Pete Hegseth to face potentially combative confirmation hearing as senators question whether former Fox News host is fit to lead US military
President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, will face a potentially combative confirmation hearing later today as senators question whether the former Fox News host is fit to lead the US military.
The Department of Defense is one of the nation’s largest employers, with roughly 3 million military and civilian employees and had a budget of $820bn in 2023.
The hearing at the Senate Armed Services Committee will be the first in a week in which senators will scrutinise Donald Trump’s choices for more than a dozen senior administrative positions.
The Republican-led Senate is in a hurry to have some of Trump’s picks ready to be confirmed as soon as Inauguration Day on January 20, despite potential opposition to some from both sides of the aisle.
Hegesth will be forced to confront allegations of sexual assault, which he has denied, and will have to answer for his comments that women should “straight up” not be in combat roles in the military, a view he has tried to walk back recently. Two former female combat veterans, Republican Joni Ernst of Iowa and Democrat Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, are among those who will be questioning him.
Many senators have not yet met with Hegseth, a former co-host of Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends Weekend,” and most do not have access to his FBI background check, as only committee leaders are briefed on its findings. The background check on Hegseth did not appear to produce new information beyond what is already in the public realm about him, the Associated Press reports.
Hegseth, 44, attended Princeton and served in the Army National Guard from 2002 to 2021, deploying to Iraq in 2005 and Afghanistan in 2011. But he lacks senior military and national security experience. He has also faced scrutiny amid reports of excessive drinking when he worked at a veterans’ organisation. But as he began meeting privately with GOP senators ahead of the hearing, he promised he would not drink if confirmed to the post.
Donald Trump plans to issue a flurry of executive orders and directives after he is sworn in as president on Monday. Sources have told Reuters this could be as much as 100 for day one and beyond. Transition advisers have been preparing orders for the president-elect to choose from. Decisions still need to be made on which ones will be released on Monday – inauguration day – and which will come out afterwards.
The Reuters news agency has compiled the following breakdown of what these orders, which range from immigration to the economy, may look like:
Immigration
Many of the actions that the Republican plans on his first day as president are aimed at ramping up immigration enforcement and following through on his pledge to deport record numbers of immigrants in the U.S. illegally. The executive actions would give federal immigration officers more latitude to arrest people with no criminal records, send more troops to the US-Mexico border, and restart construction of the border wall, Reuters reported in November.
Trump is expected to declare illegal immigration a national emergency to unlock military funds for border wall construction. He also signaled in a Truth Social post in November that he would shift military resources to assist with his deportation plans.
Energy
Trump is reportedly considering a suite of executive orders to roll out within days of taking office targeting everything from electric vehicles to withdrawing again from the Paris climate agreement, a move he took in his first administration. Members of his transition team are recommending sweeping changes to cut off support for electric vehicles and charging stations and to strengthen measures blocking the import of cars, components and battery materials from China, according to a document seen by Reuters.
Tarrifs
Trump could follow through on his threats to increase tariffs on imported goods from America’s biggest trading partners. He thinks tariffs would help boost economic growth in the US, although opponents warn that the costs would likely be passed down to consumers.
Pardons
Trump has said he will take action immediately on taking office to issue pardons for some of the hundreds of people convicted or charged in connection with the US Capitol attack in early January 2021. Although JD Vance, the incoming vice-president, has said Trump supporters who carried out violence during the riot should not be pardoned by him after he begins his second presidency.
We are leading today’s blog on the upcoming Senate confirmation hearing for president-elect Donald Trump’s pick for defense secretary, former Fox News host Pete Hegseth (see post at 08.53 for more details).
Elizabeth Warren, a Democratic senator from Massachusetts, has written a letter to Hegseth ahead of the hearing, expressing her concerns about his suitability for the high-profile role.
In the letter, she wrote:
I have serious concerns about your qualifications to serve in this role given your past history, including mismanagement of two non-profit organizations you ran, accusations of sexual assault and drinking problems, your blatant disregard for the contributions of female servicemembers, support for war crimes and torture, threats to politicize the military, advocating for ‘war’ against political enemies, threats to undermine DoD readiness and diversity, and contempt for veterans receiving benefits they earned.
“We cannot have a defense secretary whose fellow servicemembers feel concerned enough about to report as a potential insider threat,” she wrote in the letter (Hegseth was branded an “insider threat” by a fellow member of the Army National Guard over his tattoos. He said the incident led him to be pulled from Guard duty in Washington during Biden’s inauguration).
Warren, who has been a vocal opponent of Trump, co-sponsored the Presidential Transition Enhancement Act of 2019 to strengthen the ethics requirements that govern presidential transitions. In recent weeks, Trump’s party has coalesced around his pick for defense secretary. “I look forward to discussing (Hegseth’s) plans to shake up DoD (Department of Defense) and protect the warfighter,” Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin said yesterday. Cabinet nominees almost never lose Senate votes, so it is likely, looking at it in a historical context at least, that Hegseth will be confirmed.
The Biden administration is in its final week before Trump returns to the White House. Foreign policy dominated his term. Wars are raging in the Middle East (with Washington backing Israel’s assault on Gaza while conducting targeted airstrikes in Syria, Yemen and Iraq), Russia’s war on Ukraine is continuing, and there is growing tensions between China and Taiwan. Biden was much criticised for the chaotic withdrawal of the US military from Afghanistan in 2021. Of course there are many more conflicts around the world but these areas have been the main ones Washington has focused on. Andrew Roth, the Guardian’s global affairs correspondent, has written this analysis about whether or not the Biden administration has been successful on foreign policy issues after the outgoing president said the US is “winning” on the world stage. Here is an extract from his story:
On paper, few US presidents could boast the foreign policy bona fides of Joe Biden, a veteran statesman with nearly a half-century of experience before he even stepped into office.
But as his term comes to an end, critics have said that the president will leave a legacy of cautious and underpowered diplomacy, as even allies have conceded that the administration is still grasping for a cornerstone foreign policy success.
That hasn’t stopped the Biden administration from declaring victory in its final days – and scrambling to secure a last-minute ceasefire in Gaza that could potentially salvage that legacy before Trump steps into office.
“Thanks to our administration, the United States is winning the worldwide competition,” Biden said in a final foreign policy speech on Monday delivered at the state department. “Compared to four years ago, America is stronger, our alliances are stronger, our adversaries and competitors are weaker.”
If this is winning, many Americans may struggle to imagine what losing would look like.
Biden’s administration has spent much of its time and political capital abroad attempting to contain a series of foreign wars and crises in which it has seemed impotent to impose its will.
Donald Trump will come in to power with a “trifecta” of governmental control after his Republican party won the House of Representatives, the Senate and the presidency in the 2024 US election. It will give Trump significant power to enact his agenda on the economy, immigration and other major issues.
House Democrats are said to be prioritising taking control of Congress in 2026 over everything else, with Axios reporting that the House Democrats’ two largest ideological factions – the Progressive Caucus and the centre-left New Democrat Coalition – are trying to smooth over any disagreements ahead of Trump returning to the White House on 20 January. The two factions contain roughly 100 House Democrats. Who was to blame for the loss in the presidential election and the Biden administration’s policy towards Israel during its war on Gaza are among the topics of disagreement between some House Democrats.
Republicans won 220 House seats in the November elections, while Democrats won 215, an extremely narrowly divided House. Republicans currently have 219 sitting members (due to the resignation of former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz), one more seat than the minimum 218 required to pass legislation in the House.
“Across the board, I think all of us in the Democratic Caucus want to focus on taking back the majority,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash), the former chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told Axios.
Progressive Caucus chair Greg Casar (D-Texas) told Axios there are “conversations being had about trying to make sure that we’re unified and cordial and understanding of everybody.”
Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are expected to have a call in the coming days or weeks, US Congressman Mike Waltz, the incoming national security adviser, told ABC on Sunday.
“Everybody knows that this has to end somehow diplomatically,” Waltz, a Trump loyalist who also served in the National Guard as a colonel, told ABC.
“I just don’t think it’s realistic to say we’re going to expel every Russian from every inch of Ukrainian soil, even Crimea. President Trump has acknowledged that reality, and I think it’s been a huge step forward that the entire world is acknowledging that reality. Now let’s move forward.”
The Biden administration has provided tens of billions of dollars’ worth of US military and economic aid to Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, funding that Trump has repeatedly criticised and characterised as a drain on American resources. The president-elect has promised to end the war quickly when he returns to the White House next week, and has said Putin would never have invaded if he were president at the time.
During a media briefing on Tuesday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov declined to offer any fresh comment after Trump said he would meet Putin “very quickly”. The Kremlin has already said it is open to such a meeting after Trump is sworn in on 20 January. The Russian president’s apparent calculation is that the new US administration will end US military assistance to Kyiv, leading to more Russian gains.
President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, will face a potentially combative confirmation hearing later today as senators question whether the former Fox News host is fit to lead the US military.
The Department of Defense is one of the nation’s largest employers, with roughly 3 million military and civilian employees and had a budget of $820bn in 2023.
The hearing at the Senate Armed Services Committee will be the first in a week in which senators will scrutinise Donald Trump’s choices for more than a dozen senior administrative positions.
The Republican-led Senate is in a hurry to have some of Trump’s picks ready to be confirmed as soon as Inauguration Day on January 20, despite potential opposition to some from both sides of the aisle.
Hegesth will be forced to confront allegations of sexual assault, which he has denied, and will have to answer for his comments that women should “straight up” not be in combat roles in the military, a view he has tried to walk back recently. Two former female combat veterans, Republican Joni Ernst of Iowa and Democrat Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, are among those who will be questioning him.
Many senators have not yet met with Hegseth, a former co-host of Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends Weekend,” and most do not have access to his FBI background check, as only committee leaders are briefed on its findings. The background check on Hegseth did not appear to produce new information beyond what is already in the public realm about him, the Associated Press reports.
Hegseth, 44, attended Princeton and served in the Army National Guard from 2002 to 2021, deploying to Iraq in 2005 and Afghanistan in 2011. But he lacks senior military and national security experience. He has also faced scrutiny amid reports of excessive drinking when he worked at a veterans’ organisation. But as he began meeting privately with GOP senators ahead of the hearing, he promised he would not drink if confirmed to the post.
Chinese officials are in preliminary talks about a potential option to sell TikTok’s operations in the US to billionaire and Donald Trump ally Elon Musk, should the short-video app be unable to avoid an impending ban, according to Bloomberg. TikTok faces a ban in the US unless it is sold by its Chinese parent company ByteDance by 19 January, a day before Trump’s inauguration.
TikTok’s US operations could either be sold through a competitive process or an arrangement by the government, the report said, suggesting that the future of the app is no longer solely in ByteDance’s control.
China’s government has a “golden share” in ByteDance, which several members of Congress have said gives the government power over TikTok.
Under one scenario, Musk’s social media platform X would take control of TikTok US and run the business together, the report said. Officials are, however, yet to reach a consensus about how to proceed. You can read more on the story below:
This latest development comes less than a week after Trump, who will be inaugurated as the 47th president on Monday, learned he will avoid jail time for his felony conviction in the New York hush-money case.
The judge who presided over Trump’s criminal trial, Juan Merchan, issued a sentence of “unconditional discharge”, meaning the president-elect will be released without fine, imprisonment or probation supervision for his conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. While the sentence makes Trump a convicted felon, he will face no penalty other than this legal designation.
Trump, whose presidential inauguration is scheduled for 20 January, is the first US president – former or sitting – to face a criminal trial, let alone a guilty verdict and subsequent sentencing.
Addressing the court via video shortly before receiving his sentence, Trump called the case “a very terrible experience”, an “injustice” and a “political witch-hunt”.
You can read more on that here:
Jack Smith also laid out the challenges he faced during the investigation, including Trump’s assertion of executive privilege to try to block witnesses from providing evidence, which forced prosecutors into sealed court battles before the case was charged, AP reports.
Another “significant challenge” was Trump’s “ability and willingness to use his influence and following on social media to target witnesses, courts, prosecutors,” which led prosecutors to seek a gag order to protect potential witnesses from harassment, Smith wrote.
He added:
Mr Trump’s resort to intimidation and harassment during the investigation was not new, as demonstrated by his actions during the charged conspiracies.
A fundamental component of Mr. Trump’s conduct underlying the charges in the Election Case was his pattern of using social media — at the time, Twitter — to publicly attack and seek to influence state and federal officials, judges, and election workers who refused to support false claims that the election had been stolen or who otherwise resisted complicity in Mr Trump’s scheme.
Smith also for the first time explained the thought process behind his team’s prosecution decisions, writing that his office decided not to charge Trump with incitement in part because of free speech concerns, or with insurrection because he was the sitting president at the time and there was doubt about proceeding to trial with the offence — of which there was no record of having been prosecuted before.
Smith, who left the justice department last week, dropped both cases against Trump after he won last year’s election, citing a longstanding department policy against prosecuting a sitting president. Neither reached a trial.
Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Regularly assailing Smith as “deranged,” Trump depicted the cases as politically motivated attempts to damage his campaign and political movement.
Trump and his two former co-defendants in the classified documents case sought to block the release of the report, days before Trump is set to return to office on 20 January. Courts rebuffed their demands to prevent its publication altogether.
Jack Smith asserts that he believed the evidence was sufficient to convict Trump in a trial if his success in the 2024 election had not made it impossible for the prosecution to continue.
Smith wrote:
The department’s view that the Constitution prohibits the continued indictment and prosecution of a president is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the government’s proof or the merits of the prosecution, which the office stands fully behind.
Indeed, but for Mr Trump’s election and imminent return to the presidency, the office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial.
Volume two of the report, dealing with Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents, is under seal due to ongoing legal proceedings against Trump’s co-defendants. A hearing is scheduled for Thursday to determine whether it will be released to Congress or kept under seal.
Trump and his legal team have characterised the report as a “political hit job” aimed at disrupting the presidential transition.
Donald Trump would have been convicted of crimes over his failed attempt to cling to power in 2020 if he had not won the presidential election in 2024, according to the special counsel who investigated him.
Jack Smith’s report detailing his team’s findings about Trump’s efforts to subvert democracy was released by the justice department early on Tuesday.
Following the insurrection on 6 January, 2021, Smith was appointed as special counsel to investigate Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. His investigation culminated in a detailed report, submitted to the attorney general, Merrick Garland.
Volume one of the report meticulously outlines Trump’s actions, including his efforts to pressure state officials, assemble alternate electors and encourage supporters to protest against the election results.
Here is the first take from our Washington DC bureau chief, David Smith.
The former US justice department special counsel Jack Smith has said his team “stood up for the rule of law” as it investigated Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election – writing in a much-anticipated report released on Tuesday that he stands fully behind his decision to bring criminal charges against the president-elect.
The report, which comes just days before Trump’s return to the White House on 20 January, focuses fresh attention on his frantic but failed effort to cling to power in 2020. With the prosecution foreclosed thanks to Trump’s election victory, the document is expected to be the final justice department chronicle of a dark chapter in American history that threatened to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power, a bedrock of democracy for centuries.
The justice department transmitted the report to Congress early on Tuesday after a judge refused to block its release.
Though most of the details of Trump’s efforts to undo the election are already well established, the document includes for the first time a detailed assessment from Smith about his investigation, as well as a defence by Smith against criticism by Trump and his allies that the investigation was politicised.
“While we were not able to bring the cases we charged to trial, I believe the fact that our team stood up for the rule of law matters,” Smith wrote in a letter to the attorney general, Merrick Garland, attached to the report. “I believe the example our team set for others to fight for justice without regard for the personal costs matters.”
