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Senate Confirms Hegseth as Defense Secretary, Vance Provides Tie-Breaking Vote

Senate Confirms Hegseth as Defense Secretary, Vance Provides Tie-Breaking Vote

If Collins, Murkowski, and McConnell oppose the nominations of Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel, and/or Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., they can’t afford to lose a single additional Republican vote or they don’t get through.

On Friday night, The Senate voted 51-50 to confirm Pete Hegseth as Defense Secretary. Vice President J.D. Vance cast the deciding vote. There was no room for error after Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and Mitch McConnell (R-KY) signaled they would not support Hegseth’s nomination ahead of the vote.

The real wildcard of the night was Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who had expressed deep reservations about Hegseth after senators received an affidavit from Danielle Hegseth, his former sister-in-law, on Tuesday. In it, she alleged Pete Hegseth had abused both alcohol and his ex-wife.

The affidavit, first reported by NBC News, was solicited in a letter written by Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, on Jan. 18. Reed wrote that he was seeking “a statement attesting to your personal knowledge about Mr. Hegseth’s fitness to occupy this important position.” He asked her to discuss “instances of abuse, or threats of abuse, perpetrated against any other person” and “mistreatment of a spouse, former spouse, or other members of his family.”

Hegseth’s ex-wife denied the allegations, satisfying most Republican senators, except for Tillis. However, on Friday, Hegseth sent a letter to Tillis, and the pair met for two hours later that day. By the time the vote took place, Hegseth had won the senator’s support.

Hegseth was among the most controversial of President Trump’s cabinet picks. His announcement of Hegseth as the nominee on Nov. 12 was met with shock by Democratic lawmakers and even by some on the Right side of the aisle. Known primarily for his years as the popular weekend co-host of Fox News’s morning show, Fox & Friends, he was considered unqualified by some to lead the Pentagon.

Unfortunately, days after Hegseth’s nomination, reports emerged that a woman, “Jane Doe,” had accused Hegseth of sexual assault following an incident that occurred in a Monterey, California, hotel room in 2017. Although Hegseth was not charged with any crime, he paid the woman an undisclosed sum of money to remain quiet.

These reports were compounded by allegations of alcohol abuse. By early December, Hegseth’s nomination was on life support. There was talk that Trump was considering replacing Hegseth with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

According to Axios, an anonymous transition official revealed that, in December, Vance remarked, “Pete isn’t 100% dead. But he might be 90% dead.”

But Trump, who has been the target of numerous media firestorms himself, stood firmly behind Hegseth and urged him to fight. Which he did. And obviously, he won that fight on Friday night.

But the most concerning aspect of this vote is what it might mean for Trump’s other “controversial” picks, namely former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, the nominee for Director of National Intelligence; Kash Patel, the nominee for FBI Director, and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the nominee for Health and Human Services Secretary.

While there is no scandal surrounding these three nominees, each is provocative in their own way. The most vulnerable nomination is that of Tulsi Gabbard whose previous statements and positions on foreign affairs will face intense scrutiny during her  Jan. 30th confirmation hearing.

Like Hegseth, there will likely be little or no support from Democratic senators for any of these three nominees. And if Collins, Murkowski, and McConnell oppose their nominations, they can’t afford to lose a single additional Republican vote or they don’t get through.

This sets the stage for high-stakes confirmation hearings, where even a single Republican defection could derail their paths to confirmation.


Elizabeth writes commentary for The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation and a member of the Editorial Board at The Sixteenth Council, a London think tank. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.

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Comments

I only have one comment:

Mitch McConnel—lower than whale excrement.


 
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Whitewall | January 25, 2025 at 10:30 am

There is no way to get rid of Collins and Murkowski because of the quirks in the voting laws in Mn and Al. These two would rather see the Pentagon continue as if a Dem was C&C and thus our military degrade itself with self defeating ideology. The purpose of Hegseth is to upend the military culture and the Pentagon profiteers who infest the places.


 
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Paddy M | January 25, 2025 at 10:32 am

McConnell voted for Austin, Garland and Buttplug. I’m sure there are others that I missed. He’s a spiteful Uniparty loser.


 
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Disgusted | January 25, 2025 at 10:45 am

Collins gets a pass because–Maine. Better to have a 30% Republican than a 100% Democrat. Alaska needs to get its head out of its butt–Murkowski is a bigger disgrace than Chuck Schumer. McConnell is past his sell by date and needs to go sooner rather than later–if he retires, the governor has to pick his successor from a list provided to him by the Republicans. And Tillis is a narcissist–his “look at me” act yesterday was disgraceful. Trump should play along with him until 2026, then primary his ass (preferably with a decent conservative candidate).


     
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    mailman in reply to Disgusted. | January 25, 2025 at 3:13 pm

    Disagree with this completely. She’s supposed to be a Republican, not a part time Republican when it suits her agenda.

    If she’s not prepared to back HER President and her vote cannot be counted on when it’s needed then she might as well just be a Democrat.

    Replace her or give her seat up. She needs to be primaried out and replaced with someone who can be counted on to vote the RIGHT way…just like Democrats always happen to vote the right way for their party.


       
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      AF_Chief_Master_Sgt in reply to mailman. | January 25, 2025 at 3:28 pm

      Well, Democrats vote the Left way, not the right way.


       
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      CommoChief in reply to mailman. | January 25, 2025 at 7:05 pm

      It isn’t about her agenda but rather the electorate of Maine. Collins with all her imperfections is as good as it is likely to get for a GoP Senator from Maine.She is a moderate/centrist and has never made any effort to claim otherwise.

      Kentucky and McConnell is a different story. As is Alaska and Murkowski.

      Where we should focus the heat is Senators from Red States like Graham of South Carolina, Cornyn of Texas and both Lankford and Mullin of Oklahoma all of whom offer up all sorts of squishy crap. No political excuse exists for them like it does for Collins.


       
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      Milhouse in reply to mailman. | January 26, 2025 at 2:51 am

      She can’t be replaced with someone who votes the right way. Maine won’t elect someone like that. It’s her or a Democrat. She caucuses with the Republicans and counts towards a Republican majority. A Democrat would count toward a Democrat majority. If you want her replaced then you are saying that you’re OK with giving Democrats control of the senate, just so you can have a pure minority.


 
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kelly_3406 | January 25, 2025 at 11:14 am

I thought Fetterman might break ranks and vote to confirm but the rumors of him switching parties probably made it impossible. Come to think of it, Schumer himself could have been the one to start the rumor.


 
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MarkSmith | January 25, 2025 at 11:50 am

Collins does not get a pass, she should be thrown off all all committees she is on.


 
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Gremlin1974 | January 25, 2025 at 12:41 pm

Look at the party roster for the next week if you want to know how McConell is going to vote, he always votes in a way to make sure he gets invited to the best parties.


 
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Olinser | January 25, 2025 at 1:37 pm

Honestly this demonstrates more than anything just how LITTLE power and influence McConnell has left.

Murkowski, Collins, Tillis, Ernst, Graham, Cornyn, all are part of his usual posse of RINOs he’d sally up to vote down whatever conservative priority he wanted torpedoed, or vote for whatever Democrat nonsense he wanted ‘bipartisan’ votes for.

Tillis, Ernst and Graham were all spewing at various points about how ‘concerning’ whatever nonsense the Democrats were trying to throw at him, clearly searching around for any excuse to torpedo him, but conservatives are DONE with anybody that takes these laughable hit jobs seriously.

At the end of the day none of them were willing to walk the plank for McConnell, and he was just left with a tantrum protest vote that demonstrated how feeble and powerless he is.

So when is Danielle Hegseth going to be indicted for her perjury?

There is a gigantic difference between Trump’s nominees in general on one side and Kennedy/Tulsi on the other.

1. Kennedy-He is dead wrong about vaccines. A broken clock is right twice a day. In no way does Biden administration behavior around Covid 19 vindicate junk science about vaccines causing autism (thoroughly debunked by every legitimate scientific study. Methodology used to make the claim was fraudulent, and the journal that published the junk science retracted it). This is not irrelevant, he is not being nominated for intelligence work, or for supervising police officers, or a job in diplomacy etc he is literally being nominated in a job concerning medicine in this country.

If any real nominee goes down in flames it is him for the reason I have stated.

No controversy in personal life, combined with being an extremely appealing character and good man does not mean qualified for the job.

Frankly I do not understand why Benjamin Carson a legendary doctor, a Republican, and a man of zero controversy isn’t the nominee.

2. Tulsi Gabbard has a history of statements relevant to her outlook that predates her getting the Russia hoax right.

This includes a trip to Damascus, and accusation towards Israel of mass murder when Israeli soldiers defended themselves against Hamas attack (in the incident when Tulsi made accusations towards Israel well since then Hamas has acknowledged the only people who died would be Hamas soldiers).

When you are running intelligence that is extremely relevant.

In no way are any other Trump nominees like Kennedy or Gabbard.

Those are also the only two who I think have a chance of confirmation under 90%, actually I do not think they even have an even chance because they both provide conservative Republican senators very good reason to vote against them.


     
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    Paddy M in reply to Danny. | January 25, 2025 at 8:33 pm

    Speaking of Uniparty losers. Did someone insult your precious, Danny?


       
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      Danny in reply to Paddy M. | January 26, 2025 at 12:45 pm

      Speaking of illiterates like you do you even read the things you respond to?

      Please by all means try to refute the fact that Tulsi fell hook line and sinker for Hamas propaganda or that Kennedy being anti-vaxx is irrelevant to the position he is nominated for.

      Go ahead try and make the position that those two are the same as other Trump nominees…oh that’s right you can’t because they aren’t.

It’s good to know we have 50 Republicans in the Senate, and a Republican VP.


 
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guyjones | January 25, 2025 at 4:25 pm

Collins and Murkowski, the GOP’s Tweedledum and Tweedledummer; perennially acting as useful idiots for the Dhimmi-crat apparatchiks. And, the feeble and wretched McConnell decides to vindictively spite #47.

Have Rs considered that if they were up for a cabinet position, would they be able to take the scrutiny that dems give other Rs who are nominated? Do they really think Dems would give them a free pass???? Crickets.

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