Mr. Hegseth, the former Fox News host and war veteran selected by President-elect Donald J. Trump to be defense secretary, will likely be asked to revisit the issue of his drinking during his Senate confirmation hearings on Tuesday.

The New York Times and other news organizations have documented a pattern of excessive drinking by Mr. Hegseth. In the most serious incident, a woman in Monterey, California, accused him of raping her in 2017. Mr Hegseth said the encounter was consensual and did not result in criminal charges. His lawyer said Mr. Hegseth was drunk at the time.

In an interview on Megyn Kelly’s SiriusXM show last month, Mr. Hegseth admitted that concerns about his drinking had jeopardized his nomination. He promised at the time that “there will not be a drop of alcohol on my lips” if he is confirmed.

“I need to make sure that the senators, the troops, President Trump and everyone else knows that when you call me at all hours, you will be called full time, Pete, just like you always did in Iraq and Afghanistan.” , he said at the time.

Depending on how he answers senators’ questions, Mr. Hegseth could appear sufficiently reformed or lack the self-discipline necessary for one of the most critical Cabinet posts.

Some Democrats have vowed to question his suitability for office based on, among other things, his drinking. “A secretary of defense must exercise clear judgment and be ready to respond at a moment’s notice, and a secretary who engages in excessive and inappropriate drinking undermines our national security,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, wrote in a letter to him dated January 6th.

Mr. Hegseth’s promise to abstain from alcohol echoed that of another candidate for defense secretary, John Tower, who said in 1989: “If I am confirmed, I will not drink alcohol.” Mr. Tower also promised to resign , in case he failed, but that still wasn’t enough to overcome his drinking reputation, and the Senate voted him down.

As part of a background check that began last month, FBI agents asked at least some people whether Mr. Hegseth had abused alcohol, but until Monday it was unclear how thorough that investigation was.

A Times review of Mr. Hegseth’s public statements in recent years found that he frequently referred to his drinking, both in describing some dark moments in his life and in light banter about enjoying an “extra shot” or a certain type of alcohol.

Mr. Hegseth said in the 2021 podcast episode that he had a difficult time adjusting to civilian life after his deployment to Iraq.

“At 10 o’clock I looked around and thought, ‘What am I doing today?’ How about I have a few beers?'” he said to Mr. Cain. “And one beer leads to many, leads to self-medication, leads to ‘I earned this.’ Like, ‘Don’t tell me I can’t do this.'”

He said he had managed to “reverse this cycle,” but did not specify when.

In 2020 and 2021, Mr. Hegseth repeatedly told the story of getting extremely drunk with a veteran who was involved in the 2011 raid in Pakistan that killed Osama Bin Laden.

“When I first heard Rob O’Neill’s whole story about the Bin Laden raid in a bar, I thought I was going to meet him for 45 minutes. Four and a half hours later, I could barely walk and I heard the whole story,” he said on a 2020 episode of Fox Nation’s “Friday Night Live.”

As the weekend host of the morning show “Fox & Friends” from 2017 to 2024, Mr. Hegseth and his colleagues often joked about his love of beer, gin and whiskey.

In response to a question about his weight on the 2020 episode of Fox Nation, Mr. Hegseth responded that his diet consists mostly of “protein and alcohol.” But he also hinted that he was trying to limit alcohol consumption. “I put so much lemonade and so much gin in it, so I don’t really drink much, although I might have a lot of glasses. “You know how it goes,” he said.

Three years later, appearing on a Fox & Friends episode the night before in a tuxedo from a party, he said, “I partied all night and I’m here and I haven’t changed.”

Mr. Hegseth’s treatment of women could also come up. In an email from 2018, his mother Penelope Hegseth accused him of abusing women for years. “I have no respect for a man who belittles women, lies, cheats, sleeps around and exploits them for his own power and ego. You are that man,” she wrote to him.

Ms. Hegseth later denied those feelings and said she apologized to her son for the email.

In the interview with Ms. Kelly, Mr. Hegseth said, with the help of his third wife and his religious faith, “I have become a changed man.”

Emily Steel contributed to reporting.