Pete Hegseth, Kash Patel and Tulsi Gabbard are some of the candidates who could have trouble getting Senate support, Vivek Ramaswamy, co-head of the Department of Government Efficiency, sent a message to Republicans who are trying to stall. Trump’s choice. “President Trump won by a huge margin with a historic mandate and deserved the cabinet he wants to govern,” Ramaswamy issued a clear statement.
Pete Hegseth is fighting a growing number of allegations against him, ranging from sexual abuse to alcohol abuse. In similar circumstances, Donald Trump’s previous pick for attorney general, Matt Gaetz, withdrew his nomination and Trump nominated Pam Bondi. But Trump has made it clear that Hegseth will not be replaced.
“It looks like Pete is doing great now,” Trump said in an exclusive interview with “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker that will air Sunday. “I mean, people were a little worried. He’s a young guy with a really great track record. He went to Princeton and he went to Harvard. He was a good student at both. But he loves the military and I think people are starting to see that. So we will work on his nomination along with many others.”
Hegseth, an Army National Guard veteran, was accused of sexually assaulting a woman and paying her. His lawyers said the encounter was consensual and he was blackmailed into paying the woman as part of the settlement. His former colleagues accused him of drunken brawls but Pete said he never suffered from alcohol abuse. He said his drinking was normal, like that of other war personnel, when he was not deployed and that he was ready to give up drinking once he led the Pentagon.
Trump also commented on Pete Hegseth’s “drinking problem”, saying: “But I’ve talked to people who know him well and they say he doesn’t have a drinking problem.”
Vetting of nominations traditionally includes an FBI background check, but Republican senators are split on whether an FBI background check is 100 percent necessary for confirmation.