Washington Wednesday: The confirmation hearings begin

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: It’s Wednesday the 15th of January.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Time now for Washington Wednesday.

The incoming Trump administration has roughly 4,000 political positions to fill … and 1 in 4 of them require a thumbs-up from the Senate. Today confirmation hearings for secretary of state and attorney general get underway … but likely the most controversial started yesterday in the Senate Armed Services Committee. The hearing for the new president’s choice to head the Pentagon, Pete Hegseth.

MAST: Here now with more on the hearing is Washington Bureau Reporter Carolina Lumetta.

CAROLINA LUMETTA: Confirming a cabinet position requires only a simple majority vote in the Senate…not the sixty votes required to pass legislation. With a narrow Republican majority, though, it only takes three dissatisfied GOP senators to hold up a nominee. And Trump’s top-level picks bring some baggage…particularly his pick for Secretary of Defense. Here’s Republican Committee Chairman Roger Wicker.

WICKER: Let's get into this allegation about sexual assault, inappropriate workplace behavior, alcohol abuse, and financial mismanagement during your time as a non-profit executive. I should note that the majority of these have come from anonymous sources in liberal media publications, but I want to give you an opportunity to respond to these allegations.

Pete Hegseth comes with a slate of conservative credentials. He attended Princeton University through a Family Research Council fellowship, and wrote for a conservative student magazine. He was commissioned as an infantry officer in the Minnesota National Guard and served in Iraq. He has led two nonprofits, Vets for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America. After further military service in Afghanistan, Hegseth joined Fox News as a contributor and has written five books on the military and conservative values. He left active duty in 2021.

HEGSETH: I've led troops in combat. I've been on patrol for days, I've pulled the trigger down range, heard bullets whizz by, Flex cuffed insurgents, called in close air support, led medivacs dodged IEDs, pulled out dead bodies, and knelt before a battlefield cross. This is not academic for me. This is my life.

Trump has said Hegseth is a Pentagon outsider who can cut through the bureaucracy. But Hegseth’s lack of experience leading large organizations also concerns senators…like Michigan Senator Gary Peters.

PETERS: Did you drive costs down in a 50-person organization? Let me tell you, we've got to drive costs down dramatically in a organization of 3 million people and hundreds of billions of dollars. Acquisition reform, you bring that up. Have you had experience in acquisition reform?

HEGSETH: I've written about and studied on acquisition reform for quite some time.

PETERS: Have you actually done it?

HEGSETH: Because what we need in the hands of our warfighters better changed 'cause we're not doing it well right now.

PETERS: It better, and we need people who have experience actually doing that.

While Hegseth met with every Republican on the Armed Services Committee prior to the hearing, he only met with one Democrat…ranking member Jack Reed. Several other senators told me that he never followed up with them or only offered a meeting after the hearing. Here’s Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire.

SHAHEEN: And one reason that I wanted to meet with you was because I thought it would be really helpful to better understand your views on women in the military because you've made a number of surprising statements about women serving in the military.

Senator Shaheen and others asked about Hegseth’s written and broadcast statements in which he says women should not serve in combat roles. He deflected…and Senator Elizabeth Warren followed up to ask him about his apparent change in position.

WARREN: Just 32 days after your last public comment saying that women absolutely should not be in combat, you declared that "some of our greatest warriors are women," and you support having them serve in combat. So help me understand, Mr. Hegseth, what extraordinary event happened in that 32 -day period that made you change the core values you had expressed for the preceding 12 years?

HEGSETH: Senator, again, I very much appreciate you bringing up my comments from 2013 because for me, this issue has always been about standards. And unfortunately, because of some of the people that have been in political power over the last four years—

WARREN: Excuse me, Mr. Hegseth, let's just stop, let's just stop.

Republican Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa came to Hegseth’s aid, parsing out the difference between not wanting women in combat roles and wanting to prevent fitness standards from being lowered to accommodate more women in combat.

ERNST: But for the young women that are out there now and can meet those standards, and again, I'll emphasize they should be very, very high standards. They must physically be able to achieve those standards so that they can complete their mission. But I want to know, again, let's make it very clear for everyone here today, as Secretary of Defense, will you support women continuing to have the opportunity to serve in combat roles?

HEGSETH: Senator, first of all, thank you for your service as we discussed extensively as well. It's my privilege. And my answer is yes, exactly the way that you caveated it.

Lawmakers also took issue with Hegseth’s personal life. Hegseth has divorced twice, with infidelity cited in court documents as the cause. He has admitted to having a problem with alcohol, and in 2017 he was accused of sexually assaulting a woman at a Republican women’s conference in California. He was not charged in that case, but evidence filed indicated he was heavily intoxicated. Last year, he paid an undisclosed amount in a confidential settlement with the woman. In private meetings with senators, Hegseth insisted that he’s changed his ways. Here’s what North Dakota Senator Kevin Cramer told me:

CRAMER: I was skeptical. I wanted to talk to him. In fact, I was the one that insisted that I hear him tell me and and others that promises not to drink well, drink out any alcohol. … I believe in redemption… I don't know if he's willing to repent, but as the secretary of the secretary of defense, you have to have a clear-eyed, 24-hour-a-day, sober secretary. And he did make that pledge.

Hegseth repeated that pledge during his testimony. But that did not comfort Democratic senators on the committee, including Mark Kelly of Arizona.

KELLY: Summer of 2014 in Cleveland, drunk in public with the CVA team.

HEGSETH: Anonymous smears.

KELLY: I'm just asking for true or false answers. An event in North Carolina, drunk in front of three young female staff members after you had instituted a no alcohol policy and then reversed it. True or false?

HEGSETH: Anonymous smears.

In one particularly testy exchange, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia accused Hegseth of lacking the character to lead the military.

KAINE: You've taken an oath like you would take an oath to be secretary of defense and all of your weddings to be faithful to your wife Is that correct?

HEGSETH: I have failed in things in my life and thankfully I'm redeemed by my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

The public gallery was full of veterans supporting Hegseth. Navy veteran Scott Stoyan flew in from Augusta, Georgia.

STOYAN: There are some questions with Pete. Okay, guess what? There's questions with me, too. There's questions with everybody. We probably not all acted in a nun-like fashion, okay? But but guess what I'm also forgiven and Jesus Christ is my savior and You know, there's probably some sticky things up there, but I believe that Pete is remorseful… I mean that's just something to be respected.

Senate Republicans say Hegseth’s plans on what to do to reform the Pentagon will get their vote. Particularly, members focused on ending diversity, equity, and inclusion programs under the Biden administration. Here’s Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri:

SCHMITT: The Department of Defense spent over five million man hours on quote, unquote, counter extremism and diversity training, what you and I might call woke training or DEI.

Hegseth connected the dots.

HEGSETH: The more troubling aspect is how many training hours that takes away from a company commander or battalion commander or a wing commander who's out there trying to maintain their force, which is already constrained because of what the Biden administration has done to the defense budget and defense capabilities.

Hegseth said as an Pentagon outsider, he’ll surround himself with people smarter than he is to advise him. But any program not contributing to what he called “maximum lethality”… is on the chopping block.

HEGSETH: what race you are, your views on climate change, or whether you are a person of conscience and your faith should have no bearing on whether you get promoted or whether you're selected to go to West Point or whether you graduate from Ranger School. The only thing that should matter is how capable are you at your job.

The Senate Armed Services Committee will meet again on Monday - Inauguration Day - to vote on Hegseth’s confirmation. President-elect Trump wants as much of his cabinet in office when he is inaugurated as possible. But the process through the Senate has slowed over the years. Only two of Trump’s nominees were approved by inauguration in 2017. President Joe Biden only had one by his first day.

Today, Senator Marco Rubio faces the committee he normally sits on: Senate Foreign Relations. He’s considered to be an easy shoe-in for the next Secretary of State. Barring delays, 13 nominees are scheduled to have their hearing in the next two weeks.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Carolina Lumetta in Washington D.C.

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