Hegseth grilled in Defense confirmation hearing | The Excerpt
On Wednesday’s episode of The Excerpt podcast: Paste BN Pentagon Correspondent Tom Vanden Brook recaps a Senate grilling for Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump's pick to run the Defense Department. Schools are trying to get ahead of Donald Trump's plans for undocumented students. There's been increased containment to two major fires in Southern California, but high winds pose new threats. Paste BN White House Correspondent Joey Garrison takes a look at President Joe Biden's defining legacy.
Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
Podcasts: True crime, in-depth interviews and more Paste BN podcasts right here
Taylor Wilson:
Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson, and today is Wednesday, January 15th, 2025. This is The Excerpt. Today, how lawmakers grilled Trump's pick to run the Defense Department, plus how winds have impacted California fires this week, and we take a closer look at Biden's legacy.
♦
Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump's pick to run the Pentagon, was grilled during his Senate confirmation hearing yesterday on a number of issues, ranging from his past, to some of the current challenges the Defense department faces today. I spoke with Paste BN Pentagon correspondent Tom Vanden Brook for more. Hello, Tom.
Tom Vanden Brook:
Happy New Year, Taylor.
Taylor Wilson:
Happy New Year to you, Tom. So let's just start with a couple of basics here at the top and then we'll get into the hearing. Who is Pete Hegseth for folks maybe just coming to this now?
Tom Vanden Brook:
Pete Hegseth is a combat veteran National Guard soldier, and known more popularly as a Fox News personality, and he's President-elect Trump's choice to lead the Pentagon.
Taylor Wilson:
All right, so let's get into some of the grilling that went on during this confirmation hearing, starting with a rape complaint against Hegseth. How did lawmakers press him here and how did he respond?
Tom Vanden Brook:
This dates back to 2017 when a woman alleged that Hegseth had sexually assaulted her in a hotel at a Republican conference. Police investigated, he was not charged with sexual assault. He maintains he did nothing wrong. He did sign a monetary settlement with the woman for an undisclosed sum.
Taylor Wilson:
So there have also been allegations of past mismanagement and even drinking on the job. Did any of those issues come up, Tom?
Tom Vanden Brook:
They came up repeatedly, Taylor, and these trace back to his stewardship of two nonprofit veteran service organizations, both of which had spent more than they brought in under his stewardship. He maintained during the hearing that that was because they were doing what they were supposed to do. They had generous donors and they spent money on projects that needed to be addressed. Democrats on the committee said that that was just evidence that he's been unable to manage an organization and keep its spending in check, which is a big deal for the Pentagon, which has an $850 billion a year budget.
Taylor Wilson:
What were some focal points in this hearing, Tom, as it pertains to the actual job of defense secretary and just what were some military issues brought up on the day?
Tom Vanden Brook:
A few different issues. The Republicans on the committee were interested in hearing from Hegseth about his concerns regarding what they say is the woke military, and that comes down to several issues. Among them are the policy under the Biden administration that reversed a ban under the first Trump administration on transgender troops being allowed to serve. That came up. There are other issues regarding the Pentagon policy that allows for troops who have to travel for reproductive healthcare to have those travel expenses reimbursed. Many Republicans oppose both of those things and those are the woke issues, as they refer to them, that came up.
Taylor Wilson:
Tom, he's had these controversial comments about women in the military before, did that issue come up at all?
Tom Vanden Brook:
Again and again, Taylor, yes. Democrats pounded him on this issue. He's made statements in the past about how women are not qualified for combat. When President-elect Trump chose him to lead the Pentagon, he retreated on those issues and said that he served with women in combat and thinks that if they are qualified, if they meet the qualifications, that they should be allowed to serve.
Taylor Wilson:
All right. So just in terms of what's next for Hegseth. Now, Tom, is he expected to be confirmed? Where do we go from here?
Tom Vanden Brook:
Well, those are tea leaves a little bit Taylor, but it looks fairly positive for him. One of the senators on the Republican side who was thought to be skeptical perhaps was Joni Ernst of Iowa. Her questions suggested that she was satisfied with his answers and the Republicans can only afford three of their members to vote against him, and it looks like he does have enough support to get through. Now, of course, people can change their minds and that vote won't occur until after President Trump takes office next week.
Taylor Wilson:
Tom Vanden Brook covers the Pentagon for Paste BN. Thank you, Tom.
Tom Vanden Brook:
You got it, Taylor.
♦
Taylor Wilson:
We're seeing increased containment to two major fires in the Los Angeles area that have left behind massive destruction. The Palisades Fire, which reduced the Pacific Palisades community to rubble, was 18% contained as of this morning. While the Eaton Fire, which has burned much of Altadena, was 35% contained. Evacuation orders for some communities in Altadena were lifted yesterday afternoon. Still high winds yesterday and today have helped fuel several new fires. Meanwhile, more than a dozen victims of the Pacific Palisades wildfire are suing the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power for water supply failures, they say, contributed to the devastation. Nationally, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said President Joe Biden has decided the federal government will pick up the entire cost of emergency work California will require over six months because of the fires instead of only 75%. You can read more with a link in today's show notes.
♦
As Donald Trump's second term approaches next week colleges and K-12 schools are taking steps to shield undocumented students from possible changes to immigration policy that could impact their education. Officials from universities across the country met virtually last week with immigration advocates to discuss how to respond to the incoming administration's stance regarding some 400,000 undocumented students enrolled in higher education.
Trump pledged on the campaign trail he'd carry out mass deportations in a second term. He then suggested in December he supported deporting mixed status families where family members have differing legal statuses, even if some are citizens. That rhetoric has created questions about possible guardrails for protecting student data and applying for college financial aid. It has also sparked a larger debate about where immigration enforcement should and should not happen. Some students from mixed status families are already coming off a challenging year amid a crisis in the federal financial aid system.
A main worry for colleges is that Trump may be poised to rescind a longstanding policy that prevents federal agents from conducting immigration enforcement activities in so-called sensitive locations like churches and schools. That guidance has been in place since the Obama administration, even though the policy remained in effect during Trump's first term, there was greater law enforcement presence outside school campuses during that time. As recalled by immigration scholar, Dan Berger. You can read more about some of these tensions ahead of Trump's inauguration next week with a link in today's show notes.
♦
What will President Joe Biden's legacy be? He wants it to be defined by his big legislative wins, but his initial decision to run for reelection hangs over his exit. I spoke with Paste BN White House correspondent Joey Garrison for more. Hey there, Joey.
Joey Garrison:
Hey, Taylor. Thanks for having me on.
Taylor Wilson:
Thanks for coming on, Joey. Let's start by talking about the controversial decision for Biden to run for reelection in the first place. How and why did he make this call, Joey?
Joey Garrison:
I think it's one that largely came out of the '22 midterm elections in which Democrats exceeded expectations. Of course, they only lost a few seats in the House, though they did lose the control of the House. They ended up retaining control of the Senate, and this is when everyone was predicting pundits and really a lot of Democrats were predicting a red wave for Republicans. If you recall, we headed into that election night in 2022 unsure what Biden's future would be. He had indicated in the past he might be a transition president, but when he got that good election night for Democrats, he saw that as a reflection of popularity for some of his policies and him himself and saw it as a reason to keep going. Looking back on it, most people believe that was a misread.
Taylor Wilson:
Yeah, who are some of the harshest critics of this move, Joey, and his decision to drop out so late as well?
Joey Garrison:
Yeah, I'm not sure if it's any one person specifically, but Democrats across the board who you talk to really question in retrospect whether it was the best decision for Biden to seek reelection. Had Biden dropped out earlier and announced that he wasn't running again, you would've had a competitive democratic primary. Maybe Kamala Harris would've emerged as the Democratic nominee, but it could have been somebody entirely different. No one is saying, I don't think, for the Democratic side that for sure that person would've defeated Trump, but they think it would've given the party a better chance to beat Trump than Harris did, in which she only had 107 days to mount a campaign.
Of course, Biden throughout his first couple of years in office insisted that he had the vigor and the stamina to serve another four years. But then during that debate against Trump back last June, we saw a diminished president on stage. He had trouble finishing his thoughts, really making the case against Trump. After that moment, he tried to stay in the race, but about a month later, he eventually dropped out.
Taylor Wilson:
Well, Biden has also spent these last few weeks and days of his presidency touting some accomplishments. He's had a few different kind of pressers and addresses doing this. He talked about foreign policy earlier this week. But what specifically is he really leaning in on touting in particular during his final days in office?
Joey Garrison:
When he arrived in the White House four years ago, he declared America's back. That meant back on the world stage after Trump, during his administration, there were various points of conflict where he didn't embrace some of the traditional allies. So Biden has talked about restoring those alliances. He's also been a huge supporter of Ukraine on the foreign policy front. Then domestically, he's talked about signature laws for infrastructure funding and investing in chips manufacturing and clean energy manufacturing. Those are the sorts of things he's trying to paint as his legacy. He's called it really the busiest period of federal government investment since the New Deal of FDR.
What I write in that piece though is a lot of that is being overshadowed right now by the fact of this sort of second guess whether Biden should have announced sooner that he's not seeking reelection because there's a bit of tragedy in Biden's end of his term. He took so much pride in satisfaction and as being the Democrat, the guy who beat Trump, and he called this battle for the soul of the nation and said democracy was at stake when it came to Trump. So he had initially stopped Trump's four years of power, but here he is, he's going to be on the stage at the inauguration watching as Trump again sworn in as the 47th president. So the person he took so much pride and stopping, he's going to watch and take the torch from him.
A lot of people point to his initial decision to run for reelection as helping Trump get that power. So all of that is part of Biden's legacy. He wants to have it just on the policies, just on the things that he had in office. But a lot of people are looking at him as an aging athlete who didn't quite know when to step down. We all know the pitcher in baseball that might lose his fastball but not recognize that until a couple of years later. In some ways, that's President Biden when it comes to leaving the White House.
Taylor Wilson:
All right, Joey Garrison covers the White House for Paste BN. Thank you so much, Joey.
Joey Garrison:
Hey, thanks a lot.
♦
Taylor Wilson:
Citizens assemblies are nothing new, but they could re-energize our communities to tackle issues from a wealth of perspectives.
Linn Davis:
It's really important that we all feel sense of ownership over public policy. Right now we have a situation where we don't, and that's causing a very understandable, I think, ambivalence and dissatisfaction with our governmental system.
Taylor Wilson:
Linn Davis, the director of the nonprofit Healthy Democracy, joins The Excerpt to discuss how civic engagement extends beyond the ballot box to make a real difference in how we tackle society's biggest issues. You can find that episode right here on this feed beginning at 4:00 PM Eastern time today.
♦
Thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you find your audio, and if you're on a smart speaker, just ask for the Excerpt. I'm Taylor Wilson, back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from Paste BN.