Pete Hegseth, a self-described former Fox News “disruptor” and President-elect Trump’s choice to be Defense secretary, blasted through a cloud of controversies Tuesday on his way to what is expected to be Senate confirmation. A vote is expected Monday.

The bottom line: No Republican members of the Armed Services Committee displayed an appetite to buck Trump on his first Cabinet pick. And while Democratic senators assailed Hegseth, 44, an Army National Guard veteran, as unfit to manage the Pentagon and a poor role model to lead the armed forces, especially women, they were minority voices.

[...]

"You can’t seem to grasp that there is no U.S. military as we know it without the incredible women that we serve, women who earn their place in their units," said Duckworth, a retired Army National Guard lieutenant colonel who was critically wounded flying a combat helicopter in Iraq.

"You’re not qualified, Mr. Hegseth," she added with finality.

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who had been considered a make-or-break vote for Hegseth, announced on Simon Conway’s radio show after the hearing that she would vote for the nominee.

[...]

Democrats repeatedly attacked and grilled him on his past comments about women in combat, the 2017 sexual assault accusation, his drinking and his infidelity — all of which he attempted to parry away by claiming they were made by anonymous individuals who were hell-bent on taking him down.

[...]

Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) asked Hegseth if he would deploy the U.S. military to seize Greenland or the Panama Canal, referencing Trump’s expansionist rhetoric from last week.

“Would you carry on an order from President Trump to seize Greenland, a territory of our NATO ally, Denmark, by force? Or would you take over the Panama Canal?” Hirono asked.

“Senator, I will emphasize that President Trump received 77 million votes to be the lawful commander,” Hegseth said, declining to say whether he would invade the territories.