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

US senators set to grill Hegseth, who has Republican backing, over contentious past statements and controversies.

Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News host tapped by United States President-elect Donald Trump to lead the Pentagon, is set to be grilled by lawmakers in his Senate confirmation hearing.

“Culture war” issues, including diversity in the military, are expected to be the focus of the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Tuesday for one of the most controversial figures ever nominated to be US secretary of defence.

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 a record of past statements and actions, including allegations of sexual assault that he strongly denies, excessive drinking, and derisive views about women in military combat roles, minorities and “woke” generals.

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 with former army and navy special forces and marines supporting the nominee.

“But we’re going to get him across the finish line.”

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 X.

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

During the hearing, Hegseth will have to answer 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.

Two former female combat veterans, Republican Joni Ernst of Iowa and Democrat Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, are among those who will question him.

“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.”

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.