STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
We hear about President-elect Trump's pick for defense secretary, who is fighting to save his nomination.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Pete Hegseth is defending himself against allegations of heavy drinking, mistreatment of women and the financial mismanagement of two veterans charities. The former Fox News host sat yesterday for an interview with another former host at that network, Megyn Kelly, for her show on SiriusXM. He insisted that Trump pledged his support in these words.
(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "THE MEGYN KELLY SHOW")
PETE HEGSETH: Hey, Pete, I got your back. It's a fight. They're coming after you. Get after it. I think he'll be delighted that we're talking today.
MEGYN KELLY: Yeah.
HEGSETH: And we're going to do more talking.
MARTIN: Hegseth is a veteran who wrote in books about purging woke culture from the Pentagon. Now he's the latest of Trump's nominees to run into trouble.
INSKEEP: NPR senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith is covering all of this. Tam, good morning.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Good morning.
INSKEEP: How is Hegseth defending himself when he steps out in public?
KEITH: He's saying that all of these allegations are part of a smear campaign from anonymous sources who don't like what he would do with the Defense Department. He also said he doesn't have a drinking problem, but he did promise to stop drinking if he's confirmed.
INSKEEP: OK.
KEITH: He's meeting privately with the senators who will decide his fate. And he's also doing something very unusual for a nominee. He's posting on social media, published an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal and did that Megyn Kelly interview. Even his mom sat for an interview on "Fox & Friends" yesterday to make a direct appeal to female senators, saying her son is a changed man. My colleagues on the hill are reporting that while no Republican senators have said that they are a no vote, enough have expressed reservations to potentially sink his nomination.
INSKEEP: Well, now the question is, I guess, how far Trump wants to push this fight. We heard Hegseth quote Trump as purportedly offering support in private. What's he saying in public?
KEITH: Trump hasn't said anything in public. He hasn't weighed in. But yesterday, he did announce more than a dozen other picks for administration jobs, continuing what has been just this incredibly fast pace of making these announcements. Hegseth isn't the only headache, though. Trump's pick to lead the Drug Enforcement Administration withdrew this week. And then, of course, there was Matt Gaetz for attorney general who had to withdraw because he didn't have the votes to be confirmed.
INSKEEP: How does that record compare with past presidents?
KEITH: You know, it's almost expected that at least one of a president's initial nominees will fail before getting to a Senate vote. It happened with Trump. It happened to Biden, Bush, Clinton. Obama actually had three picks withdraw. But this is really, really early for two picks to be out already. Part of the reason is Trump has bypassed some of the typical vetting procedures. Max Stier heads the Partnership for Public Service, which has long worked to improve presidential transitions.
MAX STIER: Haste makes waste. There's been some attention paid to the speed of the intended appointments, but you don't actually go fast if you don't do the necessary preparation work to make sure you're going well. And there is no prior incoming administration that has seen intended nominees blow up at the speed at which we've seen so far.
KEITH: The Trump transition only just agreed to FBI background checks earlier this week, more than a month late. Usually, this sort of vetting is done quietly before picks are named to avoid embarrassment. And this time, you have a cloud of self-inflicted chaos around the Trump transition because of the way they chose to do it.
INSKEEP: I'm interested in hearing that they've agreed to the FBI background checks. They initially seemed not interested at all, and then senators quietly said we will be hearing from nominees who have been vetted only and I guess they changed their minds.
KEITH: Yep.
INSKEEP: NPR's Tamara Keith in West Palm Beach. Thanks so much.
KEITH: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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