Scott Bessent’s hearing is one of several screenings by US Senators this week of Donald Trump’s cabinet nominations.
One of the highest profile hearings was Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick for the Pentagon, who was in the hot seat for a tense Senate committee hearing on Tuesday. Sexual assault and alcohol abuse allegations against the former Fox News host were raised, but Hegseth disparaged the media’s “co-ordinated smear campaign” against him during the four-hour hearing.
Trump’s nominee for US attorney-general, Pam Bondi, said that “politics will not play a part” in her decisions regarding who to investigate, when questioned during a confirmation hearing on Wednesday. The longtime Trump supporter, who previously served two terms as Florida’s attorney-general, has in the past promised “the investigators will be investigated” following the president-elect’s return to the White House. Bondi will appear again for a second day of questioning today.
Republican senator Marco Rubio, who is Trump’s choice for secretary of state, and Sean Duffy, the president-elect’s pick to head the Department of Transportation, each had relatively subdued hearings on Wednesday.
