Vice President-elect JD Vance (R-Ohio) on Friday stated he and President-elect Trump are standing by Pete Hegseth, the embattled nominee to steer the Division of Protection, and advised reporters he was talking with skeptical senators to induce them to offer him a listening to.
Vance visited North Carolina to tour storm-ravaged areas nonetheless recovering from the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. He was joined by Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Ted Budd (R-N.C.) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.).
“Importantly, Pete Hegseth is going to get his hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, not a sham hearing before the American media. We believe that Pete Hegseth is the right guy to lead the Department of Defense, that’s why President Trump nominated him,” Vance advised reporters. “We’re not abandoning this nomination.”
Vance stated he had spoken with “a number” of senators, together with Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who’s seen as one of many key holdouts who has voiced reservations about Hegseth’s nomination.
“All I’m asking is that people actually allow the Senate process to work,” Vance stated. “We do not determine important government officials based on anonymous sourcing from the American media.”
Hegseth has spent the week assembly with GOP senators and vowing he won’t again down.
The Hill has reported that as many as eight Republican senators are ready to vote in opposition to Hegseth, however most of them usually are not keen to name publicly for Hegseth to resign as a result of they don’t need to be criticized by Trump’s MAGA allies.
Hegseth can solely afford three Republican “no” votes in subsequent 12 months’s 53-seat Senate Republican majority and nonetheless be confirmed, assuming all Democrats vote in opposition to him.
Ernst, herself a survivor of sexual assault, has made combatting sexual assault within the navy considered one of her high priorities. That has put her within the highlight as a result of Hegseth was accused of sexually assaulting a 30-year-old workers member at a Republican girls’s convention in 2017.
Trump posted on Reality Social on Friday that Hegseth was doing “very well” and had robust assist. However Trump has thus far not labored the telephones or publicly pressured senators to again Hegseth, and he has spoken to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) about main the Pentagon within the occasion Hegseth withdraws.
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