Two weeks before his inauguration, and with more "fiscal cliffs" on the horizon, President Obama is embracing a showdown with Congress over his pick to lead the Pentagon in his second term.
Obama will nominate former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel to be the next Secretary of Defense at a formal White House announcement later today, administration officials said.
The president will name counterterrorism advisor John Brennan as the new CIA director to replace David Petraeus, rounding out an overhaul of his national security team.
Obama tapped Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts last month to become the next Secretary of State.
Hagel is in many ways an ideal pick for Obama, giving nod to bipartisanship while appointing someone with a demonstrated commitment to veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan and to retooling and economizing the Pentagon bureaucracy for the future.
But the nomination of Hagel to replace outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is also politically charged, expected to trigger a brutal confirmation fight in the Senate, where a bipartisan group of critics has already lined up against the pick.
"This is an in your face nomination by the president to all of us who are supportive of Israel," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told CNN on Sunday. "I don't know what his management experience is regarding the Pentagon -- little, if any, so I think it's an incredibly controversial choice."
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The criticism stems from Hagel's controversial past statements on foreign policy, including a 2008 reference to Israel's U.S. supporters as "the Jewish lobby" and public encouragement of negotiations between the United States, Israel and Hamas, a Palestinian group the State Department classifies as terrorists.
"Hagel has consistently been against economic sanctions to try to change the behavior of the Islamist regime, the radical regime in Tehran, which is the only way to do it, short of war," Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., said last month.
The Nebraska Republican has also drawn fire for his outspoken opposition to the 2003 U.S.-led war in Iraq and the subsequent troop "surge" ordered by then-President George W. Bush in 2007, which has been credited with helping bring the war to a close.
On the left, gay rights groups have protested Hagel for comments he made in 1998 disparaging then-President Bill Clinton's nominee for U.S. Ambassador to Luxembourg James Hormel as "openly, aggressively gay." Hagel has since apologized for the remark as "insensitive."
Top Senate Democrats tell ABC News there is no guarantee Hagel will win confirmation and that, as of right now, there are enough Democratic Senators with serious concerns about Hagel to put him below 50 votes.
But that could change, with many top lawmakers publicly vowing to withhold final judgment until Hagel has an opportunity to answer his critics during confirmation hearings. No senator has yet publicly vowed to filibuster the Hagel nomination.
Hagel is a decorated Vietnam veteran and businessman who served in the senate from 1997 to 2009. After having sat on that chamber's Foreign Relations and Intelligence committees, he has in recent years gathered praise from current and former diplomats for his work on Obama's Intelligence Advisory Board as well as the policy board of current Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.
"Chuck Hagel is a tremendous patriot and statesman, served incredibly in Vietnam, served this country as a United States senator. He hasn't had a chance to speak for himself. And so why all the prejudging?" said Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., on "This Week."
"In America, you give everybody a chance to speak for themselves and then we'll decide," she said.
The top Senate Republican echoed that sentiment. "I'm going to wait and see how the hearings go and see whether Chuck's views square with the job he would be nominated to do," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said.
