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\n

Sen. Tim Kaine said he pushed Defense Secretary-nominee Pete Hegseth about infidelity and sexual misconduct in a hearing last week because he believed it was the only way to get Republicans to consider voting against him.<\/p>\n

Speaking Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Kaine (D-Va.) said: “My observation of my Republican colleagues is the only reason they ever vote no on a nominee is either a belief of gross incompetence in terms of qualifications or serious character deficit.”<\/p>\n

As an example, Kaine cited the case of then-Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), whose chances to be President-elect Donald Trump’s attorney general were quickly scuttled by personal scandal. <\/p>\n

In Hegseth’s Senate hearing Tuesday<\/a>, Kaine asked at one point: “You acknowledge you cheated on your wife and that you cheated on the woman by whom you had just fathered a child?” <\/p>\n

The Virginia senator also raised concerns about a 2017 incident in California in which a woman accused Hegseth of sexual assault. “I know in my instance it was a false claim,” Hegseth said in response.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, Kaine said Senate Democrats had divvied up topics to address since Hegseth wouldn’t meet with them. He also said he thought the questioning was effective.<\/p>\n

“I think overall, in the hearing, we put a lot of material on the table for folks to consider,” he told host Margaret Brennan.<\/p>\n

Those questions don’t seem to created much doubt about his nomination among Senate Republicans, who have a 53-47 majority. In fact, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) endorsed Hegseth after the hearing, saying: \u201cOur next commander in chief selected Pete Hegseth to serve in this role, and after our conversations, hearing from Iowans, and doing my job as a United States senator, I will support President Trump\u2019s pick for secretary of Defense.”<\/p>\n

Regardless. Kaine still found much not to like about the nominee.<\/p>\n

“I believe he would be a very dangerous secretary of Defense,” Kaine said Sunday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sen. Tim Kaine said he pushed Defense Secretary-nominee Pete Hegseth about infidelity and sexual misconduct in a hearing last week because he believed it was the only way to get Republicans to consider voting against him. Speaking Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Kaine (D-Va.) said: “My observation of my Republican colleagues is the only […]<\/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-5113","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\/5113","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=5113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5113\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}