On Tuesday, the confirmation process for President-elect Donald J. Trump’s cabinet picks kicked off with Pete Hegseth, for the position of defense secretary. Eric Schmitt, who covers U.S. national security, explains how the four-hour hearing unfolded, and what the odds are that Mr. Hegseth will soon be leading the Pentagon.
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I'm Michael Barbaro.
This is the Daily On Tuesday, the confirmation process for Donald Trump's cabinet began with his most controversial choice, Pete Hegseth for secretary of defense.
Today, my colleague, national security correspondent Eric Schmidt, on the contentious and dramatic hearing and the odds that Hegseth will soon be running the military.
It's Wednesday, January 15th.
Eric, from the moment that Pete Hegseth was nominated to run the Department of Defense, it, as you well know, created a storm of controversy on both sides of the aisle because of the reports of his personal misconduct, because of his views on issues like whether women should be in the military, and because of his lack of traditional management experience.
Everything about him represented a major deviation from the norm of who the secretary of defense is, so much so that it looked like Donald Trump might dump him as his choice.
But that hasn't happened.
So heading into this confirmation hearing, what for you were the big questions about how this very highly anticipated day would unfold?
Well, I think you said it's just amazing how unconventional Pete Hexth's nomination is.
I mean, when his nomination was announced, we all kind of scratched our heads and went, you mean the Fox News anchor, that guy?
Right.
And, you know, as it turned out, you know, he did have a record.
He had run a couple of veterans groups.
And then some of the allegations started seeping out about his misconduct.