A crucial week for President-elect Trump gets underway in earnest on Tuesday, when his nominees for key posts start going before the Senate committees that will begin to determine their fates. Beyond the specifics of each hearing, however, the process overall will be a litmus test for the incoming Trump administration. It will shine a light on the president-elect’s fondness for media celebrities and heterodox figures — and it will also be a test of just how firmly he holds the GOP in his grip. Much of the attention will focus on Pete Hegseth, Trump’s nominee to lead the Pentagon. Former North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R) had originally been scheduled the same day to sit for his hearing as he seeks confirmation to lead the Department of the Interior. But even the comparatively low-wattage Burgum drew pushback from Democrats, who complained about incomplete paperwork. Burgum’s hearing has been pushed back to Thursday. Among the other Trump nominees who will face Senate panels this week are South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) to lead the Department of Homeland Security; former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi (R) to lead the Justice Department; Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) to become secretary of State; former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe to lead the CIA; and billionaire investor Scott Bessent to become Treasury secretary. Here’s when Trump nominees will appear for confirmation hearings Two of the most controversial Trump nominees — Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii), to become director of national intelligence — have not yet had hearings scheduled. Those two could face among the toughest questioning of all. Trump lost one high-profile nominee when former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) withdrew his name from consideration to be attorney general. Gaetz had been dogged by allegations of lurid behavior, though he emphatically denies wrongdoing.  The broader point of the Gaetz debacle was that it left Trump with little leeway for the rest of his picks. At the time, it fueled speculation that the wheels might come off other nominees — notably Hegseth, an erstwhile Fox News personality who was revealed to have paid a settlement to a woman who claimed he had sexually assaulted her. Hegseth, through his lawyer, denies any assault and says he paid the settlement to protect his television career. Hegseth had two other potential strikes against him — accusations of poor management of smaller organizations with which he had been involved, and tales of inappropriately heavy drinking. At one stage, there were even media reports that Trump was considering jettisoning Hegseth as his Pentagon pick in favor of the president-elect’s old primary rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R). But Hegseth weathered that storm. In the process, the overall push to confirm Trump’s nominees also seemed to stabilize. One key development, in relation to Hegseth, has been the encouraging signs being transmitted by Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Ernst had been perceived as one of the most potentially skeptical Republican voices on Hegseth, in part because she has worked extensively on the issue of sexual assault in the military. However, Ernst and Hegseth have met on at least two occasions since his nomination was announced. After the second conversation, on Dec. 9, Ernst released a statement noting that the nominee had “committed to completing a full audit of the Pentagon and selecting a senior official who will uphold the roles and value of our servicemen and women … and who will prioritize and strengthen my work to prevent sexual assault within the ranks.” Ernst added that she would “support Pete through this process” — a statement that fell short of an outright commitment to vote for him, but was important nonetheless. Hegseth has also modulated his views on the topic of women serving in combat roles. In November, he said on a podcast that he was “straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles. It hasn’t made us more effective.” But amid concerns that those comments could weigh down his hopes of confirmation, Hegseth told conservative commentator Megyn Kelly the following month that “if we have the right standard and women meet that standard, roger. Let’s go.” Hegseth is not the only controversial Trump nominee to apparently tailor his views to assist chances of confirmation.  Gabbard has recently executed a sharp U-turn on a controversial law: Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The provision allows considerable latitude for U.S. intelligence agencies to conduct warrantless collection of the electronic communications of people who are outside the U.S. and are not American citizens. The progressive left and libertarian right have significant problems with the measure, arguing in part that it is far too easy for Americans to get swept up in its powers. Gabbard had voted against the reauthorization of FISA in 2020, in part because of those kinds of concerns. However, on Friday, Gabbard told ABC News in a statement that her “prior concerns about FISA were based on insufficient protections for civil liberties” but that now she would "uphold Americans' Fourth Amendment rights while maintaining vital national security tools like Section 702 to ensure the safety and freedom of the Americans.” That shift alone seems to have warmed up some Republican senators who had previously sounded lukewarm about Gabbard. There has always been a question about how eager GOP senators are to defy Trump. The upper chamber has been slightly more hospitable terrain for Trump skeptics within the party than the House. But there is hardly a rush from anyone in the GOP to buck the wishes of a newly elected president who — love him or hate him — mounted an astounding political comeback to win November’s election fairly comfortably. There could still be turbulent waters ahead, of course. And Democrats will do all they can to embarrass Trump’s nominees at the hearings. But the odds remain in favor of the confirmation of the vast majority of his picks. The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.