Hagerty: The public doesn’t care who does Hegseth’s background check

Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., a prominent ally of Donald Trump, said voters don’t care who conducts background checks into the president-elect’s Cabinet picks and that Trump would fire members of his administration who don’t follow the policy he sets out.

In an interview with “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl, Hagerty lambasted the records of some of President Joe Biden’s Cabinet members and insisted that Trump will command compliance from top members of his upcoming administration.

Name-checking Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin for the bloody withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, Hagerty said, “They’ve not been held to account.”

“President Trump will fire people that don’t do their job well. I fully expect everybody coming into the Cabinet will listen to President Trump. They’ll let him set the policy, and they’ll execute according to that plan.”

Trump has moved at a rapid pace to flesh out his Cabinet, including picking Fox News host and Army veteran Pete Hegseth to lead the Pentagon, former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii to be director of national intelligence and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

Trump also tapped former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to head the Justice Department after former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., withdrew from consideration amid a tumultuous sexual misconduct investigation in the House Ethics Committee.

Hagerty said Trump hopes to have his Cabinet nominees swiftly confirmed, telling Karl that Trump “clearly expects to hit the ground running” and “wants us to have these hearings done quickly and expeditiously.”

However, others besides Gaetz have been hit with scandal.

Kennedy has been a prominent vaccine skeptic and supported abortion access, riling anti-abortion groups allied with Trump. Gabbard has blamed the U.S. and NATO for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and met with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. And Hegseth is mired in a sexual misconduct controversy over payments to a woman who alleges he assaulted her at a conference.

With Gaetz out of the running, the spotlight has mostly shifted to Hegseth, who has also ruffled feathers by saying that he doesn’t agree that women should serve in combat roles in the military.

Hagerty praised Hegseth and insisted that the Trump transition team has thoroughly vetted all of its candidates — but that he isn’t concerned with who does a formal background check on them before the confirmation process formally begins.

“Don’t let these allegations distract us. What we need is real significant change. The Pentagon has been more focused on pronouns than they have lethality the past four years. We need to get back to business, and I think Pete is just the person to do it,” Hagerty said.

“The transition team has been working for months to prepare for this. I’m certain that there was significant vetting that has taken place, it has for every candidate,” Hagerty added.

FBI background checks have been standard practice for nominees requiring Senate confirmation, but the Trump transition team has yet to sign the necessary agreements to allow such screenings to occur.

However, while some Republican senators have said they’d like to see an FBI background check done on Hegseth, Hagerty said, “I don’t think the American public cares who does the background checks. What the American public cares about is to see the mandate that they voted in delivered upon.”

Hagerty also said that he supports the use of recess appointments — allowing Trump to temporarily put Cabinet picks in office while Congress is out of session — though he did demur when pressed by Karl over whether Trump would do so if the person lacked sufficient Republican support to be confirmed in the Senate.

“I haven’t spoken with President Trump about the specific plans. What he wants to do is see these appointments made quickly. He wants to see us get through the confirmation process. And again, I think everything should be on the table,” he said.

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