Hegseth’s fate could decide oth­er Trump nom­i­nees’ future

Hegseth is the lat­est Trump pick to face an uncer­tain future in a Repub­li­can-con­trolled Sen­ate after for­mer Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Flori­da Repub­li­can, with­drew from con­sid­er­a­tion to be attor­ney gen­er­al.

Not only are reports of heavy drink­ing and wom­an­iz­ing swirling around Hegseth but so are rumors of pos­si­ble replace­ment can­di­dates, includ­ing some with clos­er ties to Wash­ing­ton Repub­li­cans than the 44-year-old.

For Trump, it is an ear­ly test of his influ­ence with the incom­ing Repub­li­can Sen­ate major­i­ty after a pres­i­den­tial elec­tion in which he swept all sev­en bat­tle­ground states and won the pop­u­lar vote.

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While Trump’s nation­al lead has been erod­ed as deep-blue Cal­i­for­nia has con­tin­ued to count votes for weeks, Trump is still only the sec­ond Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nee to win the pop­u­lar vote since 1988 and the first since 2004. He is also the first non-Bush to do so since Ronald Rea­gan in 1984.

This time, Trump met or exceed­ed expec­ta­tions in the top bat­tle­ground states, while Repub­li­cans won just one Sen­ate race in these high­ly com­pet­i­tive areas, gain­ing a seat in Penn­syl­va­nia. Trump ran ahead of the pur­ple-state GOP Sen­ate can­di­dates.

But that so far hasn’t made Sen­ate Repub­li­cans more def­er­en­tial as Trump has select­ed uncon­ven­tion­al nom­i­nees who often tend to be com­mu­ni­ca­tors more than bureau­crats and are in some cas­es viewed as hos­tile to the mis­sions of the depart­ments to which they are being appoint­ed. 

In fact, Repub­li­can under­per­for­mance in the swing states means Trump’s par­ty holds 53 Sen­ate seats, main­ly in safe red states. That means with­out Demo­c­ra­t­ic help, no Trump nom­i­nee can lose more than three Repub­li­can votes in the upper cham­ber and win con­fir­ma­tion. When Vice Pres­i­dent-elect J.D. Vance takes office in Jan­u­ary, he will have a tiebreak­ing vote. 

But Sens. Susan Collins (R‑ME) and Lisa Murkows­ki (R‑AK) aren’t con­sid­ered reli­able votes for Trump. Nei­ther is Sen. Mitch McConnell (R‑KY), who has stepped down from lead­er­ship at least par­tial­ly in order to be more inde­pen­dent of the White House.

More­over, many of the incum­bent Repub­li­can sen­a­tors are less depen­dent on the anti-estab­lish­ment crossover votes that helped pull Trump across the fin­ish line in the Elec­toral Col­lege.

Trump has nev­er­the­less sought to put togeth­er a more diverse team, in terms of ide­ol­o­gy and expe­ri­ence in gov­ern­ment, than dur­ing his first term. There were numer­ous reports that he was con­sid­er­ing installing many of his more con­tro­ver­sial nom­i­nees by recess appoint­ment, at least tem­porar­i­ly avoid­ing Sen­ate con­fir­ma­tion votes. Instead, the Trump team has up to this point fol­lowed the tra­di­tion­al process. 

If Hegseth joins Gaetz in being with­drawn, the ques­tion remains whether this will make it eas­i­er or hard­er for health and human ser­vices nom­i­nee Robert F. Kennedy Jr., would-be direc­tor of nation­al intel­li­gence Tul­si Gab­bard, pos­si­ble new FBI direc­tor Kash Patel, and oth­ers who could ruf­fle Repub­li­cans feath­ers to be con­firmed. If the lat­ter, it is also pos­si­ble that recess appoint­ments become a live option again.

Hegseth has been meet­ing with Sen­ate Repub­li­cans, includ­ing non­com­mit­tal Sen. Joni Ernst (R‑IA) and incom­ing Armed Ser­vices Com­mit­tee Chair­man Roger Wick­er (R‑MS). Recent con­tro­ver­sies aside, Ernst is a com­bat vet­er­an. Hegseth has been crit­i­cal of the con­cept of women serv­ing in com­bat.

The embat­tled nom­i­nee has also been defend­ing him­self in media inter­views, includ­ing an extend­ed sit­down with for­mer Fox News col­league Meg­yn Kel­ly. Hegseth’s moth­er, whose since-retract­ed crit­i­cism of her son’s char­ac­ter leaked to the press, also appeared on Fox to defend him and has report­ed­ly been mak­ing calls to sen­a­tors on behalf of her son.

Sen­ate Repub­li­cans aren’t the only ones who have to decide how much polit­i­cal cap­i­tal they want to spend on intra­party fights with at least two years of uni­fied gov­ern­ment ahead of them. Trump has to make this deci­sion too. He will be advised, if he has not received such coun­sel already, that there are prospects with Hegseth’s virtues, and pos­si­bly more expe­ri­ence run­ning large orga­ni­za­tions, with­out his bag­gage.

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Repub­li­cans could lose their razor-thin House major­i­ty in the 2026 midterm elec­tions. The term-lim­it­ed Trump will become some­thing of a lame duck after that, with the 2028 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion loom­ing.

Repub­li­cans on both ends of Penn­syl­va­nia Avenue will want to hit the ground run­ning on their shared pol­i­cy agen­da, which leaves a lim­it­ed amount of time for them to spar over the make­up of the future Trump admin­is­tra­tion.