Pete Hegseth speaks during a Senate Armed Services committee hearing on his expected nomination to be Secretary of Defense on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025 in Washington, D.C.
Monday’s Senate confirmation hearing of Pete Hegseth – a former Fox News host and President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of defense – included numerous questions about his alleged drinking problems, allegations of sexual assault and past statements opposing women serving in military combat roles. In many instances under questioning from Democratic senators, Hegseth deflected or avoided answering questions directly.
Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) kicked off the criticisms, stating, “I do not believe you are qualified to meet the overwhelming demands of this job…. The totality of your own writings & alleged conduct would disqualify any service member from holding any leadership position.”
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Shortly after being named as Trump’s nominee, media reports revealed that Hegseth was accused by his own mother of abusing women and by previous coworkers of drinking on the job and sexually pursuing female colleagues. He had also been previously accused of paying off a woman who accused him of raping her while they attended a Republican conference in 2017 and of racking up over $400,000 in debt while serving as president of the organization Veterans for Freedom.
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Hegseth repeatedly said during his hearing that the accusations against him were a “coordinated smear campaign orchestrated in the media against us.”
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) noted that Hegseth has repeatedly argued women should not be allowed to serve in combat roles because they’re not as “capable” as men. Hegseth has previously said, “[Including women in combat roles] hasn’t made us more effective, hasn’t made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated.”
Referring to Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and Joni Ernst (R-IA), Sen. Shaheen asked Hegseth, “Should we take it that you believe that the two women on this committee who have served honorably and with distinction made our military less effective and less capable?”
Hegseth said, “Women in our military, as I have said publicly, have and continue to make amazing contributions across all aspects of our battlefield.”
Later, Shaheen asked, “Why should women in our military, if you were the secretary of Defense, believe that they would have a fair shot at an equal opportunity to rise through the ranks if, on the one hand you say that women are not competent, they make our military less effective, and on the other hand, you say, ‘Oh no, now that I’ve been nominated to be the secretary of Defense, I’ve changed my view.’
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) also criticized Hegseth’s recently changed view on women in combat, saying, “I’ve heard of death bed conversions. But this is the first time I’ve heard of a nomination conversion.”
Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) asked Hegseth about the rape accusation from 2017. Hegseth responded, “I was falsely accused in October 2017. It was fully investigated. And I was completely cleared.”
However, Hirono replied, “I don’t think ‘completely cleared’ is accurate.” Indeed, Hegseth paid off the woman and never challenged her claims in any court of law. As such, there was no legal investigation to “completely clear” him.
Hirono then asked Hegseth about accusations of his being drunk on the job when serving as president for Concerned Veterans for America (C.V.A.). Several former C.V.A. employees said in a whistleblower report that Hegseth was repeatedly intoxicated during various work events and had to be carried out of events due to his inability to walk while drunk.
Hegseth dodged a question from Hirono asking whether he’d commit to resigning as Secretary of Defense if he drank on the job. He also refused to answer her question of whether he would order the military to comply if Trump ordered soldiers to shoot protestors in the legs.
“That sounds to me that you would comply with such an order,” Hirono said in response to Hegseth’s silence. She later asked whether Hegseth would you carry out an order from President Trump to seize Greenland, a territory of U.S. NATO ally Denmark, by force.” Hegseth tried to deflect the question by saying that Trump hadn’t revealed his military strategy yet. Hirono said she understood Hegseth’s answer to implicitly be “yes.”
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) pointed out that Hegseth cheated on his wife, sleeping with another woman two months after the birth of his infant daughter. Hegseth tried to deflect by calling his daughter “a child of God” and misleadingly claiming that he had been “completely cleared” of sexual assault accusations. However, Kaine repeatedly asked him about it, in an effort to show unbecoming conduct.
“You had just fathered a child two months before by a woman who was not your wife … I assume at each of your weddings you pledged to be faithful to your wife” — absolutely brutal line of questioning here from Kaine to Hegseth on his infidelities and sexual assault accusation pic.twitter.com/3VYhuQ7JOh
Republicans largely supported Hegseth during the hearing. Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) refused to allow a second round of questioning, and, after the hearing, said, “This was a tour de force, a takedown, a triumph. I think it was a magnificent display. I don’t think it could have gone any better.”
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