Politics
Pete Hegseth to Face Democratic Questioning in Confirmation Hearing
Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick to head the Pentagon, is scheduled to appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday to answer questions on a range of issues, including a sexual assault allegation, his lack of management experience and his comments against women serving in combat.
Mr. Hegseth, a former Fox News host, has a slew of commentary, opinions and allegations to explain, as Democratic lawmakers get their chance to question him about his qualifications to lead the Defense Department, an $849 billion enterprise with nearly three million employees.
Eyes will also be on Senator Joni Ernst, Republican of Iowa, who is an Army Reserve and National Guard veteran and a sexual assault survivor. Ms. Ernst received a barrage of criticism from Trump supporters last month after she said that Mr. Hegseth needed to address issues including the role of women in the military and sexual assault prevention. Her support is viewed as critical to Mr. Hegseth’s confirmation chances.
Whether Mr. Hegseth has the votes to be confirmed remains an open question. After the committee hearing, the full Senate must vote on the confirmation. If all Democrats oppose him, he can afford to lose the support of just three Republican senators.
A former Army major who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and a member of the National Guard until 2021, Mr. Hegseth will presumably need a congressional waiver that is required for any Pentagon chief who has been retired from active-duty military service less than seven years.
The waivers became big issues during the confirmation hearings for the current defense secretary, Lloyd J. Austin III, and for Jim Mattis, who served as defense secretary during the first Trump administration.
But it has rarely been mentioned ahead of Mr. Hegseth’s hearing because there have been so many other issues to discuss.
The top members of the Senate Armed Services Committee were briefed late Friday on the findings from the F.B.I.’s background check of Mr. Hegseth. Other members of the committee expressed concern that they might not have relevant information for Mr. Hegseth’s confirmation hearing.
“I need to see his F.B.I. background check. We need to see his financial disclosures,” said Senator Tammy Duckworth, Democrat of Illinois. “And we need to know about any other potential lawsuits he might be facing, any other allegations he might be facing.”
Democrats and Mr. Hegseth’s backers have both complained that the other side has been unresponsive to attempts to arrange meetings with Mr. Hegseth.
Senator Jack Reed, the ranking Democrat on the committee, is the one Democrat who as of last week had met with Mr. Hegseth. Mr. Reed said in a statement after the two talked on Wednesday that the meeting “raised more questions than answers.”
In addition to the sexual assault allegation against Mr. Hegseth, accusations have also emerged detailing episodes of public drunkenness, workplace sexual improprieties and mismanagement of the veterans nonprofits he ran. Mr. Hegseth has said the sexual assault allegation arose from a consensual encounter. He also told reporters last month that he was “a different man than I was years ago.”
The allegations against Mr. Hegseth have failed to sway most Republican senators, many of whom have argued that senators should discount such claims unless the accusers are willing to come forward publicly.
Mr. Hegseth, who has been married three times, has also acknowledged having extramarital affairs. The New York Times reported last month that his mother, Penelope Hegseth, wrote him an email in 2018 saying he had routinely mistreated women for years and displayed a lack of character.
Mrs. Hegseth later said that she had written the email “in anger, with emotion,” at a time when he and his wife were going through a difficult divorce, and that she apologized for what she had written.
Extramarital affairs and public intoxication can leave officers and troops in the military subject to disciplinary action. Some senior military leaders have questioned privately whether Mr. Hegseth’s confirmation could send conflicting messages to troops about discipline.
Mr. Hegseth’s commentary and writings on a number of issues are also likely to provide fodder for the hearing. In his book “The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free,” Mr. Hegseth complained about “woke” generals who he said had made the military “effeminate” by pushing diversity policies.
He said that Gen. Charles Q. Brown, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a position that usually works closely with the defense secretary, should be fired for being too “woke.” General Brown is African American.
“America’s white sons and daughters are walking away” from the military, he wrote, “and who can blame them.”
Before he was nominated by Mr. Trump to be defense secretary, Mr. Hegseth said that he did not believe that women should be in combat. “I’m straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles,” he said in a podcast hosted by Shawn Ryan on Nov. 7. Having women in combat, he said, “hasn’t made us more effective, hasn’t made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated.”
A month later, he offered some clarification. Asked about the issue on the podcast “The Megyn Kelly Show” in early December, Mr. Hegseth said that “if we have the right standard and women meet that standard, roger — let’s go.” But, he added: “If they can’t, and that’s a product of physical differences because the standard is high, then that’s just the reality.”
Politics
Republicans light cigars, cigarettes on burning photos of Khamenei to show support for Iranian protesters
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Republican lawmakers are jumping on a social media trend to show their support for the anti-regime protesters in Iran.
Sen. Tim Sheehy, R-Mont., and Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., posted photos of themselves using burning photos of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to light up a cigarette and a cigar respectively. Both lawmakers used the caption “Smoke ’em if you got ’em.”
The lawmaker’s images mirror a social media trend in which people are using burning photos of Khamenei to light cigarettes and cigars. The trend emerged as the people of Iran hold increasingly intense protests against the Islamic regime. The movement against the regime has seen increasing support from abroad as world leaders back the people of Iran.
FREED IRANIAN PRISONER SAYS ‘IN TRUMP, THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC HAS MET ITS MATCH’
People gather during a protest on Jan. 8, 2026, in Tehran, Iran. (Anonymous/Getty Images)
Khamenei’s regime has started to crack down on protests and even instituted a sweeping internet blackout to try to quell the unrest. Some have posited that the internet blackout was also meant to impede the spreading of information about and visuals of abuses committed against protesters by regime-backed forces.
Recently, exiled Iranian crown prince Reza Pahlavi has publicly urged President Donald Trump and the U.S. to back protesters in Iran as they fight the decades-old regime.
Sheehy told Fox News Digital that he takes the issue personally, saying that Iran has participated in the torturing, kidnapping and killing of Americans across the globe, “including friends of mine.”
“The Iranian regime are a bunch of murderous b——- who have been chanting ‘death to America’ for the past 46 years. They have backed up this chant by kidnapping, torturing, and killing thousands of Americans all over the world, including friends of mine. For me, it’s personal; it’s time to take out the trash,” Sheehy said in a statement provided to Fox News Digital via email.
Sen. Tim Sheehy, R-Mont., showed his solidarity with the people of Iran by hopping on a social media trend in which she used a burning photo of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to light a cigarette. (Courtesy of Sen. Tim Sheehy’s Office)
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The senator also expressed his solidarity with the people of Iran and encouraged them to keep fighting the regime.
“To the Iranian people — we applaud your courage, keep fighting, and know we fully support your brave efforts to topple this evil regime,” he added.
Tenney’s office also spoke with Fox News Digital about the congresswoman’s post, praising the bravery of the people of Iran for standing up to the regime. Additionally, Tenney’s office expressed the congresswoman’s solidarity with the Iranian people.
“The bravery of the Iranian people in the face of decades of oppression by a brutal, extremist regime is extraordinary. Men and women across Iran are risking their lives to stand up to authoritarian mullahs who have denied them basic freedoms for generations,” Tenney’s office said in a statement to Fox News Digital.
Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., showed her solidarity with the people of Iran by hopping on a social media trend in which she used a burning photo of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to light a cigar. (Courtesy of Rep. Claudia Tenney’s Office)
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“The congresswoman stands firmly with the Iranian people and their demand for dignity and self-determination, and believes their courage must be recognized and amplified. Today, the Iranian people finally have an ally in the White House, President Trump, who has made clear that the United States stands with those fighting for freedom against tyranny,” Tenney’s office added.
Trump has been vocal about his support for the people of Iran and has warned that the U.S. would be ready to step in if the regime used violence against protesters.
“Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before,” the president wrote in a Truth Social post on Jan. 10. “The USA stands ready to help!!!”
SACRAMENTO — California announced an investigation into Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI on Wednesday, with Gov. Gavin Newsom saying that the social media site owned by the billionaire is a “breeding ground for predators to spread nonconsenual sexually explicit AI deepfakes.”
Grok, the xAI chatbot, includes image-generation features that allow users to morph existing photos into new images. The newly created images are then posted publicly on X.
In some cases, users have created sexually explicit or nonconsensual images based on real people, including altered depictions that appear to show individuals partially or fully undressed. Others have generated images that appear to show minors, prompting criticism that there are not sufficient guardrails to prohibit the creation of child pornography.
The social media site has previously said “we take action against illegal content on X, including Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), by removing it, permanently suspending accounts, and working with local governments and law enforcement as necessary. Anyone using or prompting Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content.”
Newsom called the sexualized images being created on the platform “vile.” Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said his office will use “all tools at our disposal to keep Californians safe.”
“The avalanche of reports detailing the non-consensual, sexually explicit material that xAI has produced and posted online in recent weeks is shocking,” Bonta said in a statement Wednesday. “This material, which depicts women and children in nude and sexually explicit situations, has been used to harass people across the internet. I urge xAI to take immediate action to ensure this goes no further. We have zero tolerance for the AI-based creation and dissemination of nonconsensual intimate images or of child sexual abuse material.”
Newsom signed a pair of bills in 2024 that made it illegal to create, possess or distribute sexually charged images of minors even when they’re created with computers, not cameras. The measures took effect last year.
Assembly Bill 1831, authored by Assemblymember Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park), expanded the state’s child-porn prohibition to material that “contains a digitally altered or artificial-intelligence-generated depiction [of] what appears to be a person under 18 years of age” engaging in or simulating sexual conduct. Senate Bill 1381, authored by Sen. Aisha Wahab (D-Hayward), amended state law to more clearly prohibit using AI to create images of real children engaged in sexual conduct, or using children as models for digitally altered or AI-generated child pornography.
new video loaded: Supreme Court May Allow States to Bar Transgender Athletes
transcript
transcript
Supreme Court May Allow States to Bar Transgender Athletes
The Supreme Court heard two cases from West Virginia and Idaho on Tuesday. Both concerned barring the participation of transgender athletes in girls’ and women’s sports teams.
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“It is undisputed that states may separate their sports teams based on sex in light of the real biological differences between males and females. States may equally apply that valid sex-based rule to biological males who self-identify as female. Denying a special accommodation to trans-identifying individuals does not discriminate on the basis of sex or gender identity or deny equal protection.” “West Virginia argues that to protect these opportunities for cisgender girls, it has to deny them to B.P.J. But Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause protect everyone. And if the evidence shows there are no relevant physiological differences between B.P.J. and other girls, then there’s no basis to exclude her.” “Given that half the states are allowing it, allowing transgender girls and women to participate, about half are not, why would we at this point, just the role of this court, jump in and try to constitutionalize a rule for the whole country while there’s still, as you say, uncertainty and debate, while there’s still strong interest in other side?” “This court has held in cases like V.M.I. that in general, classification based on sex is impermissible because in general, men and women are simply situated. Where that’s not true is for the sorts of real, enduring, obvious differences that this court talked about in cases like V.M.I., the differences in reproductive biology. I don’t think the pseudoscience you’re suggesting has been baked.” “Well, it’s not pseudo. It’s good science.” “It’s not pseudoscience to say boys’ brain development happens at a different stage than girls does.” “Well, with all respect, I don’t think there’s any science anywhere that is suggested that these intellectual differences are traceable to biological differences.” “Can we avoid your whole similarly situated argument that you run because I don’t really like it that much either? And I’m not trying to prejudice anyone making that argument later. But I mean, I think it opens a huge can of worms that maybe we don’t need to get into here.”
By Meg Felling
January 13, 2026
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