Trump's controversial defense pick may have the votes he needs

The Senate’s top Republican reportedly assured President-elect Donald Trump that his controversial pick for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has enough GOP support to survive the blistering confirmation process. 

According to CBS News, which cited three sources, Senate Majority Leader John Thune assured Trump this past weekend that Hegseth should have no trouble clearing the vote requirement needed to become a member of Trump’s Cabinet.

This came after an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation,” where Thune expressed more caution. While Thune said the confirmation process would be “fair,” he added, too, that all of Trump’s disastrous picks, including Hegseth, would have to “make their case in front of the committee.” 

“I think these are nominees who are new enough, they’ve been going around and conducting their meetings, which I think, frankly, have gone very well, but they still have to make their case in front of the committee,” Thune added. “And, you know, we don’t know all the information about some of these nominees.”

With these conflicting statements, Thune appeared to be injecting more uncertainty into whether every GOP senator would vote yes on confirming the contentious and oftentimes unqualified nominees put forth by Trump. Beyond Hegseth, other Cabinet appointees such as Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence; Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services; and Kash Patel as Trump’s pick to be the next FBI director are similarly in peril. 

Indeed, the fate of Trump’s eventual Cabinet remains uncertain after Republican lawmakers spent much of December tiptoeing around questions regarding Kennedy’s vaccine views and the accusations of sexual misconduct against Hegseth. While some Republicans have expressed full support for Trump’s Cabinet picks, others have stopped short of issuing a public endorsement for his most controversial picks. In theory, this should add another wrinkle to the confirmation process given that Republicans only narrowly hold the Senate majority. 

But it’s possible that Thune’s apparent confidence toward Hegseth, specifically, is predicated on the fact that Hegseth has friends in high places. In December, for instance, a conservative group with ties to multibillionaire Elon Musk spent lots of money on a new pro-Hegseth ad. It surely helps Hegseth, too, that Trump was never really bothered by the allegations against Hegseth. (Neither Musk nor Trump have commented publicly on whether Hegseth has enough Senate support.)

While some key Republican holdouts eventually came around to Hegseth’s defense, he’s still not well-liked by voters as of Civiqs polling for Daily Kos in December. And there’s still plenty for senators to oppose if they’d be willing to defy Trump. For one, an anonymous woman accused Hegseth of raping her in a California hotel room in 2017. While Hegseth and his lawyers have said that the encounter was consensual and he was not charged, he did pay the accuser an undisclosed amount. 

Beyond that, Hegseth is likely to face a frenzy of uncomfortable questions about reports of his excessive drinking. A report in The New Yorker alleged that Hegseth once drunkenly shouted “kill all Muslims” after a 2015 rendezvous at a bar. (This seems like a good place to remind voters—and maybe even Hegseth—that the former Fox News contributor promised to stop drinking alcohol if he’s confirmed to head the federal department charged with leading the nation’s armed forces.)

Maybe Thune is more optimistic toward Hegseth’s chances given that no one seems to be talking about Hegseth anymore. Unlike in early December, when every and any Hegseth ally, including his mother, went on a media blitz to try and convince senators that her son isn’t a total piece of garbage, they’ve gone rather silent now.

Whatever happens with Hegseth’s nomination—his hearing is scheduled for Jan. 14—the fact that Trump persisted with it for so long, coupled with the fact that Thune recently expressed confidence in him joining the president-elect’s Cabinet, is yet another reminder that Trump’s forthcoming administration will be a disaster. 

That’s because, yes, it’s incredibly dangerous for both our military and our nation that a man who repeatedly criticized policies allowing gay people to serve openly in the U.S. military and who has abused and exploited women might have enough support to lead the troops under a second Trump administration.

Now that Hegseth has a president in his image, his fortune appears to be rising—even if it’s to our disservice.