|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Tillis (Tillis.Senate.gov), Hegseth (@DeptofDefense | X)
By Alan Wooten for The Center Square
Pete Hegseth’s confirmation vote from the Senate on Friday night, in a tie broken by Vice President J.D. Vance, was helped by a North Carolina Republican senator and a one-on-one meeting between the two.
Sen. Thom Tillis said he got answers he needed from President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Pentagon, leaving Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska as the lone members of the party breaking ranks to vote with the 45 Democrats and two independents. That Tillis might vote nay was subject of multiple published reports on Friday prior to the vote.
In a statement prior to the vote, Tillis said, “From the beginning, I have been clear about my position: if President Trump’s nominees were reported favorably out of the relevant committees, I would support their confirmation on the Senate floor absent new material information about their qualifications.”
Still, the second-term senior senator of the state, said he did his due diligence once the Armed Services Committee advanced Hegseth. He said his questions were tough and the nominee answered with “candor and openness.”
“Pete has a unique perspective as a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and is unquestionably passionate about modernizing our military and supporting the brave patriots like himself who serve our nation,” Tillis said in his statement. “I will support his confirmation and look forward to working with him to rebuild our military and advance President Trump’s peace through strength agenda.”
All 45 Democrats and the two independents, Sens. Angus King of Maine and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, caucusing with them opposed the nomination.
“We just heard that we have a great secretary of Defense,” Trump said from California just before boarding Air Force One after the vote. “We’re very happy about that, and we appreciate everybody’s vote.”
Hegseth, 44, was sworn in on Saturday by Vance. He’s a graduate of Princeton, was commissioned as an infantry officer in the Army National Guard, and was on active-duty assignments in Guantanamo Bay, Iraq and Afghanistan.
The components of the U.S. Department of Defense are the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, Coast Guard, National Guard and Combatant Commands.
His first message Saturday was to those he leads. He told them, “We will put America first, and we will never back down. The president gave us a clear mission: achieve peace through strength. We will do this in three ways – by restoring the warrior ethos, rebuilding our military and reestablishing deterrence.”
Budd posted a photo with Hegseth on social media after the vote Friday night.
He wrote, “I look forward to working with him to make sure our military men and women have the resources they need to remain the most lethal fighting force in the world.”
Discover more from Vermont Daily Chronicle
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Categories: Congress, National News
Yes, two of Vermont’s DC three stooges, I hope no one was expecting anything else from these two, I watched the hearings, and these two are pathetic Sanders can’t talk without his hands moving, and Welch looks like a deer in the headlights….. Pathetic.
We deserve better, the only one worse than these two was Mazie Hirono !!!
absolutely agree
Lets take a note from there playbook, they voted no despite the fact that most Vermonters wanted him confirmed!
Welch and Sanders not voting yes was no surprise. Socialist will never vote for freedom, unless they can control it’s outcome.
Welch is up here in Franklin County trying to save the people from the tariffs.
No he’s there for a photo op n nothing else
One minor error in the article. For legal reasons, the USCG is not a part of DOD under normal circumstances, although they can operate under various Navy Commands. For instance the various units forward deployed to the Persian Gulf region operate under the 5th Fleet although they remain USCG units. In times of a declared war, they can and often do operate as a part of the Navy, though like Marines, they retain their identity. For example, my dad served on a Navy LST in the Pacific in WWII. They were frequently accompanied by a USCG crewed LST in their travels. His observations of how the two services operated their ships and treated the crew played a big role in my decision to join the USCG rather than the Navy in 1972.
Sanders? Welch? Trump is making commiecrats like them irreverent. It’s the commiecrats in sheep’s clothing like Collins and Murkowski we have to worry about.
Welch was too busy distracted about his tech stocks – some got wind American tech being 30% over valued, all thinking that China couldn’t replicate AI when they had an open door into our computers, phones, apps, government, and infrastructure for years. Duh!
It’s consistent, is it not, that Peter Welch and Bernie Sanders persist in believing they are more qualified to assess the qualifications of Trump’s appointees than Trump is. What stellar appointments have they made lately? Did Peter Welch have any say in the appointment of his wife, Margaret Cheney, to Vermont’s PUC, where she ‘regulated’ companies that contributed to his political campaigns? Did Bernie appoint his wife, Jane, to be his chief of staff, or pressure a bank to lend her money when she was President of Burlington College, or appoint her to other positions that directed public money to her?
So, now Sanders and Welch are claiming RFK Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, and Kash Patel aren’t qualified? Qualified to do what? Deceive the public and pocket their money?
Sanders appointed his wife to run his media campaign and in so doing they reaped 15% buy backs of all the campaign money spent buying media advertising. All these criminals operate under the radar to fatten their bank accounts and the voters are too stupid to see it. Welch was pathetic in the hearings sitting their like the grumpy old man he is. He and Sanders both in their 80s and neither one of them have done anything for America. Vermonters should be ashamed to have them on national TV representing Vermont. Instead of enjoying the last years of their lives they would rather stay in the government to get their last dollar before they expire. They are both as worthless as tits on a bull but think highly of themselves while doing nothing for America or Vermont other than being a rubber stamp for the democrats.
We in Vermont should have “Deployed Malloy”. He would have made the better choice than the two hippie Senators we are stuck with.
Deploy Malloy sign is still on my wood pile.
No surprise, they both and balint are bought and paid for
Just two of the three Stooges 🤡 🥸
Nothing new here!!