The US Senate on Friday narrowly confirmed former Fox News cohost Pete Hegseth as Pentagon chief, despite allegations of alcohol abuse, sexual misconduct and other fears about his ability to lead the world’s most powerful military.
Three Republican senators voted against US President Donald Trump’s pick as secretary of defense, resulting in a 50-50 tie that required US Vice President J.D. Vance to cast the deciding ballot — only the second time in history a vice president has had to intervene to save a cabinet nominee.
The razor-edged result underscored concerns about Hegseth, who would take over the Pentagon with war raging in Ukraine, the Middle East volatile despite ceasefires in Lebanon and Gaza, and as Trump expands the military’s role in security on the US-Mexico border.
Photo: Bloomberg
The 44-year-old is a former US Army National Guard officer who until recently worked as a cohost for Fox News — one of Trump’s favored television channels.
He has pledged to focus the military on “lethality” and to bring back “warrior culture” to the Pentagon.
In confirming him, Republicans brushed aside his lack of experience leading an organization anywhere near the size of the US Department of Defense — the country’s largest employer with about 3 million personnel. They also approved Hegseth despite allegations of financial mismanagement at veterans’ nonprofits where he previously worked, reports of excessive drinking, and allegations that he sexually assaulted a woman in California.
During his confirmation hearing last week Hegseth said there was a “coordinated smear campaign” against him.
Three Republicans — US Senators Susan Collins, Mitch McConnell and Lisa Murkowski — voted against him.
On Thursday, Murkowski wrote on X that “past behaviors Mr Hegseth has admitted to, including infidelity on multiple occasions, demonstrate a lack of judgment that is unbecoming of someone who would lead our armed forces.”
Prior to his approval by the full US Senate, lawmakers received an affidavit from Hegseth’s former sister-in-law Danielle Hegseth that added to the allegations against him.
“I believe [Pete] Hegseth has an alcohol abuse problem and was abusive to his ex-wife Samantha,” the affidavit said, although it added that Danielle Hegseth did not personally witness physical or sexual abuse by the incoming defense secretary.
Thousands gathered across New Zealand yesterday to celebrate the signing of the country’s founding document and some called for an end to government policies that critics say erode the rights promised to the indigenous Maori population. As the sun rose on the dawn service at Waitangi where the Treaty of Waitangi was first signed between the British Crown and Maori chiefs in 1840, some community leaders called on the government to honor promises made 185 years ago. The call was repeated at peaceful rallies that drew several hundred people later in the day. “This government is attacking tangata whenua [indigenous people] on all
RIGHTS FEARS: A protester said Beijing would use the embassy to catch and send Hong Kongers to China, while a lawmaker said Chinese agents had threatened Britons Hundreds of demonstrators on Saturday protested at a site earmarked for Beijing’s controversial new embassy in London over human rights and security concerns. The new embassy — if approved by the British government — would be the “biggest Chinese embassy in Europe,” one lawmaker said earlier. Protester Iona Boswell, a 40-year-old social worker, said there was “no need for a mega embassy here” and that she believed it would be used to facilitate the “harassment of dissidents.” China has for several years been trying to relocate its embassy, currently in the British capital’s upmarket Marylebone district, to the sprawling historic site in the
A deluge of disinformation about a virus called hMPV is stoking anti-China sentiment across Asia and spurring unfounded concerns of renewed lockdowns, despite experts dismissing comparisons with the COVID-19 pandemic five years ago. Agence France-Presse’s fact-checkers have debunked a slew of social media posts about the usually non-fatal respiratory disease human metapneumovirus after cases rose in China. Many of these posts claimed that people were dying and that a national emergency had been declared. Garnering tens of thousands of views, some posts recycled old footage from China’s draconian lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, which originated in the country in late
BACK TO BATTLE: North Korean soldiers have returned to the front lines in Russia’s Kursk region after earlier reports that Moscow had withdrawn them following heavy losses Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday pored over a once-classified map of vast deposits of rare earths and other critical minerals as part of a push to appeal to US President Donald Trump’s penchant for a deal. The US president, whose administration is pressing for a rapid end to Ukraine’s war with Russia, on Monday said he wanted Ukraine to supply the US with rare earths and other minerals in return for financially supporting its war effort. “If we are talking about a deal, then let’s do a deal, we are only for it,” Zelenskiy said, emphasizing Ukraine’s need for security guarantees