President-elect Donald Trump said Friday that he has heard rave reviews from senators about his nominee for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, and is confident he will be confirmed.
“Pete seems to be doing well now.” Mr Trump said A clip of “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker's interview with the president-elect, which will air Sunday.
“So people were a little concerned,” Trump continued. “He's a young guy who actually has a great track record. He went to Princeton and he went to Harvard. He was a good student both times. But he loved the military and the people too. I think we're starting to realize that, so we're going to work with a lot of other people to get him nominated.”
Hegseth, 44, has been building support for his nomination on Capitol Hill over the past week amid allegations of past alcohol abuse, sexual misconduct and financial mismanagement.
A “no” vote from four Republican senators could rescind his confirmation, but Republican officials privately told the Post that the former Fox News personality and Army veteran He said there were “zero” senators who opposed putting him at the head of the Pentagon.
Asked by Welker if he still trusted Hegseth, Trump said, “Yes, I really do.”
“He's a very smart guy,” he added. “I got to know him through Fox, but I've known him for a long time. And he's basically a military guy. Every time I talk to him, all he wants to talk about is the military.” It's just that he's a military man.
“A lot of senators have called me and said he's great,” Trump said.
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) indicated Thursday that she couldn't say yes to Hegseth yet, but she plans to meet with the candidate on Friday and continue the conversation next week.
“I just had another substantive conversation with Senator Ernst. I appreciate her honest commitment to defense policy and look forward to meeting with her again next week,” Hegseth wrote to X.
Ernst tweeted about the meeting: “At the very least, we agree that he deserves a chance to explain his vision for our nation's warfighters in a fair hearing.”
Earlier this week, Mr. Hegseth denounced the onslaught of anonymously sourced media reports that jeopardized his approval.
“This is a dismantling of the textbook fabricated media,” he wrote in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal.
Will Cain, one of Mr. Hegseth's former co-hosts on “Fox & Friends Weekend,” came to his former colleague's defense Friday after the Washington Post report. downplayed the importance of Hegseth's two Bronze Stars.
“We were just hanging out.” [Hegseth’s] I found this in my office (with his permission). Is this cool? I don't know, can someone ask me? [the Washington Post]? ” Kane wrote in a tweet. It included a photo of the Army Commendation Medal awarded to Hegseth in 2005.
The citation states that Hegseth's leadership and initiative “directly captured two high-value targets associated with al-Qaeda in Iraq, effectively marking the end of the insurgent mortar force.”
