Starting Tuesday, Hegseth (pictured above) will appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee to begin his confirmation hearings. Three sources have already told the media that Senate Majority Leader John Thune (below, right) has privately told Trump that he believes Hegseth will have the votes for confirmation. 
New Sen. Jim Banks (R-Indiana) told Fox News he expects Democrats to attempt to delay Hegseth’s hearings.
In response, Banks wrote a letter to Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi), urging Wicker to ignore their pleas.
"As you are aware, senators who are going to oppose the Hegseth nomination no matter what are seeking to delay and deny President Trump his Secretary of Defense being confirmed quickly. If they are successful, this will harm America’s national security during the crucial transition of power later this month," he wrote to Wicker on Wednesday.
An outsider's eye needed
Brigitte Gabriel is founder and president of ACT for America, and author of "Rise: In Defense of Judeo-Christian Values and Freedom."
"Yes, not everybody is perfect. Pete Hegseth has a record, Pete Hegseth has something in his background. But if President Trump chose him to basically head that department, we need to confirm him -- and maybe it is good that he is not a part of the deep inside the Pentagon echelon."
So Gabriel says that is why they need an outsider to shake things up.
"The Pentagon had become so political and so DEI and so brainwashed that we need somebody from the outside who comes in and says ‘Okay, I'm going to change this, I'm going to change this, I'm going to change this, and this is what needs to be done.'"
