Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) on Thursday, after a groundswell of support for Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth, denied she is behind a campaign on Capitol Hill to tank his nomination and seek the job herself.
“I don’t have a campaign against Pete,” she told RealClearPolitics’s White House correspondent Philip Wegmann, adding that he deserved to have a Senate confirmation hearing.
“I just want to make sure the process is able to play out and that we’re thoroughly vetting him. I do believe that Pete deserves to have a hearing. All the rumblings out there are absolutely false. My role as a senator is to make sure that we are putting to bed any rumors, any anonymous whatever,” she claimed.
She claimed that if there were allegations against the current Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, “we would have gone through that process as well.”
Ernst’s denial comes as she and close ally Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) expressed doubt about Hegseth, driving up speculation he would have to withdraw. Ernst and Graham also previously worked together to pressure Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) to drop his holds on promotions on generals due to the Biden Pentagon’s abortion policy paying for troops to travel for abortions.
But while she has denied any campaign against Hegseth, the Federalist reported she has repeatedly called Trump, nagging for him to replace Hegseth.
And Democrats close to her have been publicly promoting her to replace him.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee with Ernst, told reporters, “I’d start off with a very, very favorable inclination” to confirm her, according to the Washington Examiner’s Senate reporter, Ramsey Touchberry.
And Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), who also sits on the committee with Ernst, called her someone with “independent judgment and integrity and high degree of insight…on military and foreign affair issues.” He added, “I think she’d have significant bipartisan support.”
Even some Republican senators, such as Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND), another member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, have floated Ernst as a possibility to replace Hegseth, later backtracking as support began to build up for him.
Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD), another Senate Armed Services Committee Republican, also at first expressed reluctance over Hegseth, but has more recently struck a positive tone.
With a slim majority of 53-47 in the upcoming Congress, Hegseth can lose only three Republican senators if all Democrats vote against him and Vice President-elect Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) — a fellow veteran who strongly supports Hegseth — casts the deciding vote.
Ernst only tepidly pushed back against a rumor Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis could replace Hegseth as the nominee, saying, “I do think he would be a good candidate for this position. But as I’ve told reporters, as they ask me in the hallway, Hegseth is the nominee, and the president will determine who that nominee is.”
And she echoed Graham’s lukewarm defense of Hegseth in saying all the allegations against him have been anonymous.
“I mean, people need to really come forward if they have information,” she told the Post. “They need to be willing to put their name to it.”
On Friday, Breitbart News published an exclusive op-ed by Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird — a potential primary contender to Ernst — that called for all of Trump’s nominees to be confirmed.
The Des Moines Register — Ernst’s hometown paper — took note of the op-ed, writing:
The pressure campaign against U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst is mounting — including from some Iowa Republicans — as she has so far refused to commit to supporting Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Defense.
Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird penned a column in the conservative website Breitbart urging the Senate to confirm Trump’s cabinet nominees. Although it doesn’t call out Ernst by name, she castigates the “D.C. politicians” who “think they can ignore the voices of their constituents and entertain smears from the same outlets that have pushed out lies for years.”
“What we’re witnessing in Washington right now is a Deep State attempt to undermine the will of the people,” the newspaper quoted Bird as writing. “We must not let Washington kill nominations before the Constitutional confirmation process even begins.”
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