Pete Hegseth doesn’t have a clear path to becoming the next secretary of defense — and not only because he is facing allegations of sexual assault, ties to white nationalism, or a lack of administrative experience.
During his time as a Fox News host, Hegseth has been critical of some of the Senate Republicans he needs to win over. He has lobbed his fair share of criticisms since President-elect Donald Trump’s initial win in 2016, being notably critical of outgoing leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), according to transcripts reviewed by Semafor.
“[McConnell] seems unwilling to want to get to the bottom of the fact that a Democratic administration spied on a sitting president,” Hegseth said on Mark Levin’s show in 2022, referring to allegations of government surveillance of Trump’s presidency.
“Until there is new leadership of that Senate conference, it is not going to change. The priorities aren’t going to change,” he said.
With Republicans controlling 53 seats in the Senate, Hegseth doesn’t have to win over every senator to get the Cabinet position, but Trump has already seen one of his nominees buckle under the pressure of a confirmation fight. McConnell was reportedly one of at least four senators who said they would not vote to confirm former Rep. Matt Gaetz to be the next attorney general, and there is no guarantee he and others won’t buck Trump again.
Hegseth has been critical of other senators who haven’t always gone along with Trump’s plans. Besides calling McConnell “foolish” for the Senate GOP’s failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act in 2017, he also took swings at Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Susan Collins (R-ME), both of whom voted against the repeal.
In July 2017, he said both women “call themselves Republicans and vote more often with the Democrats.”
“They are far more happy dealing with Democrats and running up the national debt and playing inside-the-Beltway games than they are putting the country first and putting a stake in the ground for what they believe in,” he also said of the pair.
More recently in August, he said, “Murkowski, Susan Collins, don’t understand what average people feel and that they want things to actually happen.”
Murkowski and Collins were previously opposed to Gaetz, but they have both said they could look past Hegseth’s comments about them in his confirmation.
“If I look and see a pattern that causes me to think the person would not be a good leader and doesn’t have character or the impartiality, if it’s a judge, for example, that would concern me,” Collins told Semafor. “But I’m used to criticism by people, by the internet. That would not be disqualifying.”
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“I get people in Alaska that say they don’t think that I voted Republican enough or they think I vote Republican too much. I don’t view my vote in that [context],” Murkowski told the outlet, adding that she looks to “reflect Alaska’s best interests.”
“I’m operating in a world in Washington that’s so fixated on my party,” the Alaska senator said. “That’s not my anchor and hasn’t been for a long, long time.”