WASHINGTON – Pete Hegseth has spent the week on Capitol Hill trying to reassure Republican senators that he is fit to lead President-elect Donald Trump’s Department of Defense in the wake of high-profile allegations about excessive drinking and sexual assault.
But senators in both parties have also expressed concern about another issue — Hegseth’s frequent comments that women should not serve in frontline military combat jobs.
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As the former Army National Guard major and combat veteran fights to salvage his Cabinet nomination, meeting with senators for a fourth day Thursday with promises not to drink on the job and assurances he never engaged in sexual misconduct, his professional views on women troops have also come under scrutiny. He said as recently as last month that women “straight up” should not serve in combat roles.
North Dakota Sen. Kevin Cramer said Wednesday that he confronted Hegseth about the issue when they spoke one-on-one.
“I said to him, just so you know, Joni Ernst and Tammy Duckworth deserve a great deal of respect,” Cramer said, referring to two female senators who sit on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Both Ernst, R-Iowa, and Duckworth, D-Ill., are combat veterans who served in the Iraq war, and Duckworth lost both legs when a Blackhawk helicopter she was piloting was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade.
Ernst, a former Army National Guard member and a retired lieutenant colonel who spent more than two decades in the service, was circumspect after her own meeting with Hegseth, saying only that they had a “frank and thorough conversation.” She has spoken openly about surviving sexual assault while in college and worked to ensure a safe environment for women in uniform.
The Iowa senator demurred again Thursday on whether she will support Hegseth's nomination, praising his service but telling Fox News that a “very thorough vetting” is needed.
Along with the reports of his previous behavior, the bipartisan concerns about Hegseth's comments on women have put his nomination in some peril, contributing to general uncertainty about whether his nomination will make it to a hearing next month. While Hegseth said that Trump is “behind us all the way,” and he's put in a full week's work explaining himself to senators, some Republicans are not yet committing their support.
South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds said after meeting with Hegseth on Thursday that he “went a long way today” in getting his full support, but “I want him to be able to answer in front of everybody else the questions that are there and to do a good job on it."
Rounds said the issue of women in combat didn’t come up in his meeting but that Hegseth can explain himself in a hearing.
“Women are integrated into our armed forces today, and they do a great job,” Rounds said.
The role of women in the military is another entry in the far-right's efforts to return the armed forces back to an earlier era, something Hegseth has embraced with Trump's approach to end “woke” programs that foster diversity, equity and inclusion in the ranks and fire generals who reflect those values.
Military and defense leaders, however, have argued that it would be fundamentally wrong to eliminate half the population from critical combat posts, and they have flatly denied that standards were lowered to allow women to qualify.
In remarks Wednesday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin touted the service of women, including in his own combat units when he was a commander in Iraq.
“If I get a little fired up about this, it’s just because this isn’t 1950. It isn’t 1948. It is 2024,” Austin said.
Hegseth has so far pushed back questions about his views.
“We have amazing women who serve our military,” Hegseth said Tuesday, “amazing women who serve in our military.”
Pressed if they should serve in combat, Hegseth said they already do.
But he said as recently as last month that women “straight up” should not serve in combat. It “hasn’t made us more lethal. Has made fighting more complicated,” he said in a podcast before he was nominated by Trump. In his own writings, he has expanded on views of a more masculine-focused military.
As he tries to shore up votes in his own party, Hegseth has yet to meet with Duckworth or any of the other Democrats on the committee. Duckworth, a Democrat and Purple Heart recipient, also rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel before retiring after 23 years in the Reserve forces. She later served as an assistant secretary at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
North Dakota Sen. Cramer said he told Hegseth that his confirmation hearing “won’t be pleasant" as Democrats, in particular, grill him on his views. As members of the Armed Services panel, both Ernst and Duckworth will have a chance to ask him questions.
Trump, for now, appears to be standing aside as Hegseth fights to preserve his nomination, even as suggestions float about a possible replacement pick, including former Trump rival Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, to lead the Pentagon.
Trump’s closest allies in the Senate expressed cautious optimism that Hegseth will not be replaced — immediately at least. “It’s not in trouble until it’s over,” said Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla. “Right now we’ve got to move forward.”
“We’re going to push as long as he’s wanting to be there, and as long as the president still wants him in place, we’re going to push and do all we can to get him confirmed,” Mullin said.
At the same time, The Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank behind Project 2025, said it would be spending $1 million to put pressure on senators unwilling to support Hegseth, the group’s president told The Associated Press on Thursday.
“The establishment is trying to take his scalp,” said Kevin Roberts, president of The Heritage Foundation after an event in Mar-a-Lago. “He would be a wonderful secretary of defense.”
About 17.5% of the more than 1.3 million active-duty service members are women, a total that has grown steadily over the past two decades. They have served in combat in a wide array of military jobs, including as pilots and intelligence officers for years.
The Pentagon formally opened all combat jobs to women in 2015, including frontline infantry and armor posts, and since then thousands of women have been in jobs that until that time were male-only.
As of this year, nearly 4,800 women are serving in Army infantry, armor and artillery job, more than 150 have completed the Army Ranger course and a small number have qualified for more elite special operations units, including as Army Green Berets.