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:

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.

We’ve reached the anti-anti-extremism portion of the hearing. And Sen. Dan Sullivan’s questioning of Hegseth boiled the MAGA movement’s white grievance politics down to a brief exchange. The Alaska Republican’s questioning was basically about his rage over the Biden administration’s efforts to root extremism, including racist extremism, out of the military.

“Nobody wants any extremists or racists in our military,” said Sullivan, “but one of the most disgraceful and shameful things” he says he’s seen over the last four years was the Biden administration’s reporting on extremism in the military. He baselessly questioned the data, before making the eye-popping claim that the U.S. military is “one of the greatest civil rights organizations in American history.” Hegseth agreed.

Hegseth, who’s been known to dabble in extremist iconography, also told Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., that “things like focusing on extremism has created an environment that feels political” in the military.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., questioned Hegseth about his infidelity during his second marriage, to which he has admitted. 

“I assume that in each of your weddings, you’ve pledged to be faithful to your wife. You’ve taken an oath to do that, haven’t you?” Kaine asked. “You’ve taken an oath — like you would take an oath to be secretary of defense — in all of your weddings to be faithful to your wife, is that correct?”

Hegseth said he has “failed in things in my life” but has been redeemed by God. 

Kaine also pressed Hegseth on whether someone who has committed sexual assault or physical violence against a spouse would be disqualified from holding the position of secretary of defense, to which Hegseth repeated that he was being asked hypotheticals and refused to answer.

Amid pressing Hegseth on the sexual assault allegations against him, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., pointed out that Hegseth did not tell the Trump staffers who were vetting him about his settlement with the woman who accused him of sexual assault. Hegseth has maintained the encounter was consensual, but as Kaine pointed out, “you didn’t reveal any of this to President Trump or the transition team as they were considering you to be nominated for secretary of defense.”

In other words, Hegseth’s belief in his innocence doesn’t change the fact that hiding the settlement ill-served Trump’s interests. Kaine continued, “You chose not to reveal this really important thing to the commander in chief of the transition team because you were worried about your chances, rather than trying to be candid with the future president of the United States.”

I doubt it makes a difference in the end, but it was an interesting tactic from Kaine, given that Hegseth’s loyalty to Trump got him here in the first place.

Sen. Blumenthal’s initial questioning of Hegseth concluded with a telling exchange:

Blumenthal: I assume you’d be willing to submit to an expanded FBI background check that interviews your colleagues, accountants, ex-wives, former spouses, sexual assault survivors and others, and enable them to come forward. 

Hegseth: Senator, I’m not in charge of FBI background checks. 

Blumenthal: But you would submit to it and support it. 

Hegseth: I’m not in charge of FBI background checks.

Last month, as allegations mounted that his colleagues at various jobs had seen him drunk at work, Hegseth promised he would not drink if confirmed. Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, got straight to the heart of the matter: “Will you resign as secretary of defense,” she asked, “if you drink on the job, which is a 24/7 position?”

Unsurprisingly, Hegseth refused to answer, only restating how seriously he will treat the role. Perhaps that pledge isn’t so ironclad.

In the face of Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine's grilling, Hegseth mostly deflected by calling the accusations against him false and claiming they're all made by anonymous sources. Kaine took objection to that framing: “We have seen records with names attached to all of these, including the name of your own mother, so don’t make this into some press thing.”

Hegseth’s mother did, in fact, scold her son in a 2018 email that The New York Times obtained this year:

“On behalf of all the women (and I know it’s many) you have abused in some way, I say … get some help and take an honest look at yourself,” Penelope Hegseth wrote, stating that she still loved him.

She also wrote: “I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around and uses women for his own power and ego. You are that man (and have been for years) and as your mother, it pains me and embarrasses me to say that, but it is the sad, sad truth.”

She later retracted those statements to the Times and on Fox and Friends, saying she wrote her email “in haste” and with “deep emotions.”

Sen. Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican who’s been portrayed as a potential holdout in the Hegseth confirmation vote, did Hegseth a service by essentially spoon-feeding him answers to address his controversial stance that women shouldn’t serve in combat roles as well as the sexual assault allegation against him. Ernst repeatedly made reference to her and Hegseth’s private conversations in her questions, which gave Hegseth an opportunity to affirm that he supports allowing women to serve in combat roles if they meet high standards and also set him up to say he supports a “senior-level official” dedicated to preventing sexual assault in the military.

Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, brought up Trump’s 2020 suggestion to then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper that protesters gathered in Washington’s Lafayette Square could be shot in the leg.

Esper refused, leading Hirono to ask Hegseth if he would comply if given the same order. Hegseth waffled some about how he was there with a National Guard unit that day and saw 50 Secret Service agents injured before Hirono cut him off.

“That sounds to me like you will comply, you will shoot protesters in the leg,” she declared before moving on.

That’s exactly what it sounds like to me too if he’s unwilling to answer, “No, I will not order American forces to fire on unarmed American civilians.”

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., came out swinging in her questioning, pushing Hegseth to defend his statements about women in the military.

“I’ve never disparaged women serving in the military,” Hegseth said, but “standards have been changed inside infantry training units, Ranger School, infantry battalions—”

“Give me one example,” Gillibrand interjected. “I get you’re making these generalized statements.”

Hegseth dodged the request. “Commanders meet quotas to have a certain number of female infantry officers or infantry enlisted,” he said, “and that disparages those women.”

“Commanders do not have to have a quota for women in the infantry,” Gillibrand shot back. “That does not exist. It does not exist. And your statements are creating the impression that these exist because they do not.”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., has concerns about Hegseth’s past leadership atop veterans organizations. The senator entered into the record the tax records for two nonprofits that Hegseth ran, where reports indicate he allegedly oversaw a major misuse of donor funds. It’s a concern that’s worth highlighting, given the massive $850 billion annual budget that Hegseth would oversee from the Pentagon’s D-ring.

Hegseth sought to reframe his past comments disparaging women serving in the military as criticism of the lowering of standards to fulfill quotas. Although he did not directly address New Hampshire Democrat Sen. Jeanne Shaheen’s questions about his about-face on the topic after he was nominated, Hegseth told Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., that he believes any service member should “have to meet the same high standards” in ground combat roles, saying that “criteria have been changed in order to meet quotas — racial quotas or gender quotas — that is putting a focus on something other than readiness standards, meritocracy and lethality.”

Hegseth also repeatedly said that politics has no place in the military or on the battlefield in remarks that appear to contradict his own past writings and his crusade against “wokeness” in the military.

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., himself a veteran and advocate of using force against protesters, gave Hegseth room to respond to the protesters who had been escorted out of the hearing chamber. The nominee replied that he is a Christian (one who has been accused of being a Christian nationalist), supports Israel’s war in Gaza (despite, or perhaps because of, how it’s being conducted), and denied that the U.S. has been involved in “20 years of genocide” in Afghanistan and Iraq (while now being totally fine with war crimes committed against civilians there).

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., pushed back against her Republican colleague Tom Cotton’s suggestion that DEI initiatives have weakened military readiness. Cotton had referenced an Army fitness test that requires service members to run 22 miles at 2 miles per hour to pass.

Gillibrand pointed out that the test is just a general test and that infantry members must pass a much more physically demanding fitness test.

There was a bit of an eerie exchange between Hegseth and Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., during her questioning, and I don’t think it should be papered over. Fischer’s question was about how Hegseth would act on his vow to increase the military’s “lethality” to improve the United States’ nuclear arsenal, which she said was essential to national security. On this point, Hegseth talked about wanting greater collaboration with Silicon Valley, arguing that the Pentagon has become “too insular” and has “blocked” new technologies.

Hegseth says Silicon Valley has recently “shown a willingness, desire and capability to bring its best technologies to bear at the Pentagon.”

Sounds kind of creepy.

Reed, the committee’s top Democrat, called out the way Hegseth has spoken out against what he has called overly restrictive regulations that keep U.S. service members’ hands tied when deployed in combat zones. As a Fox News host, he helped convince Trump to intervene in the cases of three service members accused or convicted of war crimes, prompting a fear that he’d do the same as defense secretary. 

Hegseth did little to allay those concerns with his response minutes ago. Though he said he has thought hard about the balance “between lethality and legality,” he didn’t back away from his belief that frontline combatants are being hampered in how they engage with enemies.

After Hegseth’s opening statement, Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., brought up the FBI’s background investigation, which only he and the committee chair, Sen. Roger Wicker, have seen.

“I want to say for the record I believe the investigation was insufficient,” Reed said.

Nevertheless, he asked Wicker to release the report to the full committee, noting that senators on both sides have asked for it. Wicker, a Mississippi Republican, denied the request, citing Jim Mattis’ and Lloyd Austin’s confirmation hearings for defense secretary, even though those nominations were far less controversial.

In Trump’s show of support for Hegseth on Truth Social this morning, the president-elect neglected to offer any reason why his pick for defense secretary was the right choice. But perhaps that reflected the difficulty of making the case for Hegseth.

Last week, The New York Times interviewed the incoming White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles. Asked about Hegseth’s complete inexperience running a large organization, Wiles replied: “That’s what staff is for.” 

“It’s our obligation to give him people that understand the business of national defense,” she added.

Or, Ms. Wiles, hear me out: What if both the staff and the secretary are qualified?

The first question Hegseth faced was on the allegations that have loomed over him since his nomination. Sen. Roger Wicker, the Mississippi Republican who chairs the committee, said he wanted to give Hegseth a chance to address the string of allegations against him, including sexual assault, inappropriate workplace behavior, alcohol abuse and financial mismanagement.

Hegseth went on the offensive. Calling it a “coordinated smear campaign orchestrated in the media against us,” Hegseth said that he and Trump were being similarly targeted.

“A small handful of anonymous sources were allowed to drive a smear campaign and agenda about me because our left-wing media in America today sadly doesn’t care about the truth,” he said. “All they were out to do, Mr. Chairman, was to destroy me ... because I’m a change agent and a threat to them because Donald Trump was willing to choose me, to empower me to bring the Defense Department back to what it really should be, which is war fighting.”

Sen. Roger Wicker, the committee chairman, announced that Hegseth will face only one round of questions from the panel, with seven minutes each for each committee member.

Reed, the top Democrat on the committee, noted that Democrats would like a second round of questioning. But Wicker, a Mississippi Republican, denied the request, saying the precedent for the most recent nomination hearings required only one round.

While I’m all for keeping Senate hearings briefer and more to the point, I can’t help but note that the quicker Hegseth gets to leave the room, the less scrutiny he has to face.

In his opening statement, Hegseth made a promise that, with any other president-elect, would be largely unremarkable.

“In pursuing these America First national security goals,” he declared, “we will remain patriotically apolitical and stridently constitutional. Unlike the current administration, politics should play no part in military matters. We are not Republicans or Democrats — we are American warriors.”

It is more than a bit rich of Hegseth to accuse President Joe Biden’s administration of playing politics, particularly since, more than any other president or president-elect, Trump is on the record in favor of a political military. According to former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Trump wanted the military to shoot Black Lives Matter protesters in the summer of 2020. More recently, Trump has repeatedly called for using the military against the “enemy within” — including Democrats.

There were some clear shots at diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in Hegseth’s opening statement, as I predicted.

“Our standards will be high, and they will be equal, not equitable — that’s a very different word,” he said, peddling an oft-repeated conservative talking point. He also talked about restoring a “warrior ethos” (whatever that is), saying “the strength of our military is our shared unity — our shared purpose — not our differences,” which sounded like a remix of the far-right claim that “diversity is not our strength.”

At minimum, it’s clear that Hegseth is dismissing the value of acknowledging the diverse identities that exist in the U.S. military, while citing no evidence whatsoever that doing so is prudent to the military’s goals.

Hegesth’s opening statement acknowledges his lack of executive experience. “I know I don’t have a similar biography to defense secretaries of the last 30 years,” he says, claiming he and Trump think “it’s time to give someone with dust on his boots the helm.” 

But it’s worth noting — as MSNBC contributor Paul Rieckhoff did here — that the fact Hegseth has had combat experience would not make him unique as a defense secretary. 

And as retired Army Col. Jeff McCausland wrote for MSNBC, while some have lauded Hegseth’s combat experience, that experience “has little to do with serving as defense secretary.”

Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, former GOP Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota and Rep. Mike Waltz of Florida — Trump’s incoming national security adviser — have all stressed that Hegseth is a “great communicator.”

That is, notably, not one of the main jobs of the secretary of defense, nor does it help with the laundry list of issues at the Pentagon that have been rattled off. I don’t see how Hegseth’s experience on Fox News will help push an audit at the Pentagon, but his showmanship — looking directly at the camera in the Senate hearing room to address viewers at home — is undeniable.

Capitol Police officers removed a man wearing what appeared to be a veterans hat as he shouted over Hegseth while he delivered his opening statement. Moments later, a woman wearing fatigues was removed by police as she shouted over Hegseth. And shortly after that, another man was removed for disrupting the hearing.

It wasn’t immediately clear what the disruptors were shouting.

As I mentioned earlier, Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island was the only Democrat to meet Hegseth before these hearings, and he came away from that meeting less than impressed. Reed’s opening statement made those concerns even clearer.

“These are perilous times,” he said, “and the position of secretary of Defense demands a leader of unparalleled experience, wisdom, and above all else, character.”

“It is noteworthy that the vast majority of the accusations leveled at Mr. Hegseth have come from anonymous sources,” Wicker said in his opening statement. “Contrast these anonymous accusations with the many public letters of support and commendations.”

It’s a false equivalence from the committee chair that belies the reported pressure campaign that has kept Hegseth’s accusers from speaking out publicly. According to The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer: 

Hegseth’s lawyer, Tim Parlatore, for instance, has threatened to sue Jane Doe, Hegseth’s anonymous rape accuser, and her lawyer for defamation if her allegations prevent him from being confirmed. So far, it appears that such tactics may be working. Several potential witnesses, including the accuser, have declined to speak out publicly and have elected not to testify at Tuesday’s hearing.

Republican senators have disparaged anonymous critics of Hegseth. But some of these senators have also declined to speak face to face and confidentially with such critics, including the woman who accused Hegseth of rape. According to three sources with knowledge of the situation, Joni Ernst, Republican of Iowa, is one of the senators who have turned down offers to hear privately from Hegseth’s accuser. 

Refusing to meet with Hegseth’s accusers certainly makes it easier to dismiss them as “anonymous.”

Late Friday, the FBI delivered its background check on Hegseth to the Armed Services Committee’s top Republican and Democrat: Sens. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Jack Reed, D-R.I. The delay has angered Democrats, and “​​two committee sources familiar with the process said it was ‘unprecedented,’” according to NBC News.

Even if all senators had time to review the full report, though, there are reasons to doubt its thoroughness. NBC News reported Monday that the background check “does not include interviews with Hegseth’s ex-wives or the woman who accused him of sexual assault in a California hotel room in 2017, according to three sources with direct knowledge of the contents of the report.”

Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., began the hearing with his opening statement in support of Hegseth, who is sitting across from him and the rest of the committee.

“The nominee is unconventional just like that New York developer who rode down the escalator in 2015 to announce his candidacy for president,” Wicker said. “That may be what makes Mr. Hegseth an excellent choice.”

Wicker, a vocal Trump supporter, said Hegseth would “inject a warrior ethos into the Pentagon” and bring a “swift end” to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts in the military. As my colleague Ja’han Jones mentioned earlier, there’s no evidence DEI has hampered the U.S. military in any way.

Hegseth stands apart from the defense secretaries that Trump tapped to run the Pentagon during his first term. Former Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis was picked in large part for his reputation for toughness as a former commander of American forces in the Middle East. His moderating influence as a so-called “adult in the room” was relatively limited, prompting him to leave the administration in 2018. 

Mattis’ replacement, Mark Esper, was an Army veteran turned corporate lobbyist turned secretary of the Army. It was Esper who had to push back on Trump’s desire to unleash the military on protesters in 2020 and was fired soon after he lost the election that year.

Both Mattis and Esper cruised to Senate confirmation, only to warn about the threat that Trump poses to the country after leaving their roles. That’s something that the president-elect likely won’t have to worry about from a loyalist like Hegseth, who has been nothing but laudatory of Trump over the years.

Hegseth’s chances at confirmation appeared to be on shaky ground just weeks ago, as the allegations against him piled up and several GOP senators seemed uncertain about backing him. But Trump has stood by the former Fox News host, and Republicans have largely lined up behind him.

This morning, Trump reiterated his support for Hegseth again. “Pete Hegseth will make a GREAT Secretary of Defense,” he wrote on Truth Social hours ahead of the hearing. “He has my Complete and Total support.”

As Rachel Maddow highlighted on her show Monday, Hegseth wasn’t supposed to be the only one of Trump’s picks appearing before the Senate today. Former North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and former Rep. Doug Collins were supposed to have their hearings for secretary of the interior and secretary of veterans affairs, respectively.

But on Monday, Burgum’s appearance was moved to Thursday, because the Office of Government Ethics hasn’t finished reviewing his paperwork. Collins’ hearing has been postponed a full week because the FBI hasn’t completed its background check.

As Maddow noted, delays are becoming a bit of theme for Trump’s Cabinet picks: his most controversial nominees, including former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., still don’t have their hearings scheduled.

Hegseth is likely to be pressed on a 2017 sexual assault allegation against him. The incident was investigated by police in Monterey, California, at the time, and Hegseth was not charged with a crime. He has denied any wrongdoing and maintained that the encounter was consensual. The local district attorney declined to file charges, saying “no charges were supported by proof beyond a reasonable doubt.”

His attorney, Tim Parlatore, told NBC News that he paid his accuser an undisclosed amount “as part of a civil confidential settlement agreement and maintains his innocence.” Hegseth said last month that he paid the woman to “protect my family” and to “protect my job.”

At least 11 other Trump Cabinet picks are set to face Senate confirmation hearings this week. Here’s the schedule with the candidate’s name and the agency they’ve been tapped to lead in the second Trump administration:

Wednesday

9 a.m. — Kristi Noem, Homeland Security Department

9:30 a.m. — Pam Bondi, Justice Department

10 a.m. — Marco Rubio, State Department

10 a.m. — John Ratcliffe, CIA

After a president-elect names the people he’d like to serve in his Cabinet, the U.S. Senate holds confirmation hearings to vet the candidates before approving or rejecting them.

Ahead of their respective hearings, candidates undergo FBI background checks and submit ethics questionnaires on their financial background to examine any potential conflicts of interest. Candidates also meet with various senators in person in an effort to gin up support.

The Senate committee that oversees the agency the candidate has been tapped to lead conducts the hearing during which the candidate’s background and policy views are closely examined. Senators may ask questions, and supporters and opponents of the nominee may also testify during this hearing.

After the hearing, the committee votes on whether to recommend the candidate to the full Senate, where lawmakers can then debate the matter. The candidate needs a majority of senators to vote in their favor to be confirmed.

It’s a safe bet that part of today’s hearing will focus on how Trump’s defense secretary pick intends to curtail diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and quash so-called “wokeness” in the military.

Trump and the Republican Party have pinpointed the Defense Department in their war on DEI. They baselessly claim military readiness and effectiveness have been hurt by policies designed to make service members from marginalized groups — like women, nonwhite people and LGBTQ people — feel welcome in the ranks. There’s no proof DEI programs have hampered the U.S. military in any way, and ample evidence shows how DEI efforts benefit the military and national security. But Hegseth, in all his cringeworthy machismo, has been particularly outspoken in pushing the claim that DEI has thrown the U.S. military dangerously off-course. 

Right now, Republicans are waging a misinformation campaign claiming the fires ravaging Los Angeles somehow stem from DEI policies. It’s fair to assume Hegseth and his Republican allies will fan the flames of anti-DEI angst today.

With the GOP now the majority in the Senate, Hegseth only needs Republicans’ backing to become defense secretary. Unsurprisingly then, his visits to Capitol Hill and the assistance from his outside allies have been focused almost exclusively on GOP senators, particularly Iowa’s Joni Ernst.

Of the 13 Democrats and independents on the Armed Services Committee, just one has met with Hegseth: Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I. The top Democrat on Armed Services, Reed met with Hegseth last Wednesday and was not impressed.

Afterward, Reed issued a brief statement that the meeting “did not relieve my concerns about Mr. Hegseth’s lack of qualifications and raised more questions than answers. As with any nominee for this critical position, Mr. Hegseth must undergo the same high-level of scrutiny as prior Secretary of Defense nominees.”