WASHINGTON, D.C. – Leading the entourage, Norm Coleman — Minnesota’s last Republican senator — guides Donald Trump’s secretary of defense nominee Pete Hegseth through the halls of the Senate.
Coleman has been a fixture at the Forest Lake native’s side as Hegseth has met with senators day after day amid a barrage of unflattering headlines about his past that have made his path to confirmation an uphill climb.
“Nobody better than Senator Norm Coleman. It’s been an absolute honor to work with him. I’ve known him for years,” Hegseth said without taking further questions as he, Coleman and his entourage head into the office of Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., for their fifth meeting of the day.
At the start of the month, it looked like Hegseth might not get confirmed as questions about his drinking, sexual assault allegations and reports that Trump was weighing his replacement surfaced. But by the end of the first week of December, Hegseth had won Trump’s public support and began ramping up meetings with senators, all with Coleman at his side.
When they emerge from Young’s office after about an hour, Coleman moves to the front of the entourage tightly surrounding Hegseth. They quickly head to their last meeting that day, with incoming Sen. Tim Sheehy, R-Mont. Hegseth will have met with more than 40 senators this week and is slated to meet with more in the new year, the Trump transition team said. And his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee is set for Jan. 14.
“Norm deserves a lot of credit for helping to reverse that momentum and put him back in a position where, I think today, most people think he’s going to get confirmed,” said former Minnesota Rep. Vin Weber, a close friend of Coleman.
In 2019, Coleman told MPR he hoped to “keep livin’ until the clock runs out” as he was set to undergo cancer treatment after having beaten it twice already. Now, he’s assumed what’s become a high-profile role as a “sherpa,” leading Hegseth into meetings with senators, some of whom the 75-year-old Coleman served with when he represented Minnesota in the Senate from 2003 to 2009.

Coleman declined to speak for this story, but those who know him say he and Hegseth have known each other for more than a decade, a relationship that began when Hegseth would frequent the former senator’s office seeking advice on how he could advocate for veterans.