Watch: JD Vance Casts Tie-Breaker Vote Confirming Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense

The vote may have been too close for comfort for all the wrong reasons — but, at the end of the day, Pete Hegseth will be our next head of the Pentagon, thanks to a tie breaking vote from Vice President J.D. Vance.

After confirmation hearings that were projected to be contentious but ended up being a breeze for the former Fox News host, military veteran, and conservative activist, an eleventh-hour surprise — an affidavit from Hegseth’s former sister-in-law which accused him of threatening his ex-wife’s safety, along with the same old vague accusations of excessive drinking and unpredictable behavior — put the vote into jeopardy.

“There is no basis to credit this deeply flawed and questionable affidavit, which was submitted at the 11th hour in a clear and admitted partisan attempt to derail Mr. Hegseth’s confirmation,” a response letter from Hegseth’s attorney, Tim Parlatore, read.

In addition, according to The Wall Street Journal, court records from Samantha and Pete Hegseth’s divorce list no claims of domestic abuse on either side.

Nevertheless, going into the Senate vote Friday evening, it was clear that there were four GOP votes that were either no or leaning no: Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina.

While Collins and Murkowski are the usual suspects in these sorts of dramas and McConnell’s potential opposition was another predictable case of the establishment striking back, Tillis — who said he was “completing due diligence” on Hegseth on Thursday — was a surprise potential defection.

Losing all four votes without picking up a Democratic vote — a prospect which is just as plausible as the Buddha materializing on the Senate floor in the middle of the deliberations — would doom the nomination, since the GOP only has a 53-47 edge in the upper chamber.

However, shortly after the the voting got underway shortly past 9 p.m. Eastern, Tillis indicated he’d support Hegseth’s nomination, putting out a statement on social media saying he “conducted my own due diligence, including asking tough questions of Pete” and that he would “support his confirmation and look forward to working with him to rebuild our military and advance President Trump’s peace through strength agenda.”

From the beginning, I have been clear about my position: if President Trump’s nominees were reported favorably out of the relevant committees, I would support their confirmation on the Senate floor absent new material information about their qualifications. Once Pete Hegseth’s…

— Senator Thom Tillis (@SenThomTillis) January 25, 2025

This left it to Vance to break the tie:

JD Vance casts the tie-breaking vote — confirming Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense! pic.twitter.com/pxWTDwjXji

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) January 25, 2025

Hegseth’s vote was only the second cabinet confirmation to come down to a tie-breaker; in 2017, then-Vice President Mike Pence cast the deciding vote to confirm Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

Democrats, needless to say, were nonplussed that the relentless character attacks on Hegseth had failed to produce a rejection.

“Unfortunately my Republican colleagues really proved spineless, and this vote may well haunt him,” said Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut.

Blumenthal may know a thing or two about contentious military histories haunting one’s career — he’s best known outside of Connecticut politics and Senate horse-trading for having lied about serving in Vietnam — but the worrying thing for Republicans (and a consolation prize for Democrats) should be that the Hegseth vote even came down to a tiebreaker.

Before his confirmation hearings, Hegseth was considered the canary in the coal mine in terms of how some of Trump’s more outside-the-box anti-establishment picks would go. Practically any objective observer who watched them would have conceded that he aced the test — and, not only that, but the Democrats beclowned themselves in the process.

He answered questions about his personal life adeptly and thoroughly, and gave the impression of someone who was capable of being a “change agent” that an ossified, woke Pentagon needs. The 11th-hour affidavit, meanwhile, was mostly substance-free and vague enough that it could neither be effectively corroborated nor debunked.

In other words, this was supposed to be a slam dunk, no matter what Collins and Murkowski — always reliably on the wrong side of reason when it comes to these sorts of matters — thought of him.

McConnell is far more worrying; if he plans to hold up the president’s nominees to preserve the lost cause of an obsolete party establishment that voters have consistently repudiated at the ballot box for a decade now, this process has the potential to become something drawn-out and profoundly infuriating.

As for Tillis, one suspects he’s consulting a Magic 8-ball on these matters; let’s hope a worthy nominee doesn’t get caught in limbo because it came back with “Reply hazy, try again later.”

That being said: J.D. Vance stepped up, Pete Hegseth will be our next defense secretary, and all is right with the world for one night. And as for the closeness of the vote, one hopes what we saw Friday was merely an aberration.

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