‘Clear vision’: Conservatives rally around Hegseth after ‘smashing’ fiery confirmation hearing

Reactions followed social media and elsewhere as Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth was grilled by Democrats on Capitol Hill after a tense confirmation hearing that often got personal.

“Pete Hegseth is destroying it,” former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer published on X. “It’s refreshing to hear someone relentlessly focus on warriors and lethality, without playing Washington’s word salad game of making candidates sound like social workers who run government agencies.”

“The Senate likes to claim that hearings are serious, deliberate acts of policymaking and statesmanship, but the behavior of many Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee during Pete Hegseth’s confirmation hearing Tuesday revealed the sad truth that most Senate hearings, confirmation or not, are kabuki theater,” Bradley Devlin, politics editor of The Daily Signal, told Fox News Digital.

Ned Ryun, president of ‘American Majority,’ told Fox News Digital that Hegseth handled himself “magnificently.”

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“He conveyed a clear vision for a new day at the Pentagon in which the Department of Defense leaves behind the weaknesses of vigilance and focuses on deterrence by force,” Ryun said. “And when Democrats tried to use attacks from anonymous sources to undermine Pete, he handled them with grace. It was truly a fantastic hearing for him and leaves no doubt that he will be easily confirmed.”

“They didn’t put a glove on Hegseth today,” CNN political commentator Scott Jennings published on X. “Why are Democrats sending their dumbest members to this important committee?”

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“This hearing made two things clear: 1. The Left remains fully committed to the disastrous, woke, weak and failed policies that were decisively rejected in November,” an account belonging to former HUD Secretary Ben Carson and his wife Candy published on X. “It’s sad actually. 2. Pete Hegseth will make a fantastic Secretary of Defense. This is how it’s done.”

“While Democratic senators were distracted by second-hand accusations and character assassinations, Pete Hegseth stuck to what the military is all about: lethality,” Caroline Downey, author of National Review and guest contributor to the Independent Women’s Forum, told Fox News Digital.

“As the daughter of a West Point graduate and an Army captain who served in Vietnam, I can say that those core goals are subordinated to progressive political goals,” she continued. “Military academies have surrendered to a reawakened ideology, compromising their purpose, which is to produce virtuous leaders of intellectual, mental, and physical strength who can protect and defend the United States. Despite Democratic lawmakers accusing him of abandoning veterans, Hegseth has proven that has always been devoted to their well-being, not only in words but also in deeds.”

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Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind., said after the hearing that it was important that Hegseth be confirmed “immediately” and be allowed to start as soon as possible.

“It’s important to me that he gets the job right away,” Banks told reporters.

“We can’t vote on him coming off the committee until President Trump is President Trump again. So on January 20th, the committee is going to meet and we’re going to take him off the committee … and hopefully it goes to a floor vote right away because we can’t wait,” he continued.

After the hearing, several Senate Democrats expressed their continued reluctance to support Hegseth and argued that he was not qualified.

Fox News Digital’s Morgan Phillips contributed to this report