WASHINGTON — Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s embattled pick for defense secretary, brushed aside suggestions Wednesday that he drop out and said he had spoken to Trump, who he said urged him to “keep going, keep fighting.”
“I spoke to the president-elect this morning. He said: ‘Keep going, keep fighting. I’m behind you all the way.’” Hegseth told CBS News in the Capitol. “Why would I back down? I’ve always been a fighter. I’m here for the fighters. This is personal and passionate for me.”
Hegseth, a military veteran and former Fox News host, was shuttling between meetings with the Republican senators whose votes he will need to be confirmed.
His nomination appeared to be in serious jeopardy Tuesday and Wednesday after a series of news reports raised more questions about his treatment of women and his history with alcohol. NBC News reported Tuesday that Hegseth’s drinking concerned his colleagues at Fox News, according to 10 current and former Fox employees. At times, before he went on air, colleagues said, he smelled of alcohol or talked about being hungover.
On Wednesday, Hegseth’s mother, Penelope Hegseth, defended her son on “Fox and Friends" and addressed a 2018 email she wrote amid his divorce that accused him of mistreating women for years. The New York Times published details of the email last week.
Hegseth has denied that he mistreated women and rejected allegations that he sexually assaulted a woman in Monterey, California, in 2017, describing the encounter as consensual. He reached an undisclosed settlement with the woman last year.
Responding to the NBC News report about Hegseth’s drinking, a Trump transition official called the allegations “completely unfounded and false.”
With Republicans holding a 53 to 47 majority in the Senate next year, each of Trump’s nominees can afford to lose only three GOP votes if all Democrats vote no. That makes Hegseth’s path to confirmation extremely treacherous: As many as six Senate Republicans are not comfortable supporting his bid to lead the Defense Department, according to multiple GOP sources familiar with the process, and there may be more.
Hegseth showed no signs of calling it quits Wednesday, holding a flurry of meetings with lawmakers on both sides of the Capitol and engaging in a media blitz to salvage his nomination, including writing an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal titled: “I’ve Faced Fire Before. I Won’t Back Down.”
In the morning, Hegseth huddled with Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., in his committee office. Around noon, he met with Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., who was recently elected majority leader.
'There won’t be a drop of alcohol on my lips'
In response to the allegations, Hegseth referred reporters to an interview he recorded for former Fox News host Megyn Kelly's SiriusXM show earlier in the day, in which he said he does not have a drinking problem and denied that he raped the woman in Monterey.
"Absolutely not. Absolutely not," he said when he was asked whether he raped the woman. "I’ve been honest about that encounter, starting with law enforcement. ... I may have been drinking, but I was cognizant of enough to remember every single detail.
"I’m not here to say that my conduct was good," he continued. "Being in a hotel room with someone that’s, you know, not the person you’re with is not OK. I own up to that."
Hegseth said he paid the woman a settlement because he had to as someone with a high profile, but he expressed regret about doing it. "I paid her because I had to, or at least I thought I did at the time," he said. "I was duly married, I was up for potential jobs in the administration, so my profile was higher. ... She got lawyers that reached out to mine and said, 'If you don’t come forward and if you don’t pay money, then ultimately, we’re going to out him.'"
"I did it to protect my wife, I did it to protect my family, and I did it to protect my job, and it was a negotiation," he said.
Addressing reports about excessive alcohol use, Hegseth said, "I never had a drinking problem," saying that he has never been approached or told he had a problem and that he has "never sought counseling" for one.
Hegseth said he is "not going to have a drink at all" if he is confirmed as secretary of defense, saying he wants Trump, senators and U.S. troops to know that he can be called 24/7 and would be "fully dialed in."
“This is the biggest deployment of my life, and there won’t be a drop of alcohol on my lips while I’m doing it,” he said.
During the interview, he also rejected allegations of financial mismanagement when he ran a veterans' advocacy organization, which were reported by The New Yorker. Hegseth said most of the allegations are most likely being propagated by "disgruntled people who are fired for cause, who are jealous or want a little bit of retribution.”
Meetings continue
Hegseth told reporters on Capitol Hill that he’s focused on “what Donald Trump asked me to do" as he meets with senators.
"Your job is to bring a war-fighting ethos back to the enemy," he continued. "Your job is to make sure that it’s lethality, lethality, lethality. Everything else is gone. Everything else that distracts from that shouldn’t be happening. That’s the message I’m hearing from senators in that advise-and-consent process. It’s been a wonderful process.”
Hegseth also made the short walk across the Capitol to the House side to meet with members of the Republican Study Committee, the largest caucus of conservatives on Capitol Hill (though House members don’t vote on executive branch nominees). He was accompanied by allies, including Sens. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., and Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., and former Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn.
In the closed-door meeting, Hegseth reiterated to House members he was staying in the fight and vowed to overhaul the Pentagon, lawmakers said as they left.
"The president won overwhelmingly. As we know, the president could have picked anybody of high quality to be his secretary of defense, and he chose Pete Hegseth, his first choice," said Rep. Dan Meuser, R-Pa. "So we have to, I think, honor that unless there’s something that blatantly disqualifies. I mean, I don’t think that there is."
Later Wednesday, Hegseth was set to meet with Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, an Iraq war veteran and survivor of sexual assault and domestic violence whose name has been one of several floated to replace Hegseth should he bow out.
NBC News reported Wednesday morning that Trump is considering replacing Hegseth amid the opposition to his nomination. Others whom Trump could pick to lead the Pentagon, sources familiar with the decision-making said, are Ernst; Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a onetime primary rival who later endorsed Trump; Hagerty, Trump's former ambassador to Japan; and Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., Trump's current pick for national security adviser.
Trump has already seen one high-profile Cabinet pick drop out. Before the Thanksgiving break, former Rep. Matt Gaetz, another Florida Republican, dropped his bid to become Trump's attorney general after he ran into opposition from GOP senators. And Tuesday, Chad Chronister, a Florida sheriff and Trump’s selection to lead the Drug Enforcement Administration, said he was removing his name from consideration.
