Army Veteran Senator Details The Many Ways In Which Hegseth Is ‘Unqualified’ For Defense Gig

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CHICAGO, ILLINOIS - DECEMBER 16: U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) speaks about her recently-introduced Emergency Vacating of Aircraft Cabin (EVAC) Act during a press conference at O’Hare International Airport o... CHICAGO, ILLINOIS - DECEMBER 16: U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) speaks about her recently-introduced Emergency Vacating of Aircraft Cabin (EVAC) Act during a press conference at O’Hare International Airport on December 16, 2022 in Chicago, Illinois. The act calls on the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to reevaluate emergency evacuation procedures on commercial aircraft. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) MORE LESS
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For many reasons, including a previously undisclosed allegation of sexual assault against him, Democrats have been sounding the alarm on veteran and former Fox News host Pete Hegseth’s extreme lack of fitness to be the secretary of the Department of Defense.

The man has long held and espoused extreme and in-another-era disqualifying views on a range of issues. Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) over the weekend argued that its his remarks about women serving in combat that should be the nail in the coffin for someone hoping to serve as head of the Pentagon. In recent days, Hegseth’s past remarks and beliefs on women’s place in military service have surfaced — he’s argued “we should not have women in combat roles” because it “has made fighting more complicated.”

Duckworth, who is an Army veteran who lost both her legs serving in combat in Iraq, said his beliefs about women in the military illustrate an inherent and willful ignorance towards the military and Department of Defense operations and personnel overall.

“He’s wrong because women have made us more effective. In fact, our military could not go to war without its 223,000 women who serve in uniform,” Duckworth told CNN over the weekend. “We would have an ineffective military that was not capable of deployment if we were to pull out all the women and say, you cannot be in combat.”

“This shows that Mr. Hegseth is not qualified for the position because he doesn’t understand apparently, even after having served, that women are actually vitally important to an effective military,” Duckworth said. “With the recruiting challenges we’re having right now, if we were to pull all those women out and say, you can’t go into combat, we would face a severe personnel crisis in the military.”

On top of his beliefs about women, Duckworth noted that the former Fox News host has never worked in a comparable leadership position nor demonstrated an ability to run an operation as large as the Pentagon.

“He was a pretty low-ranking guy in the military, and he never had a command position,” Duckworth said. “He was a platoon leader, I think, once or twice, but he never even commanded a company. And so this is a man who is inordinately unqualified for the position.”

Obviously, Duckworth is a female veteran with Senate confirmation voting power whose opinion on Hegseth should be taken into consideration, but one that will likely fall on deaf ears among Senate Republicans — a group consisting of just a few members who occasionally work up the courage to break with Donald Trump, in increasingly futile ways. Last week just four Senate Republicans privately expressed that they were immovably opposed to ex-Rep. Matt Gaetz’s attorney general nomination due to allegations he had sex with a minor and his general sleazeball reputation on Capitol Hill.

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Notable Replies

  1. Avatar for 1gg 1gg says:

    We know Hegseth loves the Crusades but does he think of Joan of Arc?

  2. Wouldn’t he think that Joan of Arc was hot?

  3. Avatar for dave48 dave48 says:

    The incoming administration defines “qualified” as follows:

    The willingness to tell Trump whatever he wants to hear, agree with whatever he says and carry out his orders without question no matter how batshit crazy they might be.

    In that respect, I’m sure Hegseth is eminently qualified.

  4. His favourite being of course The Children’s Crusade.

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