← Videos · Foreign Policy & Defense

Pete Hegseth Testifies at His Senate Armed Services Confirmation Hearing, Jan. 14, 2025

January 14, 2025 · C-SPAN · 4:24:05

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

Pete Hegseth testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on January 14, 2025, at the confirmation hearing on his nomination to be Secretary of Defense — the first confirmation hearing held for one of President Trump’s Cabinet nominees, according to Ballotpedia News — carried in full by C-SPAN. Chairman Roger Wicker introduced him as an unconventional nominee and a decorated post-9/11 combat veteran who would “inject a new warrior ethos into the Pentagon” and “focus relentlessly on the war fighter,” as the hearing transcript records.

Hegseth’s program, as he stated it: “One, restore the warrior ethos to the Pentagon and throughout our fighting force. In doing so, we will reestablish trust in our military, addressing the recruiting crisis, retention crisis and readiness crisis in our ranks. Number two, we’re going to rebuild our military, always matching threats to capabilities. This includes reviving our defense industrial base, reforming the acquisition process — no more valley of death for new defense companies,” as the transcript records; his opening was interrupted several times by protesters, as the Associated Press reported. Ranking Member Jack Reed told him, “Mr. Hegseth, I do not believe that you are qualified to meet the overwhelming demands of this job,” as the AP reported, and senators pressed him on anonymously sourced allegations about his past conduct, which he answered as “a coordinated smear campaign orchestrated in the media” built on “anonymous source after anonymous source,” as he stated it. Senator Joni Ernst focused on women serving in combat roles if they meet qualification standards and on support for military sexual-assault victims; Hegseth pledged support for both, as the AP reported. The Senate confirmed Hegseth on January 25, 2025, by a vote of 51–50.

Why it matters

This hearing is the founding document of Hegseth’s tenure: the warrior-ethos restoration, the recruiting-retention-readiness diagnosis, and the defense-industrial-base revival he pledged here are the commitments his record as Secretary — now styled Secretary of War — is measured against on this site, and the contested character of the hearing itself is part of that record, carried here with its criticism attributed.

Scoreboard watch

This is a candidate item for the weekly scoreboard: Hegseth’s January 14, 2025 confirmation commitments — restoring the warrior ethos, reestablishing trust amid recruiting, retention and readiness crises, and reviving the defense industrial base with acquisition reform — each as stated at the hearing, to be checked against his conduct in office.

Sources: Senate Armed Services Committee, confirmation hearing on the nomination of Pete Hegseth to be Secretary of Defense, January 14, 2025 (full hearing as carried by C-SPAN, embedded above); Associated Press, January 14, 2025, on the hearing; Ballotpedia News, January 15, 2025. All figures and characterizations as stated by Mr. Hegseth and committee members at the hearing; transcript reviewed in the site’s private research store.