WASHINGTON, D.C. - On a 51 to 49 vote, President Trump’s nominee for Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, barely cleared his first hurdle in a Senate vote. Senators are advancing his nomination but it’s not set in stone, yet.  

Hegseth, who is a former Army veteran and Fox News anchor, was questioned by Senators in his public hearing last week about allegations of him being frequently intoxicated, sexual assault and his comments about women in combat roles, among other things. Hegseth has repeatedly denied these allegations. All Republican Senators, with the exception of two, voted to move forward with his confirmation.   

“He doesn’t have the temperament or character to run such a large organization like the Department of Defense,” said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D- NY). “He has three-million personnel that will report to him, a good number of them are women. He's made extremely derogatory statements about women in the military about LGBTQ men and women in the military and people who have different views than him – that have more progressive views than he does. So, I don’t know you can run an organization of three-million people if you don’t value the contribution of so many of them.” 

“We need to change course at the Pentagon,” said Sen. John Barasso (R- WY). “We need to get the Pentagon back on track and President Trump has selected Pete Hegseth to do just that. As Pete said at his hearing last week, ‘we don’t need more bureaucracy at the top, we need more empowered warfighters at the bottom.’” 

We expect the Senate to have a final vote on his confirmation by Friday night.