From New York Times, I'm Michael Babarro.

This is the Daily.

On Tuesday, the confirmation process for Donald Trump's cabinet began with his most controversial choice, Pete Hegeseth for Secretary of Defense.

Today, my colleague, National Security correspondent Eric Schmidt, on the contentious and dramatic hearing

and the odds that Hegseth will soon be running the military.

It's Wednesday, January 15th.

Eric, from the moment that Pete Hegsef was nominated to run the Department of Defense,

it, as you well know, created a storm of controversy on both sides of the aisle because of the reports of his personal misconduct, because of his views on issues like whether women should be in the military, and because of his lack of traditional management experience.

Everything about him represented a major deviation from the norm of who the Secretary of Defense is, so much so

that it looked like Donald Trump might dump him as his choice, but that hasn't happened. So,

heading into this confirmation hearing, what for you were the big questions about how this very

highly anticipated day would unfold?

Well, I think you said it's just amazing how unconventional Pete HECS nomination is.

I mean, when his nomination was announced, we all kind of scratched our heads and went,

you mean the Fox News anchor, that guy?

Right.

And, you know, as it turned out, you know, he did have a record. He had run a couple of veterans groups. And then some of the allegations started seeping out about his misconduct. The Times unearthed a letter from his mother in 2018 saying he treats women terribly. His mom later said that she wrote that letter

in anger, but still, then we learned about an alleged sexual assault in 2017.

Right.

So these things are starting to pile up. And then we talked to former colleagues of his

who talk about allegations of public drunkenness.

I mean, any one of these things, you know, would have been enough to sink a nominee in another time, but not Pete Heggseth.

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