'Blowout': Trump said to be picking 'rare fight' with Senate GOP after latest move

Donald Trump's decision to nominate Fox News host Pete Hegseth to lead the Pentagon could set up a "rare fight" with Senate Republicans, according to the Washington Post's congressional correspondent.

The president-elect tapped the conservative broadcaster and National Guard veteran as his nominee for defense secretary, and Post reporter Jacqueline Alemany told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that GOP senators could push back on that surprising choice – if they don't yield to his demand to let him choose whoever he wants to fill out his Cabinet.

"Historically, we have seen Congress give a lot of deference to presidents when it comes to confirming their Cabinet," Alemany said. "There have been some blowout and dramatic fights, though. I think Pete Hegseth could be that rare fight for Senate Republicans, but as we have talked about, the past few months, the lack of dissenters in the Senate is perhaps troubling for any sort of pushback to someone like Hegseth, who, as you noted has 20 years of service in the military, two Bronze Stars, but has zero experience when it comes to actually navigating a bureaucracy or serving in the Defense Department and overseeing the world's most powerful and largest military."

"I think that this is going to be the first test of who ultimately stands up to Trump," Alemany added. "You know, we were just talking about how Trump has gotten involved in all of these battles that traditionally president-elects have not gotten involved in, such as picking the Senate majority leader, weighing in and essentially ushering and facilitating this media campaign and 'Make America Great' campaign to try to tap someone like [Sen.] Rick Scott, who then would be expected to implement something like recess appointments, which would allow Trump to take this expansive approach to executive authority and presidential power and allow him to usurp the Senate in order to make someone, what they call a recess appointee and serve in the job for a year without formal confirmation, where it only takes a simple majority to push someone through like Pete Hegseth."

Alemany identified a pair of moderate Republicans who may resist falling into line behind Trump's bid to expand his executive powers.

"You have people like [Sen.] Susan Collins and [Sen.] Lisa Murkowski, people are left who will put up a fight and people are not isolationist and I don't know if you could necessarily call them interventionists, and certainly people who wouldn't support comments Pete Hegseth said in the past and positions he's taken, such as being one of the leading forces, we shouldn't forget this, who lobbied Trump to pardon war criminals."

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