“You are not qualified”: designated by Donald Trump to lead the Pentagon, Pete Hegseth was heard Tuesday in the Senate during a hearing which degenerated into a tense verbal joust with elected Democrats, the latter castigating the lack of experience and the controversies surrounding this ex-soldier.
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In the United States, the Constitution requires that appointments of ministers and other senior officials be confirmed by a vote in the Senate, after a hearing in the committee responsible for the position in question.
Pete Hegseth, a 44-year-old ex-major and Fox News presenter, opened the ball for the ministers designated by Donald Trump by spending more than four hours on Tuesday on the grill of the Armed Services Committee.
His main mission, he declared in the preamble to the senators, will be to “bring back the warrior culture” to the Pentagon.
Upon his appointment, Pete Hegseth assured that he wanted to reform the Pentagon from top to bottom, which had become too “woke” and acquired an ideology that was too left-wing, according to him.
Donald Trump, “like me, wants a Pentagon focused entirely on combat, lethality, meritocracy, principles and preparation. That’s all,” he assured the committee, after being interrupted several times by people in the audience protesting against the war in Gaza.
The former soldier quickly came under heavy fire from elected Democrats.
“Mr. Hegseth, you are not qualified” to become Minister of Defense, launched Senator Tammy Duckworth.
His Democratic colleague Jack Reed had shortly before listed “extremely alarming” information concerning Pete Hegseth and “disregard for the laws of war, financial mismanagement, racist and sexist remarks about men and women in the flag, abuse alcohol abuse, sexual assault, sexual harassment and other issues of concern.
As soon as his appointment was announced, the opposition criticized his lack of experience to lead the most powerful army in the world, but also certain controversial statements.
A 2017 sexual assault accusation in California also emerged in November. No complaint was filed at the time and the former soldier denies any non-consensual relationship.
Pete Hegseth is also suspected of regularly drinking excessively.
Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren last week decried “a guy who found himself so drunk at work events that he repeatedly needed to be carried outside.”
“One of your colleagues said that you were so drunk at an event in a bar that you sang ‘Kill all the Muslims’,” she said during the hearing on Tuesday.
Pete Hegseth denounced “a handful of anonymous sources who were allowed to carry out a smear campaign”.
Democratic senators first focused during the hearing on his opposition — expressed in the past — to the presence of women in combat troops.
Statements “so hurtful to the men and women currently enlisted in the American army, harmful to morale, harmful to the proper functioning and discipline” of the armed forces, condemned Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.
Pete Hegseth defended himself by saying he “respects every military woman who has worn the uniform”, and that these criticisms were in reality aimed at a lowering, according to him, of the levels of requirements within the American army.
The committee must now decide whether it wants a new hearing of Pete Hegseth, or vote to recommend his candidacy or not to the rest of the Senate which will have to approve it by simple majority.
Despite the controversies, Donald Trump declared at the beginning of December that he was maintaining his choice.
The future US president has already had to face the forced removal of Matt Gaetz, his controversial initial choice for the Department of Justice.
After Pete Hegseth, the hearings will continue in the Senate in the days and weeks to come.
Some controversial appointments, such as those of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at Health and Kash Patel at the FBI, have not yet had a scheduled hearing.
A rejection by the Senate of the appointment of a minister, unheard of since 1989, would represent a thunderclap and a snub for Donald Trump.
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