America's energy future begins now. More American oil and natural gas means more jobs, more security, and more innovation.

America's moment is now. Learn more at lights on energy.org, paid for by the American Petroleum Institute.

From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch.

The Senate votes narrowly with a vice presidential tiebreaker to approve Pete Hegseth as the U.S. Secretary of Defense, while confirmation hearings loomed this week for President Trump's next pick who might face some GOP defections, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

as the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Welcome, I'm Kyle Peterson with the Wall Street Journal.

We're joined today by my colleagues, columnists Kim Strassel and Alicia Finley. It was a late Friday night

in the Senate, which split 50-50 on Hegsett's nomination to lead the

Pentagon until the arrival of Vice President J.D. Vance, who broke that tie, only the second time

in U.S. history that a tie has been broken by the vice president for a cabinet nominee.

Three Republican senators voting no on Hegseth, Alaska's Lisa Murkowski, and Maine, Susan Collins,

seemed to be upset about Hegsett's past statements about women in combat, as well as allegations

about his personal behavior. The third no being Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who was focused more

on Higgs' experience and the size of the job of managing the Pentagon.

Here's a piece of the statement by McConnell. Effective management of nearly three million

military and civilian personnel, the annual budget of nearly a trillion dollars in alliances and

partnerships around the world is a daily test with staggering consequences. He went on to say that

Mr. Hegset had not yet demonstrated that he

will pass this test. Be that as it may, Hegset was sworn in on Saturday, and here he is on the

job Monday outside of the Pentagon. There's an emergency at the southern border that the

protection of the sovereign territory of the United States is the job of the Defense Department,

and the cartels are foreign terrorist organizations. As a result, this Pentagon snapped two last

week. We helped move forward troops, put in more barriers, and also to ensure mass deportations,

...