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{"id":26763,"date":"2026-08-05T18:47:52","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T18:47:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/hegseths-choice-for-army-chief-hits-senate-snag\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T18:47:52","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T18:47:52","slug":"hegseths-choice-for-army-chief-hits-senate-snag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/hegseths-choice-for-army-chief-hits-senate-snag\/","title":{"rendered":"Hegseth\u2019s choice for Army chief hits Senate snag"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth\u2019s expected choice for Army chief of staff faces resistance that could imperil his confirmation, according to the chair of the panel that needs to approve it.<\/p>\n<p>Senate Armed Services head <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/member\/51675\" data-person-id=\"51675\">Roger Wicker<\/a> (R-Miss.) said Wednesday that he was aware of \u201csome opposition within the committee\u201d to acting Army chief of staff Gen. Christopher LaNeve taking the job on a permanent basis.<\/p>\n<p>LaNeve, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/live-updates\/2025\/10\/21\/congress\/hegseth-military-aide-army-officer-00616728\" target=\"_blank\">previously Hegseth\u2019s senior military aide<\/a>, was confirmed as Army vice chief of staff in January. But he has also served as acting chief of staff since April when Hegseth <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/04\/02\/hegseth-ousts-top-army-general-00856755\" target=\"_blank\">forced out popular Gen. Randy George<\/a>, a move that drew widespread criticism from lawmakers in both parties.<\/p>\n<p>Wicker said he was \u201cnot able to predict right now\u201d if lawmakers could address concerns about LaNeve. He did not specify whether the concerns were raised by Republicans, but GOP resistance is likely given that nominees could advance through the committee on a party-line vote.<\/p>\n<p>LaNeve has only held the position of four-star general for six months, an anomaly for the the senior most Army officer.<\/p>\n<p>The Wall Street Journal first reported <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/politics\/policy\/hegseths-pick-for-top-army-job-is-losing-gop-support-0493cf10?mod=hp_lead_pos11\" target=\"_blank\">about Republican opposition<\/a> to LaNeve, citing Sen. <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.politicopro.com\/congress\/member\/671a6123-414e-4e3a-9b28-b2f3dba987b0\" target=\"_blank\">Joni Ernst<\/a>\u2019s (R-Iowa) concerns about his lack of experience at the four-star rank.<\/p>\n<p>Ernst, in an interview, did not dispute that she was the source of the holdup. But she called it a moot point as President Donald Trump has not yet formally nominated LaNeve to the position. And she disputed reports that LaNeve\u2019s lack of experience was the sticking point.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think that time and grade has anything to do with leadership ability, so I don\u2019t know how that came about, honestly.\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s not what I\u2019ve told anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If the opposition continues, Trump could decide to leave LeNeve in the acting position indefinitely.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth\u2019s expected choice for Army chief of staff faces resistance that could imperil his confirmation, according to the chair of the panel that needs to approve it. Senate Armed Services head Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) said Wednesday that he was aware of \u201csome opposition within the committee\u201d to acting Army chief of staff [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26763\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}