Hegseth Scores Big Win, One Massive Hurdle Left
Former Fox News host Pete Hegseth on Thursday took a major step closer to winning his bid to become U.S. secretary of defense.
On a 51-49 vote, the Senate advanced Hegseth’s nomination to lead the Defense Department. That leaves Hegseth with the massive hurdle of a final confirmation vote, which could come Friday, NBC News reported.
Two Republicans — Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine — joined Democrats in trying to halt Hegseth’s advance.
Thursday’s vote came after Hegseth faced new troubles, with a former sister-in-law, Danielle Hegseth, claiming in an 11th-hour affidavit that he’d been physically and sexually abusive toward his second wife, Samantha.
The couple married in 2010 and divorced in 2018, according to The New York Times.
In the affidavit, according to Fox, Danielle Hegseth — the former wife of Hegseth’s brother — admitted she never witnessed the violence herself.
However, she claimed that she knew Samantha Hegseth was in fear of Pete Hegseth during their marriage.
And yet, in court papers in 2021 dealing with the divorced couples’ child custody arrangements, “a Minnesota family court judge said that neither Pete nor Samantha Hegseth claimed to be a victim of domestic abuse,” the Times reported.
“The judge also said that there was no determination by the court that there was probable cause to believe that one parent ‘has been physically abused or threatened with physical abuse by the other parent.'”
In an email interview with NBC, Samantha Hegseth was even clearer:
“There was no physical abuse in my marriage,” she wrote Tuesday, according to an NBC report published the same day. “This is the only further statement I will make to you, I have let you know that I am not speaking and will not speak on my marriage to Pete. Please respect this decision.”
Neither Collins nor Murkowski — two Republicans considered most likely to cause problems for President Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees — specifically cited Danielle Hegseth’s accusations in statements explaining their votes.
In a statement on the social media platform X, Collins wrote that Hegseth’s past statements about women in military service — including his once-blanket opposition to women serving in combat — as well as his limited “managerial” experience set her against him.
Murkowski apparently alluded to Danielle Hegseth’s claims in her statement on X, but wrote that that wasn’t the only problem with Hegseth’s past.
“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.
She also cited Hegseth’s opposition to combat roles for women.
During his largely successful confirmation hearings, Hegseth modified that stance somewhat to say women should be able to serve in combat if they are held to the same physical standards as men, according to a Jan. 14 report by ABC News,
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, a Mississippi Republican, predicted that Hegseth will be confirmed in a final vote, according to NBC.
However, it might be close enough that it happens only with Vice President J.D. Vance casting a tie-breaking vote.
“If I were J.D. Vance, I’d stick around,” Wicker said, according to NBC.
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