Source: Editorial Board
Of the myriad questionable picks Donald Trump has made for his cabinet nominations, few are as worthy of intense scrutiny as Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick for Secretary of Defense.
Hegseth has been accused of raping a woman and while he denies the sexual assault, he did pay the accuser an undisclosed amount due to his fear that revelation of the matter may jeopardize his job as a commentator and weekend co-host of Fox & Friends. Hegseth ended his deal with Fox so he could take the position Trump nominated him for.
Hegseth has said that he feels women are less capable than men, and expressed concern over the pentagon allowing women to serve in combat roles. Part of his reasoning was revealed in his book, in which he argues that women are meant to be “life-givers” and therefore shouldn’t serve in combat roles.
Hegseth’s own mother even accused him in an email of being an “abuser of women”. Many veterans, service members, and officials in the Defense Department worry that Hegseth could undo decades of progress in his position.
Apart from his archaic and offensive views on women, professionally speaking, Hegseth’s past is checkered at best.
A trail of documents and corroborations from former colleagues indicate that Hegseth was forced to step down from two non-profits he formerly led for improprieties ranging from being repeatedly intoxicated while acting in his official capacity to dividing his organization’s female staffers into “party girls” and “non-party girls”. It’s reported that his coworkers at Fox were concerned about his drinking, with some saying that they often felt they had to “babysit” Hegseth.
The vote to confirm Pete Hegseth took place on January 24, and three Republican Senators – Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky – had the integrity to vote against Hegseth. However, that left the count at 49-50, setting up Thom Tillis to be the deciding vote. Tillis’ “yes” vote resulted in a tie, allowing newly inaugurated Vice President JD Vance to break the deadlock with a tie-breaking vote in Hegseth’s favor.
Tillis, who is widely known for only flirting with the idea of voting with values, even if it goes against the Trump administration, followed his usual disappointing pattern for this vote as well. According to the Wall Street Journal, Tillis told Danielle Hegseth, Hegseth’s former sister-in-law, that if she signed the statement testifying that she believed Hegseth has an alcohol abuse problem and was abusive to his second wife, it would carry weight, and potentially move three votes, including his own. She did so, “at significant personal sacrifice”.
And yet, as the 50th “yes” vote that Friday, it’s clear that Tillis wasn’t swayed too much. Or perhaps his reelection chances matter more to him than the potential for our nation’s Department of Defense to be led by a possibly-drunk, “abuser of women”. Tillis’ streak of disappointing his constituents continues.
This marks only the second time in U.S. history that a vice president has cast a tie-breaking vote for a cabinet confirmation. The first was in 2017, when Vice President Mike Pence voted to confirm Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education during Trump’s first term.
Hegseth was scheduled to be sworn in the next day.
