed up drunk to your job? How many senators have showed up to vote drunk at night? Have any of you guys asked them to step down and resign for their job? And don’t tell me you haven’t seen it, because I know you have. And then, how many senators do you know have got a divorce before cheating on their wives? Did you ask them to step down? No, but it’s for show.

I don’t know about you, but first of all, I’d love to have Mullin name names on the “showing up for votes drunk” front. Second, this is whataboutism of the highest order. If the American people got to directly determine Cabinet secretaries, it’d be a whole different story. But senators are held accountable by their voters, who count on them to show up and vet nominees for high office. It is their job to determine whether Hegseth is qualified based on the standards that they as senators set.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., went off on a couple of wild tangents during his questioning of Hegseth, but this bit stood out to me: “According to the Pentagon, between 2001 and 2024 the number of civilian employees in the Office of the Secretary of Defense has nearly doubled from 1,500 to 3,000 civilians. On the Joint Chiefs, the number has increased from 191 to almost 1,000. Our military end strength goes down. Our staff numbers are exploding.”

Since this isn’t clear to Tuberville, I have to point out that the starting point for that rapid growth came after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the subsequent launch of the war on terror. It was a time that saw the use of federal contractors explode as American forces expanded abroad. So if Tuberville is really mad, he should be in favor of cutting the Defense Department’s budget to slim down the number of civilians at the Pentagon.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., was in no mood to let Hegseth dance around his past statements. She produced a laundry list of direct quotes from him over the last 12 years, including as recently as 10 weeks ago when he said that “women should not be in combat at all.”

When he tried to once again claim that he was referring to changed military standards, Warren pressed him on when he changed his mind over the last 32 days.

“Let me make a suggestion about what happened in those 32 days: You got a nomination from President Trump,” Warren said. “I’ve heard of deathbed conversions, but this is the first time I’ve heard of a nomination conversion.”

Ouch.

While being questioned about one of his tattoos, Hegseth pivoted to a quick rant about the Covid-19 vaccine. “We haven’t even talked about Covid, tens of thousands of service members who are kicked out because of an experimental vaccine,” he said. “In President Trump’s Defense Department, they will be apologized to. They will be reinstituted, reinstituted with pay and rank.”

We’ve had ample evidence, including at the time Hegseth is referring to, that the Covid vaccine is not only effective but safe. Those who were discharged had disobeyed a mandate that they keep their fellow service members safe by inoculating themselves from a deadly virus. The idea that this kind of disobedience should be encouraged, especially given the way Covid spread in the Navy during the early days of the pandemic, is deeply concerning.