The battle over Chuck Hagel's nomination is over. The Senate today confirmed the former Nebraska senator as Defense secretary. The vote was 58-41.

Senate Republicans today blocked a vote to confirm defense secretary nominee Chuck Hagel.

I made this decision very reluctantly. I made it reluctantly because I recognize the significant hardship this places on our civilian personnel across the country and their families.

I think we all accept it is a crime, and it needs to be treated as a crime.

It is, I think, a critically important part of our foreign policy, clearly in our national interest.

If you do not hold people accountable, then you are not going to fix the problem.

I do not personally believe that you can eliminate the command structure in the military from this process.

DOD, I think in many ways, has been bloated. The Defense Department has gotten everything it has wanted the last 10 years and more. We have taken priorities. We have taken dollars. We have taken programs. We have taken policies out of the…

We have a constitutional obligation to provide for the defense of this Nation of ours and a moral responsibility to pass a safe Nation on to our children.

The President's fiscal year 2014 budget continues to implement the $487 billion in spending reductions over 10 years agreed to in the Budget Control of 2011, as Senator Sessions noted.

We cannot stand by and allow this unbalanced approach to remain the law of the land.

When you are making friends around the world, when you are developing partners and allies, you are developing the next generation of global citizens who see America helping them.

My understanding is that the Navy has complied with the law and submitted the report to Congress on 1 February 2013.

If confirmed, I would of course place great weight on the assessments and recommendations of combatant commanders...

I do not believe he is the right choice for this job.

The next Secretary of Defense will likely make critical decisions with respect to budgeting for national defense.

Sequester is not the route.

Every nation has a right to defend itself.