Pete Hegseth confirmed as defense secretary after Vance breaks tie

Pete Hegseth after his Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing.
Photo: AP

The Senate on Friday confirmed President Donald Trump’s nomination of Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News personality, to become the country’s next defense secretary, ‘The Washington Post’ reports.

The appointment of Hegseth, a Trump loyalist who has called for a “frontal assault” to rid the Pentagon of what he’s said is a leftist ideology, marks a dramatic political shift in the United States’ national security policy and leadership.

Hegseth secured his post Friday night in a vote of 51-50, after Vice President JD Vance cast the tiebreaking vote. It marks the second time in U.S. history that a vice president’s vote was necessary to confirm a Cabinet official, and Republicans applauded as Vance entered the chamber.

A combat veteran who was an officer in the Army National Guard, Hegseth has spoken and written extensively about his desire to fire leaders across the military, and he has railed against the left as a threat to the United States and its armed forces. His nomination provoked a wave of dissent from Democrats, who highlighted his minimal management experience, his previously held views that women don’t belong in combat units, and his pronouncements that international law and human rights are a hindrance to U.S. warfighters.

In a contentious confirmation hearing last week, Senate Democrats interrogated Hegseth about those views and the raft of misconduct claims he has faced, ranging from allegations he raped a woman at a 2017 political conference to accusations of financial mismanagement in previous leadership roles, excessive drinking, sexism and racism.

Hegseth has vowed to carry out an ambitious and disruptive agenda on behalf of Trump.

As defense secretary, Hegseth, 44, will oversee more than 3 million military and civilian personnel, the vast U.S. nuclear arsenal and an annual budget of more than $800 billion — responsibilities that McConnell, the Senate’s former Republican leader, said Hegseth was unfit to take on.

Hegseth had failed during his confirmation hearing to articulate any strategic vision for addressing the United States’ most pressing national security threats, including an increasingly aggressive China, McConnell said in a statement Friday night.

But while he is an unconventional leader to run the Pentagon — following men who had previous experience overseeing sprawling organizations before taking over the federal government’s largest agency — he is consistent, in many other ways, with the personalities Trump has selected for top jobs in his administration.

Like Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, national security adviser Michael Waltz, Tulsi Gabbard and Elise Stefanik — Trump’s nominees for director of national intelligence and U.N. ambassador, respectively — Hegseth has warned of what he deems the existential dangers facing the United States, its culture and Constitution, from the “radical left” and has proposed ways to retake the United States’ government and institutions.

...The US got a Secretary of Defense that half the Senate didn't want in that position. In other words, the Pentagon doesn't have unconditional support in Congress. And that's going to be a problem.

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