Lawmakers and allies weighed in on Tuesday as the Senate Armed Services Committee held its confirmation hearing for Pete Hegseth, the former Army National Guard officer, former Fox News host, and President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of defense.
“I’ve known Pete for some time. I was a female in the military. We want to make sure that our military is getting back to lethality and really providing a fighting machine. And so, Pete can bring that. He can dewokify,” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., told The Daily Signal before the hearing. “Dewokify” describes eliminating the Left’s “woke” diversity, equity, and inclusion and LGBTQ agenda from the military.
“l have no doubt that he is going to get the Pentagon back to its primary mission: lethal readiness,” Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., said before Hegseth gave his opening statement.
Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., noted in the hearing that Hegseth had recovered from his past. “We’ve all made mistakes. I made mistakes. And [Hegseth’s wife] Jennifer, thank you for loving [Pete] through that mistake, because the only reason why I’m here and not in prison is because my wife loved me, too.”
“It seems to me that you’ve supervised more people than most U.S. senators,” Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said after Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., questioned Hegseth on his lack of experience leading larger organizations of more than 100 people.
Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., thanked Hegseth for his military service. He then said:
I also want to thank you for your clarity in articulating the vision you have for the Department of Defense in restoring an ethos, a warrior ethos. Which is in stark contrast to the ethos we’ve seen the last four years, which is of weakness and wokeness.
“Today, we start taking our military back. We can’t listen to all this woke crowd on the Left. All they want to do is block everything we’re going to do, slow President Trump down, slow the military down. We’ve got to take it back, and it starts today,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., told The Daily Signal.
“We can’t wait. We can’t stall getting him to the Pentagon, to get him on the job, and do what he has to do,” said Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said in a press release:
I’ve known Pete Hegseth for more than 10 years, and he’s been a leader in fighting for his fellow veterans here in the halls of Congress. He would reprioritize the Pentagon not on social engineering or woke policies, but rather on war fighting, lethality, and deterrence. The ultimate goal of the Department of Defense is to prevent wars, and the only way you do that is by peace through strength.
Sean Parnell, a longtime friend of Hegseth, told The Daily Signal after the hearing that he thought the confirmation went as well as it could have gone. He pointed out that Hegseth was mindful about reforming the Defense Department. “The policy stuff really matters to him, not just the top line stuff. And you know, sometimes in a hearing, you get seven minutes to reply, and there’s a lot of filibustering and grandstanding. But you know, he really gets this stuff at a deep, substantive level. And you know, his commitment to the war fighter really is unwavering, because he’s not far removed from being a war fighter.”
As the contentious hearing concluded, the mood was bright, seemingly undeterred from the tough questioning. Before he left, the nominee shook hands and smiled with his friends and the military veterans who had come out to support him.
