Vice President J.D. Vance cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate on Friday night to confirm Pete Hegseth as President Trump's Secretary of Defense. This marks only the second time in U.S. history that a vice president's vote was required to confirm a Cabinet official.
VP Vance cast the 51-50 tie-breaking vote to confirm Hegseth late Friday night after three Republicans, Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Susan Collins (Maine), and Mitch McConnell (Kentucky), joined Democrats and independents in opposing the Princeton- and Harvard-educated former combat veteran and former Fox News host.
"I thought I was done voting in the Senate," the vice president wrote on X.
On Truth Social, President Trump congratulated Hegseth shortly after his confirmation: "Congratulations to Pete Hegseth. He will make a great Secretary of Defense!"
There has been a lot of controversy surrounding Hegseth's nomination and attempts by the Deep State to derail it:
Why the pushback? Hegseth has expressed an urgent need to restore lethality to a military he described as "woke" due to toxic diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. He has pledged to reinstate meritocracy in the armed forces, arguing that Marxist-inspired DEI initiatives are undermining national security.
He has recently criticized woke senior Pentagon leaders and the Deep State on the Shawn Ryan Show: "First of all, you got to fire the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Any general that was involved, general, admiral, whatever, that was involved in any of the DEI woke s*** has got to go."
Hegseth's confirmation paves the way for his planned elimination of Marxist-inspired DEI initiatives in the military. This is all part of a broader strategy by Trump:
The great purge has begun:
There is no need for Marxist DEI leadership to undermine the nation at a time when the world has dangerously crept closer and closer to the next major conflict. Russia and China aren't undermining their militaries with wokeism.
Next week, senators will face Trump's other Cabinet nominations, including Kash Patel for FBI head, Tulsi Gabbard for Office of National Intelligence, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Health and Human Services.