Joni Ernst says she will vote to confirm Pete Hegseth

Sen. Joni Ernst, Republican of Iowa, announced Tuesday on a local radio show that she would vote to confirm Pete Hegseth as the next defense secretary, ending weeks of speculation about her break with the President-elect Donald J. Trump. his choice.

“I will support President Trump’s choice for Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth,” Ms. Ernst said on WHO News Radio 1040, a station in Des Moines.

His decision significantly increases the likelihood that Mr. Hegseth will receive enough votes to be confirmed by the Senate. With Democrats expected to oppose him en masse, Mr. Hegseth can afford to lose no more than three Republican votes. After Ms. Ernst’s announcement, only a handful of Republican senators’ votes could be at stake; Senators Susan Collins of Maine, John Curtis of Utah, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Todd Young of Indiana have not yet announced their votes.

Ms. Ernst was seen as a potentially decisive vote for Mr. Hegseth, whose candidacy has been complicated by allegations of sexual assault, public drunkenness and corporate mismanagement. Ms. Ernst, a sexual assault survivor and the Senate’s first female veteran, actively campaigned to expand opportunities for female service members and was a leading voice in the Republican Party for changes in the way the army handles sexual assault cases.

But it became clear during Mr. Hegseth’s confirmation hearing on Tuesday that, despite her initial reservations about Mr. Hegseth’s candidacy, Ms. Ernst had come to embrace the idea of ​​him leading the Pentagon. Although Ms Ernst said at the start of her questioning that she was someone who “wouldn’t make any effort”, she did not challenge Mr Hegseth – and at one point even tried to refute allegations that he allegedly mismanaged the veterans nonprofits he led. .

Ms. Ernst’s subsequent announcement that she would vote to confirm Mr. Hegseth completed a development that had been underway for weeks, amid a concerted pressure campaign to support his candidacy.