Dave McCormick helps give Republicans 51 votes to confirm Pete Hegseth

The impact of Sen. Dave McCormick’s victory in last year’s Senate race was on display late Friday as the freshman Republican cast a key vote to confirm one of President Donald Trump’s most controversial cabinet picks.

The Senate voted 50-50 Friday on the nomination of former Fox News host Pete Hegseth, Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense. Vice President JD Vance cast a tiebreaking vote to give Hegseth the 51 needed for confirmation.

McCormick’s vote helped his party overcome defections from Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the party’s former Senate leader, and moderate GOP Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine.

Without the Pennsylvania freshman’s vote in favor of Hegseth, the nomination would have failed. It’s a vote Republicans would not have had if McCormick had not defeated longtime Democratic Sen. Bob Casey in the race for Pennsylvania’s crucial Senate seat.

“President Trump needs his team of disrupters on day one to deliver on the promise of change to the people of Pennsylvania and America,” McCormick said in a statement Thursday evening, noting he had met with Hegseth and reviewed his testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“A fellow combat veteran, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, Pete has put his life on the line to defend America,” said McCormick, an Army veteran. “I trust he will put the men and women who are the warfighters first.­­­­­ H­e and President Trump can build a team to­ transform one of the most complex and critical organizations in the world and restore peace through strength.”

In a pool of unconventional cabinet nominees, the selection of Hegseth has been the most contentious. In a hearing last week, he was grilled by senators about excessive drinking, extramarital affairs, and allegations of a 2017 sexual assault, which he has denied.

Every Democrat voted against advancing Hegseth’s nomination — including Sen. John Fetterman (D., Pa.), who had met with the former Fox News host and signaled an openness to backing him.

Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) said Thursday as the vote was nearing that Hegseth was an “erratic” person unsuited to lead the “world’s greatest military.”

“Advancing a secretary of defense is one of the most important votes senators are going to take all year,” Schumer said. “… Is this man, with a known history of excessive drinking, the guy you want at the other end of the phone at 2 a.m. in a crisis in control of the nuclear codes?”

It was the first confirmation battle of Trump’s second administration with such a stark partisan divide, which made McConnell’s vote against Hegseth that much more dramatic.

McConnell had voted in favor of advancing Hegseth’s nomination Thursday to set up the final vote, but he ultimately opposed the nomination. He said in a detailed statement that Hegseth had “failed, as yet, to demonstrate” that he was ready to manage the military’s nearly 3 million personnel and nearly $1 trillion budget.

“But as he assumes office, the consequences of failure are as high as they have ever been,” said McConnell, a former longtime Republican Senate leader who has had a tense relationship with Trump for several years.

“The United States faces coordinated aggression from adversaries bent on shattering the order underpinning American security and prosperity. In public comments and testimony before the Armed Services Committee, Mr. Hegseth did not reckon with this reality.”

Collins and Murkowski, the two moderate Republicans who voted no, also issued lengthy statements outlining their concerns.

McCormick, an Army veteran, had not publicly said how he would vote but told a Harrisburg TV station that he admired Hegseth’s service in the National Guard and agreed with the idea that the military is “too woke.”

McCormick told abc27 he thought women should be serve on the front lines of war “as long as they meet the standard that’s necessary for combat roles, like a man.”

Hegseth had repeatedly said he thought the military had lowered its standards when it started opening all combat positions to women in 2015, a claim that he has failed to back up with evidence and one that advocates for women in the armed forces have rejected.

Politically, it was likely the first of many narrow votes for the GOP in the Senate, where the party has a six-vote majority.

McCormick beat Casey in battleground Pennsylvania by less than 1%. That narrow victory could signal more narrow legislative advancements for Republicans. McCormick ran a more moderate campaign than he did in his 2022 Senate primary, but he also campaigned closely with Trump and visited with him at Mar-a-Lago and at the Army-Navy game.

While Hegseth denied a 2017 assault allegation, he did acknowledge paying the woman a $50,000 settlement, a figure that came out on Thursday. He was in the process of a divorce at the time after having a child with a Fox News producer who became his current wife, according to court records.

More allegations surfaced this week as senators vetting Hegseth received an affidavit from a former sister-in-law alleging that the onetime Fox News host was abusive to his second wife, to the point where she feared for her safety.

The affidavit describes Hegseth’s treatment of his second wife, Samantha, and alleges repeated drunkenness and a domestic situation where Samantha Hegseth had a safe word to indicate if she was in danger at home.

Hegseth has denied the allegations. Samantha Hegseth and Pete Hegseth both signed a Minnesota court document in 2021 during their divorce saying neither claimed to be a victim of domestic abuse.

Fetterman was the only Democrat to vote for advancing Hegseth in an earlier procedural vote, but he voted with the rest of his party in opposing confirmation.

The Pennsylvania Democrat has been his party’s most vocal supporter of some of Trump’s nominees. Fetterman, who visited Trump in Mar-a-Lago earlier this month, has been unapologetic about meeting with the Republican president’s nominees.

“I’m not sure why it would be controversial to anybody if he’s the individual who could potentially be the next secretary of defense,” Fetterman said of his decision to meet with Hegseth in December.

This article contains information from the Associated Press.