mr. hicks, welcome. >> thank you. >> i am focused on your fitness to serve, including your character and temperament and your overall qualifications to do the job. and i do appreciate the comments of ranking member reid with his concerns regarding your nomination, because i share those concerns as part of my responsibility as a member of this committee to ensure the fitness of all nominees to come before any of the committees on which i sit, i ask the following two initial questions. first, since you became a legal adult, have you ever made unwanted requests for sexual favors or committed any verbal or physical harassment or assault of a sexual nature? >> no. senator. >> have you ever faced discipline or entered into a settlement relating to this kind of conduct? >> senator? i was falsely accused in october of 2017. it was fully investigated and i was completely cleared. >> i don't think completely cleared is accurate, but my the fact is that your own lawyer said that you entered into an nda an

mr. hickse members who have been convicted of war crimes. you have championed the pardoning of military members who were turned in by their fellow soldiers and seals. and let me emphasize that they weren't discovered by reporters. they were turned in by fellow soldiers and fellow seals, and also pardoning of military contractors convicted of killing 14 iraqi citizens without cause. you have also advocated for the restitution of interrogation methods like waterboarding that have been defined as torture, and you have belittled the advice and counsel of the judge advocate general while on deployment. in your book, the war on warriors, you write, quote, should we follow the geneva convention? if our warriors are forced to follow rules arbitrarily and asked to sacrifice more lives so that international tribunals feel better about themselves, aren't we just better off in winning our wars according to our own rules? mr. hegseth, i would ask that you explain how you, if confirmed, would maintain good o

iraqis and mr. hicks in a unanimous consent to introduce these letters and puppets. without objection can also order. >> you been very patient. >> ninety-four soldiers in combat and would like to meet a statement of the nomination for selfless leadership in love in our country. >> without objection, it will be entereder. >> i'm going to ask you questions because i want to hear your answers. how many genders are there? >> there are genders. >> i am on board. [laughter]r] >> what is the diameter? >> 556. >> how many push-ups can you do? >> i did five sets of 47 this morning. >> what you think the most important thing is specific? >> juan is pretty strategically significant. >> company rounds can you fit into a magazinee? >> it depends on the magazine the standard is 30. >> what size round does the m9 standard require tax. >> 9 millimeters. >> what battery to put in your life? >> duracell? [laughter] right there you are representing publications the show you understand what they deal with everyday in the battlefield and understand what happens on the front line where tr

mr. hicks, you and your family have endured criticism of your nomination since it was announced in november. let's get into this allegation about sexual assault, inappropriate workplace behavior, alcohol abuse and financial mismanagement during your time as a nonprofit executive. i should note that the majority of these have come from anonymous sources in liberal media publications. but i want to give you an opportunity to respond to these allegations, sir. >> mr. chairman, thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for that opportunity. you are correct. we undertook this responsibility with an obligation to the troops to do right by them for our warfighters. and what became very evident to us from the beginning, there was a coordinated smear campaign orchestrated in the media against us that was clear from moment one. and what we knew is that it wasn't about me. most of it was about president donald trump, who's had to endure the very same thing for much longer amounts of time. and he endured it incre

given its reach within the within the society, i think the i wouldn't call it a danger in terms of mr. hicks>> i actually think that's the hope that if he were to get defense in a funny sort of way, the uniformed military and the civilians in the department, the office of the secretary of defense would be a constraint. so i'm actually less worried about that. i'm more worried about the ability of someone to to weaponize the justice department. >> all right. >> we're going to have to leave it there. thank you both. this is really good. next on gps. former president jimmy carter's funeral will be held thursday in washington. i spoke to his chief speechwriter when he was president, james fallows, about his legacy. >> kobe believed in himself at the youngest possible age. >> people who may never even know what a basketball looks like felt his presence. >> he wants the opportunity to make his own mistakes. he's going to end up making them. >> that's when the black mamba was born. >> it's one of the most remarkable stories in sports history. >> i don't want to be remembered as just a basketball pl

in her sworn affidavit, mr. hickss sister in law says she made the same claims of abuse and drunken menace to an fbi agent last month as part of mr. hegseth s background check, the trump transition team briefed the top two senators on the armed forces, on the armed services committee, on the contents of that background check. but two sources with knowledge of the briefing tell nbc news that these allegations from the sister in law weren't brought up, even though the sister in law conveyed these things to the fbi. and the trump transition was supposed to brief senators on what the fbi knew, they didn't mention any of these claims that are now detailed in this affidavit that has been given to the senate committee directly. none of this, neither the content nor the process, is helping pete hegseth s nomination to be secretary of defense. one close source to the armed services committee says more than 20 senators have now seen the full, unredacted affidavit from the sister in law as of this afternoon. also this afternoon,

of the concerns you mentioned, that so many of the concerns and so much of the discussion around mr. hicks confirmation process was about his character and his personal behavior. some of it was also about his controversial statements about about women and about his fellow soldiers, and about the kind of house cleaning that he wanted to do at the pentagon. but the other level of concern about him is that he's never run any large organization of any kind. and there were serious allegations about serious financial and other forms of mismanagement at the two small veterans, sort of pro-iraq war veterans groups that he was involved in before going to fox news, where he's a weekend co-host. if this is too big a job for him. and honestly, being secretary of defense is probably too big a job for everybody on earth. it's just such a massive organization. it's so complex and the needs are so pressing and so interconnected, and it's 3 million people to start. it's the largest organization, almost of any kind on earth, nuclear armed, the whole rest of it. if this is too much for him, if this if this i

given its reach within the within the society, i think the i wouldn't call it a danger in terms of mr. hicks. >> i actually think that's the hope that if he were to get defense in a funny sort of way, the uniformed military and the civilians in the department, the office of the secretary of defense would be a constraint. so i'm actually less worried about that. i'm more worried about the ability of someone to to weaponize the justice department. >> all right. we're going to have to leave it there. thank you both. this is really good. next on gps. former president jimmy carter's funeral will be held thursday in washington. i spoke to his chief speechwriter when he was president, james fallows, about his legacy. >> the whole story with anderson cooper is a five time emmy winner for long form journalism this week. kyung lah on k-pop. the whole story with anderson cooper tonight at eight on cnn. >> coming january 2025. founded by the stars of women's basketball, a new style of three on three. six clubs. more action, more access, unrivaled. coming january 17th. >> i decided to go with roper glp o

should have been made available, i think, to everybody on the committee, especially when you consider mr. hicksissues and that information, it would make sense that that would have been included in an fbi background check. but like senator reid said, it was not. >> and one more question about a washington post report today that nbc news has not independently confirmed that tulsi gabbard has a meeting with former syrian leader bashar al assad when he was in power that lasted as long as three hours, and that it was not reported that way back, you know, through officials, because her house staff got her to cover it up or they covered it up. and in some way, it was reported as a much shorter meeting. any meeting, some say, was inappropriate without proper authorization. >> well, i discussed congresswoman gabbard's trip to syria, specifically about what she learned when she was there and in cases of assad using chemical weapons against his population. i was unaware of the length of the meeting. this is new to me, but i will certainly look into it. and when you're trying to be as a member of congress

i think mr. hicks has had three audiences the committee, the united states senate and the american general public. i think it was a magnificent display of his knowledge and his ability to communicate, his leadership abilities. and i feel very good about this hearing today. i don't think it could have gone any better. what about the fbi background check? >> specifically complete the question. the criticism from jack reed, the criticism from jack reed that was not a complete background check that you hear from a lot of democratic senators. this was not a complete background check. what do you say to them? >> well, of course, an answer to your question. um, we followed the precedent from the committee for the last two nominations by a democratic president and a republican president. um, i don't have any complaints about the fbi investigation. they did a thorough interview of. persons at all the places where mr. hegseth has lived and worked, and i don't have any objection to the why didn't they interview t

a letter by samara are not mr. hicks is senator will. >> thank you.i do want to thank you for your service and willingness to serve as its capacity. i have concern because they are so hurtful currently serving in the literary. harmful morale. if you are saying women serving in the military, i'm going to read the quote because the quotes is also comparable. you to change how you see women to do the job well and i don't know if you're capable of that so i want to pass on these issues. you answer the question, you believe the military is able to serve without limitation? all of these circumstances active duty members and currently in trade. members of military serving but degrade them and say but not in the military so center cotton you differentiate -- cut. mr. murphy: are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are not. mr. murphy: thank you, mr. president. i come to the floor to join my colleagues in expressing grave lam over the choice of pete hegseth to run the department of defense. it is not hyperbole to say that we have never seen a candid

hicks. secretary, want you tell what you and i and others have been talking with the defense department going and what they are prepared to do now. >> thank you, mr. president. i'm right here. i surprise you. we are very much lending of the defense department. the ports are always look for how we can support state partners inter- inter- agencies and partners in that federal sector you've already heard from. that includes every tool we believe we can leverage the causes of nurse that we could bring and be responsive that what they are coming forward with. chairman brown we also have on the screen with us the north comp commander who is our focal point for responses here secretary austin this morning out of germany already's opening remarks for the ukraine defense group spoke explicitly to our intent and efforts underway now to find a surge of support. we just want to emphasize it so important to us he is front and center even while he is concluding this important work. you mention some the efforts we already had underway. we are ready, as i said, to engage with our partners some further efforts with your permission i will turn to chairman brown. >

hicks, secretary. why don't you tell us what you and i and others have been talking about the defense department doing and what they're prepared to do now? >> thank you, mr. president. >> i'm looking right here at the screen. i know, yeah, i surprised you. yeah. >> shocking. shocking that nobody has thought she was on the television monitor. >> because as you as that clip you played earlier showed, usually when he does these briefings, everybody is in a television monitor and he's got a script in front of him that he's reading now. >> she was actually next to him and he didn't know. >> but look, confusion reigns. >> yeah, well confusion reigns. at the white house. i was struck by the clarity and faith the other night of notre dame quarterback riley leonard last night. notre dame, of course, beat penn state, won a trip to the national championship. but leonard knows who's in charge of that game and his life. watch. >> what changed offensively? >> so you guys started moving the football in the second half. >> shoot i just started trusting in the lord. >> i looked up and said, jesus, whatever your will is for my life, i trust it 100%. and i know that this,