By Patricia Zengerle, Steve Holland and David Morgan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President-elect Donald Trump’s embattled pick to lead the U.S. Department of Defense, Pete Hegseth, met with a lukewarm response from some Senate Republicans on Wednesday over allegations about his personal and professional life.
Even as Hegseth made his case to Republican lawmakers whose support he’d need to be confirmed as defense secretary, Trump was considering alternates, with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis emerging as an option, according to two sources familiar with internal deliberations.
Republican Representative Mike Waltz, whom Trump had previously tapped to be White House national security adviser, was another potential pick, a third source told Reuters. Another source said Republican Senator Joni Ernst could also be in the running for the job.
A former Fox News personality and former National Guard officer, Hegseth has faced a wave of allegations since Trump tapped him, including one of sexual assault, which he denied; media reports of public inebriation while working; and claims of financial mismanagement at prior jobs.
Ernst, a military veteran and sexual assault survivor, met Hegseth for 40 minutes in her office and gave no indication that her concerns about him were allayed.
“Today, as part of the confirmation process, we had a frank and thorough conversation,” she said without elaborating.
Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski was tepid as well. “I have some very real concerns about some things that have come out recently and I want to ask him about that,” she said.
Republicans will have a 53-47 Senate majority, meaning that Hegseth could afford to lose the support of just three fellow Republicans and still be confirmed.
During a break between meetings with lawmakers, Hegseth told Megyn Kelly in an interview on her Sirius XM program, “I’ve never had a drinking problem” but would nonetheless not drink alcohol if confirmed as defense secretary. He said he spoke on Wednesday morning with Trump, who urged him to keep fighting.
Hegseth is not the first Trump Cabinet pick to run into difficulties. Former Representative Matt Gaetz dropped his bid for attorney general last month in the face of questions among Senate Republicans about alleged sexual misconduct with a 17-year-old girl and drug use. Gaetz has denied wrongdoing.
Trump’s pick to head the Drug Enforcement Administration, Chad Chronister, dropped his bid on Tuesday after pushback from some Republicans for the Florida sheriff’s actions during the early days of the COVID pandemic.
Trump said on Wednesday on social media of Chronister, “He didn’t pull out. I pulled him out.”
‘HARD QUESTIONS’
Senator John Thune, who will lead Senate Republicans next year said multiple Senate Republicans would meet with Hegseth.
“He’s going to have an opportunity to address all the questions that have been raised, and there are some hard questions being raised. So he’ll have to answer those,” Thune said.
Republican Senator Kevin Cramer told CBS that the allegations against Hegseth are serious.
“They can’t be trivialized. And I just want to know that he’s redeemed …. and going forward, he’s going to be better,” he said.
Hegseth also met with Republican Senator Roger Wicker, who is in line to chair the Armed Services Committee, which oversees the Defense Department, next year.
“I don’t see any obstacles that can’t be overcome,” Wicker told reporters afterward.
ALLEGATIONS
A wave of media reports has raised questions about Hegseth.
Hegseth has denied allegations made in a police report that he sexually assaulted a woman in 2017 at a conference in California. The woman said that while drinking with colleagues, she may have been drugged and was then sexually assaulted by a man she later identified as Hegseth, according to the report.
No charges were filed, and he entered into a private settlement with the alleged victim.
NBC News cited 10 current and former Fox employees in a report on Tuesday that Hegseth’s drinking of alcohol concerned co-workers at the television network, including showing up at work smelling of alcohol and talking about being hung over.
The New York Times last month reported on an email Hegseth’s mother wrote him in 2018 in which she accused him of mistreating women, including lying, cheating, sleeping around and using women for “his own power and ego.”
Hegseth’s mother told the Times in an interview that she had sent Hegseth an immediate follow-up email at the time apologizing for what she had written and that she “disavows the sentiments she had expressed in the initial email about his character and treatment of women.”
On Sunday the New Yorker, citing documents and accounts of former colleagues, reported that Hegseth was forced to step down by the two nonprofit advocacy groups he ran after “serious allegations of financial mismanagement, sexual impropriety, and personal misconduct.”
The article said Hegseth’s lawyer declined to comment on the claims, which he described as “outlandish.”
Hegseth did not respond to a request for comment sent through the Trump transition office. Trump’s transition team did not respond to a request for comment. A DeSantis representative also did not respond to a request for comment.
A source confirmed that Trump and DeSantis had spoken about the Pentagon job and that DeSantis was considering it.
(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle and David Morgan in Washington and Steve Holland in West Palm Beach, Florida; Additional reporting by Susan Heavey, James Oliphant and Helen Coster; Editing by Scott Malone, Nick Zieminski, Mark Porter, Daniel Wallis, Cynthia Osterman and Diane Craft)
