Pete Hegseth narrowly secured enough votes on Friday to become the next US defence secretary, a victory for President Donald Trump after fierce opposition from Democrats and even some Republicans to his controversial nominee.Hegseth was confirmed after a 50-50 vote in the Senate, when Vice-President J D Vance came to the chamber to break the tie in his role as president of the Senate, after three Republicans joined every Democrat and independent in voting no.He was sworn in yesterday by Vance and in a message to the military stressed “restoring the warrior ethos, rebuilding our military, and re-establishing deterrence”.Speaking after his swearing in, Hegseth said he was thinking of “the guys that I served with on the battlefield, the men and women who I locked shields with and put my life on the line with”.“We will work with allies and partners to deter aggression in the Indo-Pacific by Communist China, as well as supporting the president’s priority to end wars responsibly and reorient to key threats,” he later wrote.The 44-year-old is a former Army National Guard officer and Bronze Star recipient with previous deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.Hegseth, a former Fox News personality, is promising to bring major changes to the Pentagon.However, his leadership will be under intense scrutiny after a bruising confirmation review that raised serious questions about his qualifications, temperament and views about women in combat.“We have not had a secretary of defence like Hegseth before,” said Jeremi Suri, a University of Texas, Austin, history professor and presidential scholar.Hegseth is the most divisive candidate to clinch the US military’s top job, a position that has historically gone to candidates with deep experience running large organisations and who enjoy broad bipartisan support.It was only the second time in history a cabinet nominee needed a tie-break to be confirmed.The first was also a Trump nominee, Betsy DeVos, who became secretary of education in 2017.The nearly party-line confirmation vote was a departure for a position that Republican and Democratic administrations have long sought to ensure was bipartisan.Former president Joe Biden’s defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, was confirmed by a 93-2 vote in 2021, and Jim Mattis, Trump’s first defence secretary in his last administration, was confirmed 98-1 in 2017.
