President Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, speaks during a Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill on Jan. 14, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Republicans on Thursday advanced the nomination of veteran and onetime Fox News host Pete Hegseth to lead the nation’s military, despite numerous allegations of alcohol abuse and sexual misconduct, and his history of disparaging women in the armed forces.
Senators in a 51-49 procedural vote along party lines agreed to begin debate on Hegseth’s nomination. A final vote is expected late Friday.
Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska joined Democrats and independents in opposing Hegseth.
Collins said she voted no because she believes Hegseth “does not have the experience and perspective necessary to succeed in the job.”
“I am also concerned about multiple statements, including some in the months just before he was nominated, that Mr. Hegseth has made about women serving in the military,” Collins wrote on X minutes after the vote. She added she is “not convinced that his position on women serving in combat roles has changed.”
Murkowski said she could not “in good conscience” vote for Hegseth for many reasons, including his history of alleged mismanagement and misconduct at two veterans organizations.
“While the allegations of sexual assault and excessive drinking do nothing to quiet my concerns, the past behaviors Mr. Hegseth has admitted to, including infidelity on multiple occasions, demonstrate a lack of judgment that is unbecoming of someone who would lead our armed forces,” she wrote Thursday on X.
Reed sees background check as ‘inadequate’
As recently as Tuesday, fresh allegations surfaced from Hegseth’s former sister-in-law that his second wife feared Hegseth’s volatile behavior and that the veteran of the Army National Guard was so drunk in uniform at a Minneapolis strip club that his brother had to carry him out.
The allegations were revealed by Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member Jack Reed. Reed said he requested Hegseth’s ex-sister-in-law recount her testimony to him after her December interview was not included in Hegseth’s FBI background check provided to committee members.
Hegseth’s lawyer and his second wife, Samantha, deny the allegations.
Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat, said on the Senate floor Thursday that the FBI background check was “inadequate.”
Allegations aired
Since President Donald Trump announced his pick in mid-November, allegations against Hegseth have come one after another, including the misconduct and mismanagement at two veterans service organizations he led following his Army service and combat deployments during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
In 2017, the then-Fox News host was accused of sexually assaulting a woman in Monterey, California. Hegseth later settled with her.
Hegseth, 44, told senators at his Jan. 14 confirmation hearing, “I’m not a perfect person, as has been acknowledged, saved by the grace of God, by Jesus and Jenny,” he said, referring to his third wife, television producer Jennifer Hegseth, who was seated behind him during his hearing.
Democrats grilled Hegseth on several fronts at the hearing, but particularly on his well documented, and recent, comments over several years that women should not serve in combat roles.
The veteran and television personality argued in his latest book “The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free,” that “Dads push us to take risks. Moms put the training wheels on our bikes. We need moms. But not in the military, especially in combat units.”
Hegseth, who earned millions as a Fox News host before quitting in November, has also written several books that, among their contents, compare the 11th-century crusades between Christians and Muslims to today’s “battle for the soul of America.”