GOP senators clash with senior Trump Pentagon nominee in 'fiery exchanges'
U.S. Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) speaks with reporters outside the Senate chamber after a vote on the 20th day of the federal government shutdown at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., U.S., October 20, 2025. REUTERS/Kylie Cooper
After former President Joe Biden was sworn into office in 2021, he picked a seasoned veteran with a very long resumé to head the Pentagon: former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. President Donald Trump, in contrast, chose someone who had served in the military but was best known for being a Fox News host: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Under Hegseth's watch, the Pentagon has been inundated with chaos. And the chaos continued when Trump nominated Austin Dahmer as assistant secretary of defense for strategy, plans, and capabilities.
According to the Daily Beast's Isabel van Brugen, GOP lawmakers "clashed with" Dahmer during a Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday, November 4.
"The striking intra-party revolt erupted on Capitol Hill as senators assailed one of President Trump's picks for a senior role at the United States Department of Defense," van Brugen reports. "Austin Dahmer…. was ripped to shreds over several major policy decisions, including the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Romania, suspending some assistance to war-torn Ukraine, and for being difficult to reach. The fiery exchanges, during a confirmation hearing for Trump's Pentagon nominees on Tuesday, exposed cracks in the party which typically displays a united front."
Van Brugen reports Sen. Rick Scott (R-Florida) "accused Dahmer of lying that Congress had been briefed multiple times on the decision to reduce the U.S. troop presence in Europe by moving to pull out a brigade of U.S. troops from Romania, including at an air base."
"About 1000 U.S. troops will remain in the country, and Romanian President Nicușor Dan has described the move as 'a strategic reconfiguration, not a withdrawal,'" van Brugen explains. " But some fear that the decreased U.S. military presence could undermine security in the region and embolden Moscow to expand Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which Trump is desperately trying to put an end to…. Sen. Roger Wicker, the committee chair, also said the briefings did not take place. 'Where did you get that information?' he asked, pausing the hearing."
Van Brugen adds, "Dahmer suggested the situation resulted from a miscommunication. A frustrated Sen. Dan Sullivan said he and other Republican lawmakers 'can’t even get a response…. and we're on your team.'"
