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The Senate Armed Services Committee put on quite a show Tuesday, alternately grilling and shilling for Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense.

It was as partisan a confirmation hearing as I’ve ever seen—all the Democrats challenging his qualifications for the job, all the Republicans cheering him on. Hegseth himself was also more evasive and openly, even snidely, combative than any nominee I’ve ever witnessed audition for such a senior Cabinet post, especially one that has usually been fairly apolitical.

A 44-year-old former Fox & Friends host who saw combat in Afghanistan as an Army National Guard major, Hegseth will almost certainly pass the panel’s vote, probably by the thinnest possible margin; the GOP take-back of the Senate in November gave Republicans a 14–13 majority on the committee.

But even his supporters—and, as Jane Mayer reports in the New Yorker, Trump has rallied a massive lobbying effort to ensure that Hegseth, whose rejection seemed likely, had ample supporters—allowed that Hegseth has an atypical résumé for the job. In his opening statement, Chairman Roger Wicker, a Republican senator from Mississippi, said, “The nominee is unconventional.” He added, “That may be what makes Mr. Hegseth an excellent choice, just like”—referring to Trump—“that New York developer who rode down the escalator.”

Former Sen. Norm Coleman, introducing the nominee, observed that Hegseth “has struggled and overcome great personal challenges”—a reference to much-publicized sexual harassment charges and a documented drinking problem—but pleaded, “Please don’t give in to the cynical notion that people can’t change.” Coleman also noted that Hegseth is the nominee “of the one president we have at a time.”

No one openly recalled that Trump himself was at one point ready to dump the nominee after learning that Hegseth’s behavior had once sparked a criminal investigation, a matter that was settled by a financial payment and a nondisclosure agreement—incidents that Hegseth had failed to reveal either to Trump or his transition team when interviewed for the job. Trump even floated the name of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as a possible replacement, but when that notion received no support among his entourage, he doubled down on Hegseth, turning the battle over his nomination into a demonstration of Trump’s own strength

That demonstration was on display in the committee room, as even Republican Sen. Joni Ernst, an Army veteran who had lambasted Hegseth for his many statements opposing the recruitment of women for combat slots, indicated—through a clearly rehearsed set of questions (many of them preceded by “As we discussed …”)—that she would vote for Hegseth after all, ending any suspense about his fate, at least at this stage of the process.

Meanwhile, Democrats, beginning with the ranking member and former chairman, Jack Reed of Delaware, noted the many ways that Hegseth lacked the “unparalleled experience, wisdom, and above all character” for the job, which involves leading the 3.4 million men and women in the Department of Defense and its $850 billion budget.

Reed—who said he’d voted to confirm all nine previous nominees, Republicans and Democrats, who came before the committee during his tenure—said he would vote nay this time, telling the nominee, “You lack the character and composure and competence” for the job.

He and the panel’s other Democrats focused on several issues, mainly:

• Forensic tax statements (which have not been submitted to either the committee or the FBI) showing that Hegseth couldn’t manage the finances of a veterans’ organization he headed with a staff of 100 and a budget of $16 million
• Statements Hegseth has made decrying the Geneva Conventions, as well as his active campaign—which influenced Trump in his first term as president—to pardon two soldiers who had been convicted of war crimes
• Several statements, in his books and various interviews, opposing the recruitment of women for combat positions
• Charges about his personal misconduct, to which he claimed that he’d changed (thanks to his wife and Jesus) without discussing just what he had changed, instead dismissing all accusations as “anonymous smears.” Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly asked: “Have you overcome personal issues, or are you a victim of smears? It can’t be both.” He added, “I am concerned about a secretary of defense who is not transparent.”

Early on in the hearing, Hegseth said, “I sit before you, an open book,” but he responded to the assaults throughout the interrogation with evasion and open defiance. To questions about the passage in a book in which he said he opposed letting the laws of armed conflict hinder our ability to win wars, he claimed he was highlighting a distinction between grand treaties and the way soldiers on front lines are ordered to interpret them but couldn’t say where he would draw the line.

In one of the most jarring exchanges, Hegseth donned a sneer and belittled JAGs—the teams of military lawyers who interpret military law—as bureaucrats who put their own careers, medals, and promotions above the interests of American warfighters. The secretary of defense, of course, has control over the JAGs.

He told the panel’s female senators—including Tammy Duckworth, who lost her legs in battle, and Elissa Slotkin, a former CIA agent who worked alongside troops in Iraq—that his comments opposing women in combat referred only to the “standards” that, he said, were lowered to meet “gender quotas.” They, along with Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand, denied that the military had lowered standards and asked him to provide even one example. (He didn’t.)

Warren noted that last June, Hegseth had said, on Ben Shapiro’s podcast, “Women shouldn’t be in combat at all.” She quoted his 2024 book, The War on Warriors, in which he wrote: “We need moms, but not in the military, especially not in combat units.” (Emphasis Warren’s.) These weren’t comments about lowered standards, Warren noted—they were about women.

Then, Warren noted, on Nov. 9, just 32 days after his previous public comment on the issue, Hegseth declared, “Some of our greatest warriors are women.” What had changed in the meantime? Well, Trump had nominated him to run the Pentagon. Who’s to say, Warren wondered, whether he’d change his views back again if he was confirmed?

Women account for 18 percent of the U.S. military. Democrats expressed the worry that many women will leave—and many more will avoid joining up to begin with—if they sense that the secretary of defense doesn’t want to see them promoted to serious positions.

Republican senators spent most of their questioning periods agreeing with Hegseth’s critique of a “woke” mentality and “DEI training” that he claims has weakened the military. At one point, Hegseth asserted that military recruitment has picked up since Trump was elected, because young people see a commander in chief who won’t burden them with “social engineering.” In fact, no recruitment data has been published for the past two months. In any case, though the services are having problems persuading young people to enlist, and to stay once they’re in, recruitment up until fall 2024 was up by 10 percent over the previous year.

Several times during the four-hour hearing, Democrats submitted letters—by retired generals or scientists or others who had worked with Hegseth—urging that he be rejected. In response, Republicans submitted their own set of letters—by similarly qualified witnesses—urging that he be confirmed.

Hegseth made some good, legitimate points during the hearing. He spoke at length about the Pentagon’s top-heavy bureaucracy, its resistance to innovation, and the need for outsiders, especially from Silicon Valley, to overhaul the sclerotic weapons-procurement process.

“I know what I don’t know,” he allowed at one point. “My success as a leader has always been setting a clear vision, hiring people who are smarter than me, empowering them to succeed, holding them accountable, and establishing clear metrics.”

It was a good answer. Few Cabinet secretaries have come into their offices fully able to do everything the job requires. But Duckworth, in one of the most combative exchanges, asked what kind of guidance he would give to those smarter people. He skirted the question. Duckworth pressed: “Why are you refusing to answer? … What are you afraid of? … You’re asking us to make you secretary of defense just because you’re buddies with the president of the United States.”

None of this mattered. Hegseth hadn’t met with Democratic senators ahead of the hearing, contrary to precedent, and he seemed unfazed by their frustration with his evasions. The hearing was really about one person. Trump had clinched the Republicans’ loyalty ahead of the hearing. And Trump was now the audience of one to whom Hegseth was directing all of his responses.

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