Last Monday, Pete Hegseth’s nomination to be Donald Trump’s defense secretary was nearing collapse.
Stories kept coming out about Hegseth’s past, key senators were publicly questioning his appointment and path forward and whispers of Trump mulling replacements for Hegseth were getting louder.
But a combination of internal and external factors salvaged Hegseth’s nomination to the point where he — while not completely out of the woods yet — is in a much better position than those around him could have imagined this time last week.
Sources in and around Trumpworld and on the Hill had said that if Hegseth could just survive through last week, then he would make it to a confirmation hearing. But that was a grind.
Hegseth started doing more media and publicly pushed back on social media against his detractors. His mom sat for an interview on Fox News following a report in The New York Times that she questioned her son’s treatment of women. He took the fight to the media.
“This will not be a process tried in the media. I don’t answer to anyone in this group — none of you. Not to that camera at all. I answer to President Trump,” Hegseth told reporters on the Hill. “I answer to the 100 senators who are a part of this process, and I answer to my Lord and Savior, and my wife and my family.”
Hegseth’s determination showed Trump and those around him that he was willing to fight, a source close to Trumpworld told NOTUS, leading Trump to decide to let Hegseth battle it out and not jump to replace him.
There were a handful of others who went to bat for Hegseth, the source said.
Vice President-elect JD Vance was seen as his biggest champion. Vance continually argued that Hegseth had a path forward and emphasized the importance of seeing the nomination through and not withdrawing his name, the source said.
NOTUS previously reported that some Republicans have urged Trump not to withdraw Hegseth’s name because of the message it would send, with one operative saying last week the “base will revolt” if Trump pulled Hegseth and it would show that he “doesn’t have the influence over Senate Republicans that many people expected him to have.”
There’s also been an external pressure campaign over the last week to get Hegseth confirmed, led by Donald Trump Jr., the president-elect’s eldest son and one of his top advisers, Charlie Kirk from Turning Point USA and Matthew Boyle and the whole team at Breitbart, the source close to Trumpworld said.
Alex Bruesewitz, a Trump adviser, also met with Senate offices last week urging people not to yield to negative coverage of nominees like Hegseth.
For days going into last week, there was limited counternarrative pushing back against the negative reporting and messaging on Hegseth. But the source said the Trump Jr., Kirk and Boyle effort helped change the focus and push Hegseth’s nomination back on track with wavering Republican senators.
Breitbart was the largest avenue of public support for Hegseth. The conservative outlet got wind of a New Yorker article set to publish about a whistleblower report about Hegseth from one of his former colleagues at Concerned Veterans for America and worked to get ahead of it.
“Some described the former coworker as being on the ‘periphery of Trump world’ for the past decade, and wanting to become a Fox News host and becoming insanely jealous of Hegseth, particularly after he was considered for secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs during the first Trump administration,” Breitbart wrote ahead of the New Yorker article’s publication.
The outlet also consistently turned out exclusive statements from senators expressing their support for Hegseth and his nomination.
“It’s critically important that people understand that the establishment media has never been weaker, and the smear campaign against Pete Hegseth is a transparent effort by them to claw back any crumbs of credibility they can to undo the damage they’ve done to the media industry,” Boyle, the D.C. bureau chief for Breitbart, said in a statement. “There’s a lot more on the line here than just the nomination for secretary of defense, and frankly the globalists losing this one is yet another nail in the coffin of the failed political class.”
Another touch came from Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird, who boosted Hegseth in an op-ed for Breitbart. The defense was widely seen as a not-so-subtle message to one person: Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, who had showed skepticism toward Hegseth and had privately expressed interest in the position herself.
After the Bird op-ed and being swarmed online by MAGA activists, Ernst struck a more positive tone about Hegseth this week, saying she appreciated “Pete Hegseth’s responsiveness and respect for the process.”
She went on to say that she looked “forward to a fair hearing based on truth, not anonymous sources.”
While the job isn’t completely done, sources peg Hegseth as now having a much better chance at surviving through to the confirmation hearings.
“Pete Hegseth is a highly qualified leader and a decorated military veteran. He is demonstrating to the Senate and the American people that he will earn his confirmation and be ready to rebuild the lethality of our warfighters,” Brian Hughes, a Trump transition spokesperson, said in a statement. “President Trump’s Peace through Strength agenda requires a Department of Defense that is committed to the mission of putting the national security of Americans first. There’s no doubt that Pete will deliver President Trump’s vision.”
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Reese Gorman is a reporter at NOTUS.