Pete Hegseth narrowly secured enough votes on Friday to become the next U.S. defence secretary, a major victory for President Donald Trump after fierce opposition from Democrats and even some Republicans to his controversial nominee.
Reuters reports that Hegseth was confirmed after a 50-50 vote in the Senate, when Vice President JD Vance came to the chamber to break the tie in his role as president of the Senate, after three Republicans joined every Democrat and independent in voting no.
Hegseth, a former Fox News personality and decorated veteran, is promising to bring major changes to the Pentagon. But his leadership will be under intense scrutiny after a bruising confirmation review that raised serious questions about his qualifications, temperament and views about women in combat.
“We have not had a secretary of defense like Hegseth before,” said Jeremi Suri, a University of Texas, Austin, history professor and presidential scholar.
Hegseth is the most divisive candidate to clinch the U.S. military’s top job, a position that has historically gone to candidates with deep experience running large organisations and who enjoy broad bipartisan support.
It was only the second time in history a cabinet nominee needed a tie-break to be confirmed. The first was also a Trump nominee, Betsy DeVos, who became secretary of education in 2017.
The three Republican senators who voted against Hegseth were Senators Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins and Mitch McConnell, who was the party’s leader in the chamber until this month.
McConnell said Hegseth had failed to demonstrate that he had the ability to effectively manage an organisation as large and complex as the military. “Mere desire to be a ‘change agent’ is not enough to fill these shoes,” McConnell said in a statement.
The top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, said in a statement he would watch Hegseth “like a hawk” and “demand accountability.”
Hegseth will lead 1.3 million active-duty service members and the nearly 1 million civilians who work for the U.S. military, which has a nearly $1 trillion annual budget. Hegseth told lawmakers that, up until this point, the largest group he had managed was 100 people and the largest budget was $16 million.
His nomination was rocked by a series of accusations, including one this week by his former sister-in-law, who said he abused his second wife to the extent that she hid in a closet and had a code word to use with friends if she had to be rescued. Hegseth strongly denied the accusations and his wife had previously denied any physical abuse.
