WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Pete Hegseth narrowly secured enough votes on Friday to become the next U.S. defense secretary, a major victory for President Donald Trump after fierce opposition from Democrats and even some Republicans to his controversial nominee.
Hegseth was confirmed after a 50-50 vote in the Senate, when Vice President JD Vance came to the chamber to break the tie in his role as president of the Senate, after three Republicans joined every Democrat and independent in voting no.
Hegseth, a former Fox News personality and decorated veteran, is promising to bring major changes to the Pentagon. But his leadership will be under intense scrutiny after a bruising confirmation review that raised serious questions about his qualifications, temperament and views about women in combat.
“We have not had a secretary of defense like Hegseth before,” said Jeremi Suri, a University of Texas, Austin, history professor and presidential scholar.
Hegseth is the most divisive candidate to clinch the U.S. military’s top job, a position that has historically gone to candidates with deep experience running large organizations and who enjoy broad bipartisan support.
It was only the second time in history a cabinet nominee needed a tie-break to be confirmed. The first was also a Trump nominee, Betsy DeVos, who became secretary of education in 2017.
The three Republican senators who voted against Hegseth were Senators Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins and Mitch McConnell, who was the party’s leader in the chamber until this month.
McConnell said Hegseth had failed to demonstrate that he had the ability to effectively manage an organization as large and complex as the military. “Mere desire to be a ‘change agent’ is not enough to fill these shoes,” McConnell said in a statement.
The top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, said in a statement he would watch Hegseth “like a hawk” and “demand accountability.”
Hegseth will lead 1.3 million active-duty service members and the nearly 1 million civilians who work for the U.S. military, which has a nearly $1 trillion annual budget. Hegseth told lawmakers that, up until this point, the largest group he had managed was 100 people and the largest budget was $16 million.
His nomination was rocked by a series of accusations, including one this week by his former sister-in-law, who said he abused his second wife to the extent that she hid in a closet and had a code word to use with friends if she had to be rescued. Hegseth strongly denied the accusations and his wife had previously denied any physical abuse.
TRUMP STAUNCHLY BEHIND PICK
Trump, whose nominees for FBI and intelligence chief are also under Senate scrutiny, stood staunchly by his pick and he put extensive pressure on his fellow Republicans to back the 44-year-old television personality.
Suri said the vote demonstrated the extent of Trump’s power at the start of his second term in office.
“It means certainly that Trump has enormous leverage over the Republican Party and over members of the Senate,” he said.
Ahead of Friday’s vote, Trump had admonished two fellow Republicans, Senators Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, who voted against Hegseth in a procedural test vote on Thursday.
“I was very surprised that Collins and Murkowski would do that,” Trump told reporters on Friday morning.
But most Senate Republicans fell into line to defend the nominee who they said would restore a “warrior” mentality to the U.S. military.
Hegseth has criticized diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in the military, and, in his latest book, asked whether the top U.S. general has the job because he is Black. Reuters has previously reported about the possibility mass firing among top brass, something Hegseth repeatedly refused to rule out during his confirmation process.
OPPOSED WOMEN IN COMBAT
For years, Hegseth also strongly opposed women in combat roles but walked back that stance as he courted support for his confirmation, including from military veterans like Republican Senator Joni Ernst.
Ernst was one of the 14 Armed Services Committee Republicans who voted for Hegseth when the committee backed him by 14 to 13, with every Democrat opposing his nomination.
A number of episodes have sparked concern about Hegseth, including a 2017 sexual assault allegation that did not result in charges and which Hegseth denies. Sexual assault is a persistent problem in the U.S. military.
Hegseth has also been accused of excessive drinking and financial mismanagement at veterans’ organizations. He has vowed to abstain from alcohol if confirmed and said he made financial errors but denied wrongdoing.
In a 2021 incident first reported by Reuters, Hegseth was branded an “insider threat” by a fellow member of the Army National Guard over his tattoos. Hegseth noted the incident during the hearing, which led him to be pulled from Guard duty in Washington during Biden’s inauguration.
He takes over as the Trump administration has said that border security and immigration will be a focus for the U.S. military.
On Friday, U.S. military C-17 aircraft began flying detained migrants out of the country following orders from Trump, in the first such involvement by the U.S. military in deportations in recent memory.
The Pentagon has announced plans to send 1,500 active-duty troops to the border in response to Trump’s orders, a number that looks poised to quickly grow. U.S. officials on Friday told Reuters that the military was preparing to send a second wave of troops, likely from the 82nd Airborne.
Little is known about where Hegseth stands on key foreign policy issues like arming Ukraine, how to prepare the U.S. military for a potential conflict with China and whether he would seek to scale back the U.S. military footprint in places like Syria and Iraq.
The nearly party-line confirmation vote was a departure for a position that Republican and Democratic administrations have long sought to ensure was bipartisan.
Former President Joe Biden’s defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, was confirmed by a 93-2 vote in 2021, and Jim Mattis, Trump’s first defense secretary in his last administration, was confirmed 98-1 in 2017.
Hegseth’s Republican supporters in the Senate have argued that he has acknowledged personal failings, including infidelities and past drinking, and is the right person to bring the Pentagon’s core mission of winning wars back into focus.
The last nominee for defense secretary who was defeated was former Senator John Tower in 1989. Tower was investigated over claims of drunkenness and inappropriate behavior with women.
(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Don Durfee, Diane Craft and William Mallard)
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