Trump adviser on Hegseth pick: ‘There aren't any concerns’

President-elect Trump senior adviser Jason Miller said that the team isn’t concerned with the pick for Defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, amid controversial reports about him emerging in recent days.

“So when it comes to Pete Hegseth, there aren’t any concerns and we feel very good about his positioning for being confirmed by the Senate,” Miller told CNN on Tuesday.

The New Yorker reported on Sunday that Hegseth was forced to step down by both of the two nonprofit advocacy groups he ran due to mismanagement of funds, sexual impropriety and reports of intoxicated behavior, prior to him becoming a full-time Fox News host in 2017.

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Hegseth went to Capitol Hill on Monday to sit down with senators as part of the confirmation process.

Miller told CNN the Trump team will “take the process very seriously,” noting its importance.

“That’s because the Senate takes it so serious to go and have the one-on-one meetings, to have these confirmation hearings, to give senators the chance to kick the tires and get some of these questions answered on their own,” Miller said.

In another controversial story, published Friday, Hegseth’s mother reportedly sent him an email in 2018 accusing him of “routinely mistreating women for years” and displaying a “lack of character,” according to The New York Times.

In a phone interview with The Times, she said that she sent a follow-up message at the time apologizing for her original email, claiming she sent the email “in anger, with emotion” when her son and his wife were going through a divorce. Trump communications director Steven Cheung called the Times’s airing of the email “despicable.”

Miller acknowledged that story, arguing that conservations with family can be “very tough.”

“Pete Hegseth is someone who’s been shot at in combat,” Miller added. “That’s exactly the type of person that we want leading the DoD before any commitment is made to put our troops in harm’s way.”

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