{"id":2518498,"date":"2025-12-07T12:06:01","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T17:06:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/gop-senator-cant-answer-whether-he-would-confirm-hegseth-today\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T12:07:53","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T17:07:53","slug":"gop-senator-cant-answer-whether-he-would-confirm-hegseth-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/gop-senator-cant-answer-whether-he-would-confirm-hegseth-today\/","title":{"rendered":"GOP senator &#8216;can&#8217;t answer&#8217; whether he would confirm Hegseth today"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fgop-senator-cant-answer-whether-he-would-confirm-hegseth-today%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2518498&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Senator john Curtis (R-UT) declined to say whether he would vote to confirm Pete Hegseth again as Secretary of Defense during an interview on CNN&#8217;s *State of the Union*. When asked by anchor Dana Bash if he would make the same <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\" >confirmation vote today<\/a>, Curtis replied that he needed more thoughtful research before answering. This follows a Senate briefing on a controversial follow-up military strike targeting survivors of an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/studios-to-wait-out-hollywood-strike-until-writers-are-losing-their-apartments\/\" title=\"Studios to hold off during Hollywood ... until writers face housing crisis.\">initial strike<\/a> on a Venezuelan vessel accused of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/white-house-releases-list-of-president-trumps-accomplishments-and-it-is-historic\/\" title=\"White House Releases List of President ...\u2019s Accomplishments \u2013  And It Is Historic!\">drug trafficking<\/a>. Curtis, who is not on the Armed Services or Intelligence Committees, expressed cautiousness about the media&#8217;s portrayal of the Department of war and emphasized the importance of Congressional oversight to get accurate facts.Hegseth&#8217;s original confirmation was decided by a 50-50 Senate tie,broken by Vice President JD Vance. Additionally, Curtis is part of a republican group opposing Trump&#8217;s nominee for ambassador to Kuwait.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<p><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><\/p>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-button\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-icon td-icon-mobile\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-header-search-button-mob dropdown-toggle\" data-toggle=\"dropdown\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-search-icon td-icon-search\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-button\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-icon td-icon-mobile\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<div class=\"tdb-drop-down-search\" aria-labelledby=\"td-header-search-button\">\n<div class=\"tdb-drop-down-search-inner\">\n<form method=\"get\" class=\"tdb-search-form\" action=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/\"><\/form>\n<div class=\"tdb-aj-search\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/#\" role=\"button\" aria-label=\"Search\" class=\"tdb-head-search-btn dropdown-toggle\" data-toggle=\"dropdown\"><i class=\"tdb-search-icon td-icon-search\"><\/i><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<h1 class=\"tdb-title-text\">GOP senator &lsquo;can&rsquo;t <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/rnc-day-4-hulkamania-takes-over-republican-national-convention-washington-examiner\/\" title=\"RNC Day 4: Hulkamania takes over Republican National Convention - Washington Examiner\">answer&#038;rsquo<\/a>; whether he would confirm Hegseth today<\/h1>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-title-line\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<div id=\"Brid_2423747\" class=\"tpd-featured-video bridtv\"><\/div>\n<p>Sen. John Curtis (R-UT) refused to answer whether he would vote to confirm <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/policy\/defense\/3909744\/hegseth-doesnt-rule-out-using-signal-again\/\">Pete Hegseth<\/a> as secretary of war when asked Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>CNN anchor Dana Bash posed the question to the freshman Utah senator on <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/grabien.com\/profile?id=120901\"><em>State of the Union<\/em><\/a><em>. <\/em>Bash&rsquo;s question comes on the heels of a Senate briefing regarding a <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/policy\/defense\/3907408\/congress-split-briefing-mitch-bradley-notorious-boat-strike\/\">follow-up strike that targeted the survivors of an initial strike on a Venezuelan vessel<\/a> accused of trafficking drugs.<\/p>\n<div class=\"recommended-stories\">\n<h2>Recommended Stories<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/senate\/3908769\/gop-stands-firm-blue-slip-battle-trump-despite-prosecutor-setbacks\/\">GOP stands firm in &#8216;blue slip&#8217; battle with Trump despite prosecutor setbacks<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/senate\/3907870\/ivf-china-housing-congress-ndaa-bill-holdups\/\">IVF, China, and housing: Congress works through final <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/breaking-kyle-rittenhouse-finally-released-on-2-million-cash-bond\/\" title=\"BREAKING: Kyle Rittenhouse FINALLY Released on  Million Cash Bond\">defense<\/a> bill holdups<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/senate\/3907923\/senate-confirm-10-trump-nominees-snafu-democrats\/\">Trump scores 10 extra nominees after snafu with Senate Democrats<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-paywall\">\n<p>&ldquo;If you were to take the confirmation vote again today, would you vote to make Pete Hegseth defense secretary?&rdquo; Bash said.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/policy\/defense\/3901783\/hegseth-slams-biden-approach-to-narco-terrorism-drug-boat-strikes\/\">HEGSETH SLAMS BIDEN&rsquo;S &lsquo;KID GLOVES APPROACH&rsquo; TO NARCO-TERRORISM IN DEFENSE OF DRUG BOAT STRIKES<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a question I can&lsquo;t answer without as much thoughtful research as I did the first time I did that vote,&rdquo; Curtis said.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Now you have evidence, not research,&rdquo; Bash said.<\/p>\n<p>Curtis is not a member of either the Senate Armed Services Committee or the Intelligence Committee, which were briefed behind closed doors by Adm. Mitch Bradley last week. Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton (R-AR) <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SenTomCotton\/status\/1996692334780747834?s=20\">defended the action<\/a> as &ldquo;righteous strikes.&rdquo; According to Curtis, the media spin on the Department of War is not always accurate to &ldquo;the reality.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Yeah, but you know what the reality of it is. If you go on what&rsquo;s in the newspapers, it&rsquo;s near impossible to know exactly what&lsquo;s going on,&rdquo; Curtis said. &ldquo;But I will tell you, I am pleased with Congress&rsquo;s role of oversight. I think we&lsquo;re doing a really good job of demanding answers and getting answers.&rdquo;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;And if you go back to his confirmation, that&rsquo;s what I tried really, really hard to do is separate out what we&lsquo;re hearing. Let&lsquo;s get to the real facts and let&lsquo;s make a good decision,&rdquo; Curtis added.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-media-max-width=\"560\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">BASH: &#8220;If you were to take the confirmation vote again today, would you vote to make Pete Hegseth Defense Secretary?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>CURTIS: &#8220;That&#8217;s a question I can&#8217;t answer without as much thoughtful research as I did the first time I did that vote.&#8221; <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/zIr7RuSmC0\">pic.twitter.com\/zIr7RuSmC0<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CNNSOTU\/status\/1997676153239109749?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 7, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/cdn-cgi\/scripts\/5c5dd728\/cloudflare-static\/email-decode.min.js\"><\/script><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>    <\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/in_focus\/3909566\/anti-trump-democrats-appear-to-take-the-side-of-narco-terrorists\/\"><strong>ANTI-TRUMP DEMOCRATS APPEAR TO TAKE THE SIDE OF NARCO-TERRORISTS<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Hegseth&rsquo;s confirmation vote came down to a 50\/50 tie when Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and Susan Collins (R-ME) voted against Hegseth. Vice President JD Vance became the tiebreaker to appoint Hegseth to Trump&rsquo;s Cabinet.<\/p>\n<p>Curtis is among a <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/senate\/3866514\/senate-gop-sink-trump-ambassador-kuwait-amer-ghalib-antisemitism\/\">Republican coalition currently opposing<\/a> Trump&rsquo;s nominee for Kuwait ambassador, Amer Ghalib. The Utah senator is joined by Sens. Dave McCormick (R-PA), John Cornyn (R-TX), and Ted Cruz (R-TX) of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>GOP senator won&#8217;t say if he&#8217;d confirm Hegseth today<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2631,"featured_media":2518499,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/curtis-hegseth-e1765122884142.jpg?1765104909&amp;w=696","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33651],"tags":[38002,68388,36160,32085,48508],"class_list":["post-2518498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-western-journal","tag-gop-senator","tag-hegseth-confirmation","tag-political-controversy","tag-republican-party","tag-senate-hearing"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/curtis-hegseth-e1765122884142.jpg?1765104909&amp;w=696","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2518498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2631"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2518498"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2518498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2518502,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2518498\/revisions\/2518502"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2518499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2518498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2518498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2518498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}