Pete Hegseth is set to take the hot seat before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday in a hearing that is sure to break out into fireworks. 

President-elect Donald Trump nominated Hegseth to shake up the Pentagon as his defense secretary, but the former Fox News host has been entangled in controversies that Democrats on the committee can be expected to question him about. 

‘Democrats certainly aren’t going to make this a walk in the park by any means,’ one Republican aide said. 

‘You’ll see Democrats are pretty organized, they’re thinking strategically to make sure everything is covered, and it’s not a hearing that gets overly repetitive,’ one senior Democrat aide told Fox News Digital. 

‘I don’t think it’s going to be particularly hostile, but I do think it will be very tough. It’s going to focus a lot just on what we should expect of a nominee for this job and where he falls short,’ the aide went on. ‘There are questions about the things he’s done, his character and his leadership.’ 

Hegseth will be the first of Trump’s controversial change agent picks to face questioning from lawmakers.

Republicans can be expected to play defense, framing Hegseth as a decorated combat veteran who will hold the military accountable after years of failed audits and DEI initiatives. 

With little hope of winning any Democrat votes, Hegseth will have to woo moderate Republicans who have previously expressed skepticism about his nomination. 

Democrats are expected to hammer him over his past conduct and his qualifications to lead the government’s largest agency, which employs 3 million people.

The 44-year-old Army National Guard veteran, who did tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, is relatively young and inexperienced compared to defense secretaries past, having retired as a major. But Republicans say they don’t want someone who made it to the top brass, who’s become entrenched in the Pentagon establishment. 

Hegseth is sure to face questions about a sexual assault accusation from 2017. He’s acknowledged paying his accuser an undisclosed sum to keep quiet at the time for fear of losing his job, but he denies any non-consensual sex took place.

Former employees at veterans’ groups Hegseth used to run have accused him of financial mismanagement and excessive drinking, according to a New Yorker report, and NBC News reported that his drinking ‘concerned’ colleagues at Fox News. 

Hegseth denies the accusations and said he would not drink ‘a drop of alcohol’ if confirmed to lead the Defense Department. 

The hearing, which kicks off at 9:30 a.m., will be packed with veterans who traveled to Washington, D.C., to support Hegseth in the face of attacks.

For weeks, Hegseth has been visiting Capitol Hill to meet with senators, including those who are skeptical of him. Last Wednesday, he met with the top Armed Services Committee Democrat, Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, and the meeting apparently didn’t go well. 

‘Today’s meeting did not relieve my concerns about Mr. Hegseth’s lack of qualifications and raised more questions than answers,’ Reed said in a statement.

Hegseth must first win a majority in a vote of the Armed Services Committee, made up of 14 Republicans and 13 Democrats, meaning one Republican defection could tank the vote.

He then needs to win a simple majority on the Senate floor, meaning he can afford to lose no more than three Republican votes. 

‘I think he kind of knows that all he needs is Republican votes to get from now into the job,’ said a Democrat aide. ‘His job is to just keep his head down and not say something that would create an opening for these [Republicans], many of whom I really don’t think want to vote for him, to have a reason to revisit that. So I expect that he’s going to try to say very little and say it very calmly and politely.’

In committee, all eyes will be on Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, a veteran herself who at first seemed hesitant about Hegseth. After two meetings with the nominee, Ernst said she would support him through the confirmation process and looked forward to a fair hearing. She didn’t commit to voting for him. 

Senators will also take a fine-toothed comb to Hegseth’s lengthy record of public comments on TV and across the five books he’s written. 

One such belief is that women should not fight in combat roles. 

‘Dads push us to take risks. Moms put the training wheels on our bikes. We need moms. But not in the military, especially not in combat units,’ he wrote in his most recent book, ‘The War on Warriors,’ published in 2024.

‘Men are, gasp, biologically stronger, faster and bigger. Dare I say, physically superior,’ Hegseth added.

On a Nov. 7 episode of the Shawn Ryan podcast, which aired mere days before Hegseth was tapped to serve as Defense Secretary, the nominee said, ‘I’m straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles.’

Hegseth later told Fox News in December that women are some of the U.S.’ ‘greatest warriors.’ 

‘I also want an opportunity here to clarify comments that have been misconstrued, that I somehow don’t support women in the military; some of our greatest warriors, our best warriors out there are women,’ he said.

Female service members ‘love our nation, want to defend that flag, and they do it every single day around the globe. I’m not presuming anything,’ he added.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., is unveiling a new set of bills that could have child sexual predators facing the death penalty.

‘If you are raping someone, if you’re molesting someone, you are essentially murdering their soul. Those people never actually fully recover. I’ve actually sat on a committee with a very prominent [female House Democrat] who actually talked about the fact that she was molested as a child. And so you can see that it impacts and really hurts people,’ Luna said.

Two of her three bills, all of which are being introduced in the 119th Congress on Tuesday, would require sentences of death or at least life imprisonment for those charged with a wide range of crimes related to children. 

A third bill would require guilty verdicts of rape and sexual abuse against adults to carry a mandatory minimum sentence of 30 years to life in prison.

Luna told Fox News Digital she broached the topic with President-elect Donald Trump over the weekend, who she suggested was enthusiastic about the idea.

‘I got the impression that he absolutely is supportive of anything in this sector,’ Luna said.

The Florida congresswoman was among the members of the House Freedom Caucus who met with Trump over the weekend at Mar-a-Lago. 

She said they also discussed Trump potentially signing an executive order levying the death penalty for pedophilia-related crimes but that it would likely be impossible to accomplish that way.

‘He would be willing to sign an [executive order]. But the fact is, is that it has to go through Congress first. So it would have to come to his desk that way,’ she said.

Luna first introduced the bills in the last Congress when Democrats controlled half of Congress as well as the White House. They failed to get much traction, however, and ultimately never saw a House-wide vote.

She suggested that the death penalty aspect could have put some people off of an issue that otherwise could get wide bipartisan support, but she argued that child predators ‘cannot be rehabilitated.’

‘If you are going to continue to push forward in a moral society, [then] you need to ensure that people like this, that are predators, are taken off the streets permanently,’ Luna said.

The Justice Department made public Volume I of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s final report on his now-closed investigations into President-elect Donald Trump, days before he is set to be sworn into office. 

Attorney General Merrick Garland released the first volume, which focuses on the election case against Trump, of Smith’s report on Tuesday at midnight after back-and-forth in the federal court system.

An opening letter from Smith to Garland said that it is ‘laughable’ that Trump believes the Biden administration, or other political actors, influenced or directed his decisions as a prosecutor, stating that he was guided by the Principles of Federal Prosecution.

‘Trump’s cases represented ones ‘in which the offense [was] the most flagrant, the public harm the greatest, and the proof the most certain,’’ Smith said, referencing the principles.

In the lengthy report, Smith said his office fully stands behind the decision to bring criminal charges against Trump because he ‘resorted to a series of criminal efforts to retain power’ after he lost the 2020 election.

Smith said in his conclusion that the parties were determining whether any material in the ‘superseding indictment was subject to presidential immunity’ when it became clear that Trump had won the 2024 election. The department then determined the case must be dismissed before he takes office because of how it interprets the Constitution.

‘The Department’s view that the Constitution prohibits the continued indictment and prosecution of a President is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the Government’s proof, or the merits of the prosecution, which the Office stands fully behind,’ the report stated.

In an early Tuesday morning post on Truth Social, Trump called Smith ‘desperate’ and ‘deranged’ for releasing his ‘fake findings’ in the middle of the night.

Garland appointed former Justice Department official Jack Smith as special counsel in November 2022. 

Smith, a former assistant U.S. attorney and chief to the DOJ’s public integrity section, led the investigation into Trump’s retention of classified documents after leaving the White House and whether the former president obstructed the federal government’s investigation into the matter. 

Smith was also tasked with overseeing the investigation into whether Trump or other officials and entities interfered with the peaceful transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election, including the certification of the Electoral College vote on Jan. 6, 2021. 

Smith charged Trump in both cases, but Trump pleaded not guilty.

The classified records case was dismissed in July 2024 by U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida Judge Aileen Cannon, who ruled that Smith was unlawfully appointed as special counsel. 

Smith charged Trump in the U.S. District Court for Washington D.C. in his 2020 election case, but after Trump was elected president, Smith sought to dismiss the case. Judge Tanya Chutkan granted that request. 

This month, though, Cannon temporarily blocked the release of Smith’s final report. A federal appeals court reversed her ruling, allowing the Justice Department to make Smith’s report public. 

In the classified records probe, Smith charged Trump with 37 federal counts including willful retention of national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice and false statements. Trump pleaded not guilty. 

Trump was also charged with an additional three counts as part of a superseding indictment out of the investigation: an additional count of willful retention of national defense information and two additional obstruction counts. 

In the 2020 election case, Smith charged Trump with conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; violation of an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights. Trump pleaded not guilty. 

The cases brought by Smith against Trump never made it to trial in either jurisdiction. 

Despite efforts by Trump attorneys to prevent the report’s release, Attorney General Merrick Garland had maintained that he would make at least one volume of Smith’s report public.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.