{"id":223874,"date":"2025-01-25T13:00:20","date_gmt":"2025-01-25T13:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/25\/pete-hegseth-confirmed-as-donald-trumps-defence-secretary\/"},"modified":"2025-01-25T13:00:20","modified_gmt":"2025-01-25T13:00:20","slug":"pete-hegseth-confirmed-as-donald-trumps-defence-secretary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/25\/pete-hegseth-confirmed-as-donald-trumps-defence-secretary\/","title":{"rendered":"Pete Hegseth confirmed as Donald Trump’s defence secretary"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Pete<\/div>\n
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Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s controversial choice for US defence secretary, has been confirmed for the job.<\/p>\n

The 44-year-old ex-veteran and former Fox News host narrowly secured the top Pentagon post with vice president JD Vance casting the 51-50 tie-breaking vote.<\/p>\n

Three Republican senators – Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky – joined Democrats to oppose his nomination.<\/p>\n

It is the second time in history a vice president has broken a tie for a cabinet nominee. In 2017, then vice president Mike Pence was called in to break a tie to confirm Mr Trump’s previous pick of Betsy DeVos as education secretary.<\/p>\n

Mr Trump praised Mr Hegseth shortly after the vote, saying he would make a “great secretary of defence” in a post on Truth Social.<\/p>\n

However, during the confirmation hearing, which was disrupted by three protesters, Mr Hegseth was accused of lacking the competence for the job.<\/p>\n

Hours before the vote, Democrat after Democrat took to the Senate floor to object.<\/p>\n

Senator Chris Murphy said during the debate there are few Trump nominees as “dangerously and woefully unqualified as Hegseth”.<\/p>\n

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\ud83d\udc49 Follow Trump 100 on your podcast app \ud83d\udc48<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Mr Hegseth is the most divisive candidate to clinch the US military’s top job.<\/p>\n

He is a controversial choice because of past statements and actions, including allegations of sexual assault – which he has denied – excessive drinking, and derisive views about women in military combat roles.<\/p>\n

But most Senate Republicans fell into line to defend Mr Hegseth.<\/p>\n

Senate majority leader John Thune said Mr Hegseth, as a veteran of the Army National Guard who served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, “will bring a warrior’s perspective” to the post.<\/p>\n

Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the armed services committee, however, said in a statement he would watch the new defence secretary “like a hawk” and “demand accountability”.<\/p>\n

Read more:<\/strong>
Migrants in shackles led on to US military plane<\/a><\/strong>
Nearly all US aid programmes worldwide frozen<\/a><\/strong>
Trump threatens to ‘get rid’ of US emergency agency<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Mr Hegseth steps into the role as the new Trump administration has said border security and immigration will be a focus for the US military.<\/p>\n

Little is known about his views on key foreign policy issues such as arming Ukraine, preparing the US military for a potential conflict with China, and whether he would seek to scale back the country’s footprint in places including Syria and Iraq.<\/p>\n

Former president Joe Biden’s defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, was confirmed by a 93-2 vote in 2021, and Jim Mattis, Mr Trump’s first defence secretary in his last administration, was confirmed by a 98-1 vote in 2017.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n


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Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s controversial choice for US defence secretary, has been confirmed for the job. The 44-year-old ex-veteran and former Fox News host narrowly secured the top Pentagon post with vice president JD Vance casting the 51-50 tie-breaking vote. Three Republican senators – Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Mitch McConnell […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":223875,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/e3.365dm.com\/25\/01\/1920x1080\/skynews-pete-hegseth-senate_6799620.jpg?20250114222008","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1065,912,51,164732,164733,34,1734],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223874"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223874"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":223876,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223874\/revisions\/223876"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}