Pete Hegseth, President-elect Trump’s pick for Defense secretary, said Wednesday that he won’t back down amid growing scrutiny over his nomination.
Hegseth posted a photograph of himself in the military on the social platform X with a message suggesting he is subject to a smear campaign from Democrats.
“I’m doing this for the warfighters, not the warmongers. The Left is afraid of disrupters and change agents. They are afraid of @realDonaldTrump—and me,” he wrote.
“So they smear w/ fake, anonymous sources & BS stories. They don’t want truth,” Hegseth continued. “Our warriors never back down, & neither will I.”
Hegseth returned to Capitol Hill on Wednesday for more meetings with senators and told CBS News that he spoke earlier that morning with Trump, who told him to keep fighting for confirmation.
“I spoke to the president-elect this morning. He said, ‘Keep going, keep fighting. I’m behind you all the way,’” Hegseth told CBS. “Why would I back down? I’ve always been a fighter. I’m here for the fighters. This is personal and passionate for me.”
Republican senators Tuesday, during Hegseth’s third round of meetings since last month, questioned a new set of revelations involving allegations of alcohol abuse and sexual misconduct in Hegseth’s past.
NBC News reported Tuesday that at least six senators are “not comfortable” supporting Hegseth, but several senators on Capitol Hill also have defended him, including Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.).
Hegseth also planned to meet with the House Republican Study Committee on Wednesday, a source familiar with the meeting told The Hill. House lawmakers have no votes on the Hegseth nomination, but the meeting could be used to raise pressure on GOP senators to support him.
The New Yorker reported Sunday that Hegseth was forced to step down by both of the two nonprofit advocacy groups he ran due to mismanagement of funds, sexual impropriety and reports of intoxicated behavior, prior to him becoming a full-time Fox News host in 2017.
NBC also reported that Hegseth’s drinking worried colleagues at Fox News, where he was a weekend host on “Fox & Friends” until earlier this month.
In another controversial story, published Friday, Hegseth’s mother reportedly sent him an email in 2018 accusing him of “routinely mistreating women for years” and displaying a “lack of character,” according to The New York Times.
In a phone interview with the Times, she said she sent a follow-up message at the time apologizing for her original email.
Trump communications director Steven Cheung called the Times’s airing of the email “despicable.”
