JUST IN: Key GOP Senator Endorses Pete Hegseth After Initial Opposition
Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) has officially endorsed Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense on Tuesday after initially expressing skepticism over his nomination. Ernst, a member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, told reporters last month that she was “concerned” about a number of unproven allegations levied against Hegseth by anonymous sources. Ernst was widely viewed as one of the biggest potential hurdles in the way of Hegseth’s confirmation.
“After four years of weakness in the White House, Americans deserve a strong Secretary of Defense,” Ernst told Fox News a few hours after Hegseth’s Senate confirmation hearing. “Our next commander in chief selected Pete Hegseth to serve in this role, and after our conversations, hearing from Iowans, and doing my job as a United States Senator, I will support President Trump’s pick for Secretary of Defense. As I serve on the Armed Services Committee, I will work with Pete to create the most lethal fighting force and hold him to his commitments of auditing the Pentagon, ensuring opportunity for women in combat while maintaining high standards, and selecting a senior official to address and prevent sexual assault in the ranks.”
Hegseth meets with Senator Ernst in her office last month
Trump’s nominee for the Department of Defense testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee for a long-awaited confirmation hearing on Tuesday. Hegseth — a veteran of the War on Terror who most recently worked as a host at Fox News — was assailed by Senate Democrats over a series of unproven allegations concerning sexual assault and heavy drinking.
Without evidence, Demarcated lawmakers have accused Hegseth of sexually assaulting a woman based on unproven allegations that were investigated by law enforcement and found to be without merit. The accuser — whose identity is redacted — claimed Hegseth raped her in 2017 during a Republican women’s conference at a hotel in Monterey, California. According to the accuser, the alleged assault happened after conference organizers went to the hotel bar following an after-party towards the end of the conference. A police report casts severe doubt on the claim, however, as several eyewitness accounts and surveillance videos suggest the two had a consensual sexual encounter. The accuser is married, and the report suggests the accusation was made in an attempt to hide infidelity from her husband, who was staying in the hotel at the time of the incident.
A separate report from NBC News — which quoted several ‘anonymous sources’ from Fox News — claimed that Hegseth struggled with heavy drinking during his time at the network. Without evidence, the report claimed that Hegseth would often show up to work smelling of alcohol and created an unsafe work environment for his co-workers. The report has been soundly rejected by dozens of Fox News employees, many of whom have referred to the report as “utter bull**it.”
Despite the fact that all of the allegations against Hegseth have either been thoroughly disproven or made without any evidence, the Trump nominee was berated by numerous Senate Democrats as if they were factual on Tuesday morning. Hegseth referred to the allegations as a “smear campaign” in a fiery defense of his character in his opening statement. “The media in America today, sadly, doesn’t care about the truth. All they’re out to do, Mr. Chairman, is to destroy me. And why do they want to destroy me? Because I’m a change agent and a threat to them because Donald Trump was willing to choose me, to empower me, to bring the Defense Department back to what it really should be, which is war-fighting,” Hegseth told U.S. Senate Armed Services Chairman Roger Wicker (R-MS).
Despite the attacks, the hearing appears to have gone well for Hegseth. According to the popular prediction platform Polymarket, odds of Hegseth’s confirmation surged above 90 percent in the hours following his testimony.
