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Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s nominee for defense secretary, said Wednesday that the president-elect had told him earlier in the day that he still supported him for the job and that he planned to “fight like hell” to to receive the confirmation.

In an interview with conservative radio host Megyn Kelly, Hegseth said Trump told him, “Hey Pete, I have your back.” It’s a fight. They’re after you. Come after me.”

Hegseth also told Kelly that he doesn’t have a drinking problem – addressing part of the series of misconduct allegations he has faced in recent weeks.

His comments come as he encountered doubts from some Republicans during his meeting with lawmakers on Capitol Hill this week. Assuming all Democrats vote against him, he will have to limit the defection of three Republican senators to three Republican senators, and as of Tuesday night there were more than three Republicans who were unsure whether they would support him.

Hegseth told reporters after meeting with new Republican Senate leader John Thune on Wednesday: “We’re not going anywhere.”

Hegseth told Kelly that he did not respond directly to the allegations of misconduct, including a 2017 sexual assault allegation that he denied and was not charged with because he did not “want to respond to things that who don’t do that.” deserved an answer.” However, he said he now plans to “talk more.”

“The media continues to spread this ridiculous narrative. It’s up to us to stand up and tell the truth and our side,” Hegseth said.

“And he knows it,” he added, referring to Trump.

He told Kelly that “you would be surprised” how little the allegations of misconduct were brought up in meetings with lawmakers. Hegseth said a senator on Wednesday morning compared the scrutiny he faced to Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court.

“We’re going to fight like hell. There’s no reason to give in. “Why should we back down?” said Hegseth.

In the interview with Kelly, he also said that he “never had a drinking problem,” never sought help for drinking, and was never approached by anyone telling him to do so.

“But you know, what do guys often do when they come back from war? Drink a few beers. How do you deal with the demons you see on the battlefield? Sometimes it’s with a bottle. …Thank God, by the grace of God, I found my purposeful chapters that got me out of that situation,” he said. “I am a completely different person than I was 10 years ago, than 15 years ago. But I’m also the right person to be at the Pentagon and understand what our young warfighters are going through.”

Hegseth’s mother, Penelope Hegseth, said in an interview with Fox News earlier Wednesday that she regretted sending a 2018 email to her son in which she accused him of mistreating women and called out female senators to support his confirmation.

She said her son has been “redeemed, forgiven, changed” in the years since she wrote the email, which was recently reported on by The New York Times in which she said there are “many” women who he had “abused him in some way”. She said her son was the right person to lead the Pentagon under the new Trump administration.

She justified her decision to write the email by saying she wrote it “as a mother” and with “deep feelings” in the midst of her son’s divorce, and said she sent an apology email to her son later that same day -Written email.

“I am sure many of you across the country understand how difficult divorce is for a family. There are emotions. We say things and – I wrote that in a hurry. I wrote this with deep emotions. I wrote that as a mother,” said Penelope Hegseth. “Pete and I are both very passionate people. I wrote this out of love and retracted it about two hours later with an apology email.”

Pete Hegseth told CNN “no” when asked Wednesday if he would retire. And some Republican senators said they would stand with him.

Tennessee Sen. Bill Hagerty, who attended a meeting Wednesday between Hegseth and members of the Republican Study Committee, said Trump’s pick “did an excellent job” during the meeting and noted that the president-elect continues to support him.

“He got overwhelming support, applause, everyone is behind him,” Hagerty said. “Most importantly, he spoke to President Trump again this morning. President Trump is behind him 100% and I think you will see a process that runs smoothly and works as it should.”

When pressed about reports that Trump is considering other candidates for the position, Hagerty responded: “I just said, Pete spoke to President Trump this morning, President Trump told him he’s behind him 100% , and I have every reason to believe that this is exactly the case.”

However, another Republican senator, Josh Hawley of Missouri, said he did not know whether Hegseth should withdraw his name to be considered for defense secretary.

“It’s not 100 percent clear right now who he wants as defense secretary,” Hawley said of Trump.

Hawley said Hegseth’s team canceled a meeting scheduled for Wednesday between him and the defense secretary-elect, but a Trump transition official said the Hawley meeting would be postponed until next week.

“I think if the president wants him to be defense secretary, people should give him a chance. And I expect that I would support him and at least allow him to have his confirmation hearing,” Hawley said, adding: “He will answer all of those many, many more under oath if he wants to, and the president wants to , wants him to do it, but I don’t know what the case is at this point.”

The uncertainty Hawley expressed comes amid reports that Trump is already weighing other options. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis would be interested in taking over as defense secretary if he were formally offered the job, two sources close to DeSantis told CNN.

DeSantis is one of the few names that have been suggested to Trump as a potential replacement. One of the sources told CNN that Trump and DeSantis had discussed the possibility of the Florida governor leading the Pentagon.

As Hegseth discussed his conversations with Republican senators he met, he told Kelly that Trump told him to “rid the Pentagon of the woke crap.”

“The climate stuff and the CRT and the DEI and the genderism and the trans people – leave it out.” Let’s bring the Pentagon back to the people. The people’s Pentagon for warfighters,” he said. “And that’s the message that he gave me and that I passed on to the senators, and it’s resonating.”

In a brief statement later Wednesday, Hegseth told reporters that meeting and speaking with senators had been “uplifting and a wonderful process,” but did not comment on the allegations of misconduct or concerns about his path for confirmation.

“This is what Donald Trump asked me to do: ‘Your job is to bring a war ethos back to the Pentagon.’ “Your job is to make sure it’s lethality, lethality, lethality,” Hegseth said.

“Everything else is gone. Anything else that distracts from that shouldn’t happen,” he said. “That is the message I am hearing from senators in this consultation and consent process. It was a wonderful process.”

CNN’s Manu Raju, Morgan Rimmer, Ali Main, Steve Contorno and Aaron Pellish contributed to this report.