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00:00On Tuesday, Donald Trump's nominee for defence secretary faced the Senate committee tasked
00:05with validating his appointment.
00:07He was cheered into the room by supporters, but when he sat down, Pete Hegseth took quite
00:12a kicking over his advocacy in favour of practices classed as torture and championing convicted
00:18war criminals, as well as his alleged financial mismanagement and personal misconduct at the
00:24helm of two veterans advocacy groups.
00:27Mr. Hegstead, you are the ninth nominee for secretary of defence that I have had the honour
00:30to consider as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
00:34I have voted in favour of all your predecessors, including those in the first Trump administration.
00:39Unfortunately, you lack the character and composure and competence to hold the position
00:44of secretary of defence.
00:48When called upon to make his case to the committee, the Iraq war veteran and former Fox News presenter
00:53suggested the Pentagon under Joe Biden had fallen into decay.
00:59As I've said to many of you in private meetings, when President Trump chose me for this position,
01:03the primary charge he gave me was to bring the warrior culture back to the Department
01:08of Defence.
01:09He, like me, wants a Pentagon laser focused on lethality, meritocracy, war fighting, accountability
01:19and readiness.
01:21His call for meritocracy, a rallying cry against the diversity initiatives he says have weakened
01:27the US military.
01:28He has even gone so far as to say women should not take part in combat and faced allegations
01:33of sexual assault, a record not lost on democratic lawmakers or on hecklers at his hearing.
01:44In recent months, he has also been plagued with news reports that he was regularly drunk
01:48while appearing on Fox & Friends, a Fox News show that Donald Trump regularly phoned into.
01:54The Democrats on their own will be unable to prevent Hegseth's appointment without some
01:58Republican senators breaking ranks to oppose him.
02:02Other contentious nominees to face Senate hearings in the coming weeks include anti-vaxxer Robert
02:06F. Kennedy Jr. for Health Secretary and Tulsi Gabbard, Trump's pick for Director of National
02:11Intelligence who will face questions over her 2017 meeting with deposed Syrian dictator
02:17Bashar al-Assad.