Hegseth faces an ‘absolutely critical’ day as Pentagon hopes hang by a thread
Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN
(CNN) — Donald Trump is in danger of losing another one of his provocative Cabinet picks in a further blow to his bid to shake up Washington in his second term.
The president-elect is facing a decision about how much his heart is set on former Fox News anchor Pete Hegseth to run the Pentagon.
Hegseth’s candidacy ran into stiff headwinds on Tuesday amid increasing disquiet among some GOP senators about allegations concerning his treatment of women, drinking and capacity to run the US military behemoth.
A handful of Republican senators publicly said that Hegseth needed to answer questions about his alleged conduct – and possible alternatives for secretary of defense were being floated by sources close to Trump. Among them is Florida governor and one-time Trump primary adversary Ron DeSantis, who is interested in the position if he is formally offered the job, two sources close to the governor told CNN’s Steve Contorno.
Hegseth’s hopes appear to be ebbing ahead of Hill and media interviews scheduled for Wednesday. A senior Trump administration source told CNN’s Jake Tapper late Tuesday night, “Tomorrow is going to be absolutely critical.” The source suggested that Hegseth hadn’t been forthcoming with the Trump team about his past behavior involving women and alcohol.
Timothy Parlatore, an attorney for Hegseth, said, “We are going to address these concerns head on,” adding, “He is not in any way considering withdrawing.”
Trump’s criteria for picking Cabinet secretaries seems to depend on how willing they’ll be to do exactly what he wants — in this case, to root out what he regards as “woke” generals — and how good they look on TV. But Trump’s subordinates enter a danger zone when they begin to come across as beleaguered and besieged and reflect poorly on him. That’s what happened to short-lived attorney general pick Matt Gaetz last month, and Hegseth risks entering similar territory.
His fate will not only depend on whether sufficient Republican senators will defer to the president-elect. Trump must decide how much of his considerable but limited political capital he wants to spend on getting Hegseth confirmed and even whether he’s willing to go ahead with a surely explosive confirmation hearing early next year.
As soon as he was picked, Hegseth was forced to explain revelations about an alleged sexual assault of a woman in 2017 that he denies. He’s said the encounter was consensual, and he was not charged. But now he’s facing new revelations after The New Yorker reported he was forced out of veterans’ advocacy groups over allegations of mismanagement and personal misconduct, with the magazine describing a whistleblower report from former employees who claimed he was intoxicated at work events and pursued female staff. The magazine did not name the employees behind the complaints, and CNN has not independently reviewed the report. (A Hegseth adviser said the reports were “outlandish claims” from a disgruntled former associate).
Hegseth has expressed views that might have endeared him to Trump but that could be problematic in his hearing. For instance, CNN’s KFile reported Tuesday that when protests broke out in US cities in 2020, he suggested on Fox that troops should be sent into Seattle.
Hegseth is one of a corps of Cabinet picks who reflect Trump’s fury against the elite establishment in Washington and expressed desire for retribution. While he lacks top-level strategic, diplomatic and managerial experience, his distinguished war record would help him connect with the rank and file.
But there’s only so much any one Cabinet pick can stand before the drip, drip of controversy begins to reflect badly on the president-elect. And Hegseth’s deepening troubles are now beginning to capture headlines that are detracting from Trump’s bid to dominate the political narrative before he takes office.
Republicans don’t want a showdown with Trump
Republican senators are not looking for a fight with Trump, who will take office next month as the most powerful new president in decades.
But Hegseth can only lose the votes of three Republicans in the new Senate and still get confirmed. So the majority of GOP senators could back him and stand firm with Trump, and only a few dissenters could scuttle his nomination — even if they’d surely prefer to not to have to cast a public vote against the president-elect. That dilemma is especially acute since concern among Republican senators helped derail the Gaetz selection last month.
A sense that Trump’s most unorthodox picks for senior posts are becoming accident-prone was bolstered on Tuesday when Chad Chronister, a Florida sheriff, withdrew from consideration to head the Drug Enforcement Administration. He said he decided to withdraw after the “gravity of this important responsibility set in.”
Hegseth tries to tamp down allegations
Hegseth’s chances have hardly been helped by an email obtained by The New York Times in which his mother told him in 2018 that he was a man who “belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around and uses women for his own power and ego.” (Penelope Hegseth has subsequently defended her son, first telling The Times that the email was written “in anger, with emotion,” and then defending his character on Fox News Wednesday morning. She has said she apologized in a follow-up email, though she did not elaborate in her interview on Fox.)
The Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran had been expected to head to his old patch at Fox News on Wednesday for an interview that hints at the building crisis around his hopes but instead went on “The Megyn Kelly Show.” Trump will no doubt be watching to assess Hegseth’s durability. And any questions about Hegseth’s past and behavior will shed light yet again on the lack of vetting of some of Trump’s Cabinet picks who were announced in a flurry as the nascent new administration aimed for a fast start.
One key question is how much allegations of personal transgressions matter to Trump, who has faced his own allegations, all of which he’s denied. The president-elect has been found liable for sexual abuse in a civil trial brought by the writer E. Jean Carroll. The case of Gaetz may be instructive. It was no secret that the former Florida congressman was facing allegations, which he denied and over and in which he was not charged, of a sexual encounter with a minor. But when coverage of the issue turned into a major Capitol Hill battle over a House Ethics Committee report, his days were numbered, and he eventually withdrew his candidacy on the grounds that it was distracting from the president-elect.
It became clear then that while Trump has built a Teflon hide that allows him to defy political gravity, some of his acolytes who model their political careers on his example lack his legendary impunity.
And one aspect of Hegseth’s story might give Trump pause, concerning allegations of past intoxication. The president-elect is a famous abstainer and has spoken about how alcoholism helped kill his brother, Fred. He “had the best personality, better than mine, but he had a problem with alcohol and he would tell me ‘don’t drink, don’t drink,’” Trump said in 2017.
Hegseth confirmation will be ‘difficult’
Pressure around Hegseth’s nomination mounted after senators returned from the Thanksgiving holiday.
South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a frequent Trump golf partner and military veteran, warned that some of the allegations about Hegseth were “going to be difficult.”
Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, another veteran who has been mentioned as a possible alternative defense secretary pick, said she’d have “a really frank and thorough conversation” with Hegseth. And Louisiana Republican Sen. Jon Kennedy said he’d read all the articles and allegations about Hegseth and he was “going to have to address them.” Kennedy pointed to the email that Hegseth’s mother reportedly sent her son — “Of all the allegations I’ve seen that’s probably the most serious,” he said.
Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming said Hegseth needed to address the latest allegations, and Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma said he believed it was “reasonable” and “fair” to ask about allegations that Hegseth was intoxicated at work events. Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, meanwhile, acknowledged that some of his colleagues were “very worried” about Hegseth’s qualifications — but urged them to hear him out in a confirmation hearing.
So far, only a small minority of Republican senators have raised questions about Hegseth. Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville, for instance, told reporters Monday that he’d talked to Trump’s Pentagon pick about misconduct allegations and “there’s not going to be anything to this at the end of the day.”
But confirmation processes gather their own momentum in one way or the other, and the public comments made by some Republican senators look a lot like coded messages of concern to Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort. After all, Trump could find another defense secretary designate who might be almost as adept at fighting culture wars inside the Pentagon as Hegseth but who might not draw attention away from the shock-and-awe start to his administration that Trump is planning.
New controversy over Hegseth came on a day when the Trump transition entered into a memorandum of understanding with the Justice Department. This move would pave the way for candidates for Cabinet jobs to undergo FBI background checks in order to receive security clearances. This does not necessarily mean that the president-elect will require such vetting for all his picks. But several Republican senators said they hoped such steps would be taken, especially in the case of Hegseth.
“I believe that we need an FBI background check to evaluate the allegations,” Maine Sen. Susan Collins told CNN on Tuesday, adding that Hegseth should also complete the usual questionnaire about his background and participate in a public hearing.
If he fails to win confirmation, Hegseth wouldn’t be the first Republican defense secretary pick to see his candidacy founder over allegations involving women and drinking. In 1989, the Senate balked at confirming one of its own, John Tower of Texas, after he was asked to run the Pentagon by President George H.W. Bush.
CNN’s Manu Raju asked North Dakota Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer whether standards had changed since those days.
“I don’t think there’s much question that the tolerance for certain things has changed,” Cramer said. “In many respects, grace abounds all the more. And I think that’s not such a bad thing. That’s why, I mean, I love a good redemption story, and I hope that’s what Pete has.”
This story has been updated with additional reporting.
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