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Vice President JD Vance Swears In Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense, Jan. 25, 2025

January 25, 2025 · The White House · 0:10:03

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

What happened

Vice President JD Vance administered the oath of office to Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense at the White House on January 25, 2025, in a swearing-in carried by the White House. The ceremony followed the closest confirmation fight of the administration’s opening wave — the Senate’s 51–50 vote recorded in this site’s chronicle — and installed Hegseth at the head of the Pentagon, the department he would restyle under the Secretary of War title.

Why it matters

No ceremony of the first week carried more weight: the Vice President swearing in the defense chief whose confirmation had just turned on the narrowest possible margin, closing the administration’s first big Senate battle and opening the Hegseth era at the Pentagon that this site tracks.

Sources: The White House, “Vice President Vance Swears in Pete Hegseth to be Secretary of Defense” (official upload, embedded above; Washington, D.C.). Confirmation margin as recorded in this site’s chronicle.