Trump Defends Pentagon Pick Pete Hegseth Amid Allegations: ‘He Will Be Fantastic’

Trump Defends Pentagon Pick Pete Hegseth Amid Allegations: US President-elect Donald Trump publicly endorsed Pete Hegseth on Friday, his beleaguered nominee to be the chief over the defense department, for whom Senate confirmation remains iffy over allegations of extreme drinking, sexual assault, and views of women combat.

The most part of this week, former Fox News personality, Army National Guard major cum combat veteran huddled with House members in effort to save his candidacy for a Cabinet position.

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"Pete Hegseth is doing very well," Trump said on his social media page. "He will be a fantastic, high energy, Secretary of Defence." "Pete is a WINNER, and there is nothing that can be done to change that!!!" the president said.

But the battle over Hegseth has become not merely a question of who ought to be running the pentagon, but the promising watershed moment in a movement that seems to love a skirmish over its quest for a more masculine military, and the putting to the end of what it deems "woke-ism." Trump's merchants friends have rallied around Hegseth, and the political arm of Heritage Foundation has pledged $1 million in support of his nomination.

"We're not going to abandon this nomination," the vice president-elect, JD Vance, said as he made his rounds across North Carolina after the disaster.

The attempt is rapidly developing into a test of Trump's strength and the degree of commitment Republican senators have to the elect president, some of whose choices concern them. This includes the two resignations that former Rep Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who was appointed by Trump as his first attorney general candidate, and Chad Chronister, a Florida sheriff who was Trump's first pick to run the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Hegseth has sworn off work-related drinking and told MPs he has never committed sexual misconduct despite increasing scrutiny of his views on female troops. He said just a month ago that "women shouldn't be in combat straight up."

According to a source familiar with Trump's thinking, who was not authorized to speak publicly, the president-elect and his staff have relished seeing Hegseth stand up for himself, and this week's performance reinforces why he was chosen. They think he can yet be verified.

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Even so, the transition team has considered other possible successors in case Hegseth's appointment falls through; among them is another former presidential contender, the Florida governor Ron DeSantis.

Incurring weeklong clandestine meetings in Capitol Hill, Hegseth is under opposition from senators despite the surfacing of allegations regarding his past, including a report of a settlement payment made after charges of sexual assault, which his lawyers denied.

The reporter for New Yorker referred to what it termed as a whistleblower report, also other documents relating to his masterful leadership of such veterans advocacy groups and issues concerning alcohol being drunk at work gatherings, misbehavior with female staff, as well as mishandling finances.

The New York Times received a mail from his mother, Penelope, in the year 2018, in which she accused him of mistreating women after impregnating his new wife while still married to his past wife. She was seen a few days back on "Fox & Friends" showing her support for her son.

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