I’m reading “Power, Intimidation and the Resurrection of Trump’s Support for Hegseth/The president-elect became convinced that letting Pete Hegseth fail would set off a feeding frenzy among senators. What followed was a MAGA swarm that helped salvage his bid, at least for now,” by Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman in the NYT.

I’m giving you a free-access link so you can judge the quality of the sources, the likelihood of a senatorial “feeding frenzy,” and the meaning of “MAGA swarm.”
We’re told that Pete Hegseth went “from dead man walking to a man with a real shot of being confirmed by the Senate” in what was “a test case of power and intimidation,” where Trump demonstrated his “ability to summon an online swarm, even while spending minimal personal capital of his own.”
Mr. Hegseth spent Wednesday, Dec. 4, just trying to stay in the running. Mr. Trump, in a private phone call that morning, gave his blessing for Mr. Hegseth to go out and fight for the job…. Mr. Hegseth had been getting nervous, particularly after reading the reports about [Trump switching to Ron] DeSantis. He felt as though he was effectively under a gag order; people on the transition team had told him to stay away from the news media…. Mr. Trump’s private blessing to go out and fight was all he needed. By Thursday morning, Mr. Trump made his decision known to his inner circle: He was sticking with Mr. Hegseth….

That sounds like Trump interacting directly with Hegseth and making his own decision, but go read the rest of the article if you want to see the basis for saying there was “intimidation” and a “MAGA swarm.”

Mr. Trump’s allies say they have learned their lesson: no more Gaetzes, no more easy concessions to squeamish Republicans…. [This was the] first test run of a blunt-force pressure strategy that will be replicated again and again, whenever a Republican gets in the way of Mr. Trump.

Another way of putting that is Trump’s opponents wanted to run their own a “blunt-force pressure strategy” that worked on Gaetz and that would have been “replicated again and again” if Trump hadn’t stood his ground.