Senators bracing for confirmation battles over unorthodox Trump Cabinet picks

Republicans avoided a confirmation firestorm when former Rep. Matt Gaetz withdrew from consideration as attorney general, but lawmakers on Capitol Hill are already bracing for how they’ll navigate the next slew of unorthodox Trump picks — and they have warned the president-elect’s choice to lead the Pentagon, who faces controversy over his past comments and history, that the confirmation process is a long and invasive process.

Republicans avoided a confirmation firestorm when former Rep. Matt Gaetz withdrew from consideration as attorney general, but lawmakers on Capitol Hill are already bracing for how they’ll navigate the next slew of unorthodox Trump picks — and they have warned the president-elect’s choice to lead the Pentagon, who faces controversy over his past comments and history, that the confirmation process is a long and invasive process. Some of Trump’s Cabinet selections, including Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick for Secretary of Defense, and Tulsi Gabbard, his pick for director of national intelligence, could force Republicans to choose between their allegiance to Trump and their growing concerns that some of his nominees might not be up for the job or might not be possible to confirm in a narrowly controlled Senate. Hegseth on Thursday huddled with a handful of Republican senators, many of them seen as close allies of Trump, for a series of meetings. Lawmakers who emerged included Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, who called it “a great meeting,” and Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, who called Hegseth “very qualified to do the job.” Earlier on the morning of those meetings, new details had emerged about a police report from 2017 in which a woman alleged that Hegseth blocked her from leaving a hotel room, took her phone, and then sexually assaulted her even though she “remembered saying ‘no’ a lot,” CNN reported. Police declined to press charges, and Hegseth has maintained the encounter was consensual. But while some members of the party signal support for the nomination, other Republicans on the Hill warn that there are mounting concerns about Hegseth. Although many senators have known Hegseth, a Fox News host, for years, the process of vetting him to be the secretary of Defense will force them to examine him and his views in a new light.