Walz-Vance debate updates: Candidates pressed on Iran attack on Israel

(WASHINGTON) — Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for defense secretary, was back on Capitol Hill Tuesday looking to shore up support as he fends off new allegations of misconduct and sexual impropriety.

The allegations were top of mind for Republican senators, one of whom called recent reports “very disturbing.” Several GOP lawmakers suggested Hegseth needed to come forward and address them.

But Hegseth, holding hands with his wife as he walked the halls, continued to ignore questions about the New Yorker report that he was forced to step down from two veteran nonprofit groups — Veterans for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America — amid accusations of financial mismanagement, sexist behavior and other disqualifying behavior.

The magazine cited what it called a detailed seven-page whistleblower report — compiled by multiple former C.V.A. employees — stating that, at one point, Hegseth had to be restrained while drunk from joining the dancers on the stage of a Louisiana strip club, where he had brought his team. The report also says that Hegseth, who was married at the time, and other members of his management team sexually pursued the organization’s female staffers, the magazine said.

ABC News has not independently confirmed the magazine’s account. Hegseth’s attorney, Tim Parlatore, told The New Yorker the claims were “outlandish.”

“We’re going to meet with every senator that wants to meet with us, across the board, and we welcome their advice as we go through the advice and consent process,” Hegseth told reporters as he arrived for a second day of sitdowns with senators.

Hegseth was asked dozens of questions by reporters, including what he would say to those troubled by the allegations, whether the women who’ve spoken out are lying, whether he had a drinking problem and if the Trump transition team had been aware of the allegations.

He did not respond, including when asked by ABC’s Elizabeth Schulze about GOP Sen. Joni Ernst saying she thinks he should have agreed to a background check.

Trump’s team came out in defense of Hegseth earlier Tuesday. Senior adviser Jason Miller, in an interview on CNN, attempted to brush off the allegations as “innuendo and gossip.”

“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 said. “Now we have to take the process very seriously.”

Republican senators, peppered with questions on Hegseth and other recent Trump picks as they returned to Washington this week, also say they want a “normal” confirmation process to play — which would routinely include FBI background checks.

But some of their statements, so far, stopped short of glowing endorsements.

“I think some of these articles are very disturbing. He obviously has a chance to defend himself here, but some of this stuff is — it’s going to be difficult. Time will tell,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“Leadership comes from the top, and I want to make sure that every young woman who joins the military space is respected,” Graham said, seemingly referencing Hegseth’s comments against women serving in combat roles.

Sen. Josh Hawley, another member of the key panel, argued Hegseth would have the opportunity to answer all questions during the confirmation process though notably indicated some of his Republican colleagues are “very worried.”

“I would just urge my Republican colleagues, who are very worried, I know a number of them are expressing public concern — it’s fine, but I would just urge them, before they make up their minds, right before they make up their minds, let them have this hearing and listen to let’s go through the process here and give them a shot to answer this and more and to lay out this vision for you,” Hawley said.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who stood by Hegseth as a “great” pick on Monday, had similarly suggested Hegseth could face headwinds.

“Obviously, if it’s to a certain degree, people are not going to vote to confirm it,” Tuberville said when asked about the allegations after their meeting. “But what I know when I talk to him about what I’ve read, what I’ve studied and been around him, I’ll vote for him.”

Many suggesting that he needs to come forward and address it.

“Well, these allegations that have come up just in the last 12 to 14 hours are a surprise to all of us, and so yes, he does need to address those because this was not something of which we were aware, nor was President Trump aware of them,” said Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., who met with Hegseth on Monday night with a group of senators.

Asked about his ability to make it through the nomination process, Lummis said she hopes to meet with him one-on-one and deferred to how he addresses the new allegations.

“It depends on how he addresses the issues that have been raised,” Lummis said. “Some of the earlier issues that were raised about an incident in California I think were satisfactorily addressed and would not have interfered with his nomination, but some new things that have come to light in the last 12 to 14 hours are things he needs to address.”

“I have read all the articles, I have seen all the allegations. And Mr. Hegseth is going to have to address it,” Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said.

“I want to know if they’re true, and I want to hear his side of the story. And he’s going to have to address them,” Kennedy added.

Hegseth met Tuesday with Sen. Deb Fischer, one of two Republican women on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and GOP Sen. Bill Hagerty in their respective offices.

He was also scheduled to meet with Republican Sens. Ted Budd, Shelley Moore Capito, Jim Risch and Eric Schmitt.

Schmitt said he was “definitely going to ask questions” about the allegations.

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(WASHINGTON) — An attorney representing two women who testified before the House Ethics Committee told ABC News in an exclusive interview former Rep. Matt Gaetz paid both his adults clients for sex.

Florida attorney Joel Leppard told ABC News’ Juju Chang that one of his clients also witnessed Gaetz having sex with a third woman — who was then 17 years old — at a house party in Florida.

“She testified [that] in July of 2017, at this house party, she was walking out to the pool area, and she looked to her right, and she saw Representative Gaetz having sex with her friend, who was 17,” Leppard said.

The Justice Department spent years probing the allegations against Gaetz, including allegations of obstruction of justice, before informing Gaetz last year that it would not bring charges. Gaetz has long denied any wrongdoing related to the allegations investigated during Justice Department probe.

“Matt Gaetz will be the next Attorney General. He’s the right man for the job and will end the weaponization of our justice system. These are baseless allegations intended to derail the second Trump administration. The Biden Justice Department investigated Gaetz for years and cleared him of wrongdoing. The only people who went to prison over these allegations were those lying about Matt Gaetz,” Alex Pfeiffer, Trump transition spokesman said.

Leppard, who has called for the House Ethics Committee to release its report amid Gaetz’s nomination to serve as President-elect Donald Trump’s attorney general, told ABC News that the former congressman paid both of his clients for sex using Venmo.

“Just to be clear, both of your clients testified that they were paid by Representative Gaetz to have sex?” Chang asked.

“That’s correct. The House was very clear about that and went through each. They essentially put the Venmo payments on the screen and asked about them. And my clients repeatedly testified, ‘What was this payment for?’ ‘That was for sex,'” Leppard said.

Leppard’s interview with ABC News comes days after he publicly called for the House Ethics Committee to be released.

“As the Senate considers former Rep. Gaetz’s nomination for attorney general, several questions demand answers,” Leppard said. “What if multiple credible witnesses provided evidence of behavior that would constitute serious criminal violations?”

The House Ethics Committee is expected to meet on Wednesday and discuss its report of Rep. Matt Gaetz and potentially vote on its release despite the fact that the investigation ended when Gaetz resigned from the House, multiple sources tell ABC News.

The news comes after the attorney on Friday first told ABC News that one of his clients had witnessed Gaetz have sex with a minor amid mounting pressure on the House Ethics Committee to release its report on its probe into the Florida congressman.

The two witnesses, who ABC News is not naming, both allegedly attended parties with the congressman and testified in both the federal and House Ethics investigations.

Gaetz’s one-time friend Joel Greenberg is currently serving an 11-year prison sentence after reaching a deal with prosecutors in May 2021 in which he pleaded guilty to multiple federal crimes including sex trafficking of a woman when she was a minor and introducing her to other “adult men” who also had sex with her when she was underage

Attorney John Clune, who represents the former minor at the center of the probe, called for the release of the Ethics Committee’s report on Thursday.

“Mr. Gaetz’s likely nomination as Attorney General is a perverse development in a truly dark series of events. We would support the House Ethics Committee immediately releasing their report. She was a high school student and there were witnesses,” Clune said in a statement.

The woman, who is now in her 20s, according to sources, testified to the House Ethics Committee that the now-former Florida congressman had sex with her when she was 17 years old and he was in Congress, ABC News previously reported.

Gaetz faces an increasingly uphill nomination process in the Senate, with at least five Republican senators signaling skepticism that he could get enough support to be confirmed. President-elect Trump has repeatedly urged GOP leadership to bypass the traditional confirmation process through recess appointments, where Trump could appoint his cabinet while Congress is out of session.

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(WASHINGTON) — As President-elect Donald Trump fills out his Cabinet and chooses his closet advisers ahead of Inauguration Day, many African American leaders are asking why more Black people haven’t been appointed to key positions.

ABC News spoke to more than a half dozen longtime and new African American conservatives and Republicans within Trumpworld, in and outside of Washington.

Last month, the president-elect appointed Scott Turner, who was executive director of the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council during Trump’s first term, to serve as secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

One area of frustration for many Black Republicans was speculation that if Trump did nominate an African American to his administration, it would be at HUD, the department that has had the most Black secretary appointments of any.

One Black Southern Republican told ABC News, “Why is every Black person given HUD?” adding that it was “the literal Black job of the administration.”

ABC News reached out to Trump’s transition team for comment on his selections but did not get a reply.

Six African Americans have served as HUD secretaries, including Robert Weaver, the first. His appointment in 1966 by President Lyndon B. Johnson also made him the first African American appointed to a Cabinet-level position.

The first African American woman to serve in a presidential cabinet was Patricia Roberts Harris, who was the first African American Health and Human Services director and later HUD secretary. She served under President Jimmy Carter.

Former HUD Secretary Samuel Pierce was the only Black Cabinet official in the Ronald Reagan administration. Dr. Ben Carson at HUD was Trump’s sole Black cabinet member in his first term.

In mid-November, Carson posted that he was “excited to speak with President Trump about how I will continue to advance the America First agenda, and I am meeting with him in the near future.”

“However, contrary to reports, I will not be serving as the Surgeon General,” he said.

The departments of Treasury and Interior remain the only departments that have never had a Black secretary.

Another key position Black conservatives believe needs to be filled by an African American is assistant to the president, a senior-level role within the White House. Trump previously appointed Omarosa Manigault Newman, a contestant on his “The Apprentice” TV series, as the sole Black assistant to the president.

“I do think if you’re really talking about Black influence inside the White House, does Trump want his only legacy of having the only AP for two terms be Omarosa” one Black Republican strategist asked.

After Newman’s departure, Ja’Ron Smith served as a special assistant on legislative affairs before rising to deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy. Ashley Bell, a prominent Black Republican, served as a White House adviser on entrepreneurship and a regional administrator for the Small Business Administration. Bell’s former boss is former SBA Administrator Linda McMahon, who Trump announced as his pick for the Department of Education. McMahon also is co-chair of the Trump-Vance transition team.

Some of the former president’s most ardent defenders have grown restless with the lack of Black appointees, as Trump selected several others who would be firsts in those positions. If confirmed, Sen. Marco Rubio would be the first Hispanic secretary of state; Scott Bessent would be the first openly gay Treasury secretary; and Tulsi Gabbard will be the first Asian American and youngest-ever director of national intelligence.

“I can’t tweet that we need more Black conservatives because the left will attack me saying it’s a DEI hire,” the southern Republican said.

However, one Black Republican operative told ABC News it is still very early when it comes to appointments.

“The Republican Party has never really fallen into the category of ‘representation matters.’ Our strength comes from diversity, but that is not our bumper sticker slogan. We’re not going to nominate Black folks for the sake of nominating Black people,” the Republican operative said.

The operative noted that Black Republicans have made strides in leadership across the country. Sen. Tim Scott will chair the National Republican Senatorial Committee; Rep. Byron Donald is speculated as possibly running for governor or U.S. Senate in Florida; and Winsome Sears is seeking to become the first Black female governor in the country in Virginia.

Donalds on CNN last month took aim at President Joe Biden’s focus on diversity within his administration when asked about the lack of diversity among Trump’s nominees, saying “if you look at how the Democrats filled Joe Biden’s cabinet, they wanted to have a piece of every identity. But did they get the job done? Did they actually serve the interest of the American people?”

“What Donald Trump’s election is about, is bringing competency and reality back to D.C. in the White House, regardless of their race, regardless of their religion, regardless of their creed.” the Florida congressman added.

Although some Black leaders inside and out of politics are highly qualified, another barrier that Black conservatives face is added scrutiny because of their dual identity.

Dedrick Asante-Muhammad, president of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a non-partisan organization that studies diversity in government and congressional staff, said that the Trump administration differs vastly from past Republican administrations.

“Trump isn’t a traditional Republican, he doesn’t use traditional Republican institutions in the same way that past presidential candidates have, so there isn’t a kind of pipeline, long-term relations,” Asante-Muhammad said.

“Being a part of Trumpworld isn’t easy. It is almost a personal blacklist thing in the outside world. So it is risky, in my opinion, to be a part of this organization for Black people that may want to be a part of the cause, but it’s not worth their bottom dollar,” one Black Republican strategist added.

“When Black people are put underneath this microscope of being Trump-affiliated, they look past your color and you are public enemy number one,” a Black Republican operative said.

The Republican strategist said Black Republicans face a different set of expectations — they don’t necessarily thrive in spaces that are massively disruptive, such as the second Trump term.

“I don’t think disruption really leans into our skillset the way things are currently set up, we have to play things a little bit differently. There’s no Black Republican version of Matt Gatez. They don’t last,” the strategist added.

“Those of us who have survived and been there for years and made it work have done so by being steady, consistent, reliable, and trustworthy, ” the strategist said.

The majority of Black Republicans who spoke to ABC News acknowledged that while the optics of Trump being surrounded by mostly white people aren’t ideal, they believe if Trump delivers on a better economy, securing the border, Second Step Act, and judicial reform it could be transformative for the Black community, but they do want the former president to hire more Black conservatives.

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