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Vice President-elect JD Vance on Friday reiterated his and President-elect Donald Trump’s support for Defense Secretary Nominee Pete Hegseth, who has been besieged by a relentless smear campaign.

“Pete Hegseth is going to get his hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, not a sham hearing before the American media,” he said while touring hurricane damage in North Carolina. He went on:

We believe Pete Hegseth is the right guy to lead the Department of Defense, that’s why President Trump nominated him. We’re not abandoning this nomination. We’re not going to make it easy for people to allow the media to determine who our secretary of defense is. Donald J. Trump, who just won the election by a very significant margin with the advise and consent of the United States Senate. That’s who determines who the Secretary of Defense is.

“I fully support Pete. I think Pete is going to get confirmed and we are completely behind him,” he said.

He added he spoke to Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), who is rumored to be behind a campaign against Hegseth, as well as other senators who have expressed doubt about him, saying, “All I’m asking is that people actually allow the Senate process to work. We do not determine important government officials based on anonymous sourcing from the American media.”

“We determine who our officials are through the nomination process, the advise and consent process of the United States Senate and that’s how it should happen and that’s how the president’s nominees are going to work through this process,” he concluded.

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