Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s embattled choice for secretary of defense, defiantly vowed on Thursday to earn the votes necessary for confirmationfhm63, seeking to allay Republican concerns over his fitness for the job and persuade Mr. Trump to stick with him.
G.O.P. support for Mr. Hegseth’s bid stalled this week as new allegations emerged detailing incidents of public drunkenness, workplace sexual improprieties and mismanagement of the veterans nonprofits he ran. Those came on top of the revelation that Mr. Hegseth had paid a legal settlement to a woman who accused him of sexually assaulting her at a conference in 2017.
Key Republican senators said the reports raised serious concerns while others were notably noncommittal, signaling that Mr. Hegseth might lack the votes to be confirmed, and Mr. Trump has weighed dumping him altogether.
But Mr. Hegseth, a veteran and former Fox News host, has mounted an all-out effort to recover, meeting behind closed doors with key senators, bringing his wife to Capitol Hill to burnish his image, promising that he would quit drinking if confirmed as the secretary of defense and pitching himself as a changed person.
“I’m a different man than I was years ago — that’s a redemption story that I think a lot of Americans appreciate,” Mr. Hegseth said on Thursday at the end of a day of private meetings with senators. “As long as Donald Trump wants me here in this fight, I’m going to be standing here in this fight.”
It was not clear how long that might be. In the immediate aftermath of the new allegations, Mr. Trump considered jettisoning Mr. Hegseth and replacing him with another high-profile veteran, such as Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida. But Mr. Hegseth’s aggressive efforts to repair his reputation this week appear to have bought him time to salvage his chances with the president-elect.
We are having trouble retrieving the article content.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.fhm63