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On Tuesday, the U.S. Senate held its confirmation hearing for Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick for Secretary of Defense. Hegseth is a veteran and Fox News presenter with no senior military or public office experience who has been mired in controversy since Trump announced his nomination.
Fellow service members who served alongside Hegseth in the Army National Guard have claimed that Hegseth has multiple tattoos associated with white supremacist extremist groups. In 2020, Hegseth paid off a woman who accused him of sexually assaulting her in October of 2017, although Hegseth and his attorneys claim that the incident was a “consensual sexual encounter” and deny any wrongdoing. Hegseth has also said on multiple occasions that he believes women should not be allowed to serve in combat roles in the military, has criticized diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, and has advocated for the dissolution of NATO.
However, many Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee, including U.S. Sen. Tuberville, R-Ala., praised Hegseth on Tuesday and largely ignored questions about his character or experience.
Tuberville began his questioning of Hegseth by jokingly referring to the nominee as “General Hegseth” and praising his toughness. The senator also referred to Hegseth’s friends and family in attendance, saying that he had never seen “this many people here for the support of a nominee, that’s impressive.”
Tuberville then turned his attention to questions about military recruiting, claiming that the U.S. military is in a compromised position. “The war games that we play on our computers with our adversaries right now, for us, it don’t look good, because of our military. We’re in trouble, our whole country’s in trouble. Thank god President Trump got elected on Nov. 5, we couldn’t have kept down this same path,” Tuberville said.
Tuberville then claimed that multiple generals had told him the military was spending more on “transgender restrooms” than on “coverings for $100 million airplanes.” The senator also claimed to have met with members of the Navy Seals who left the military after having to spend a week in “DEI training.”
“We’ve lost all sight of what we’re doing in our military,” Tuberville remarked.
In reality, the Department of Defense’s budget remains exorbitant and has grown exponentially over time. Currently, the DOD has a budget of nearly $1 trillion, meaning the U.S. spends more on its military then the next 9 countries combined, which includes Tuberville’s “adversaries” like China and Russia. Both parties continue to unilaterally support military funding, even though the Pentagon has failed its last 7 audits in a row — a fact that is rarely mentioned when politicians discuss matters of “fiscal responsibility.” The Pentagon’s last audit itself cost $178 million of taxpayer money.
“It used to, when I was growing up, if you couldn’t afford to go to college you had the opportunity to go to the military where you could learn a trade, you could learn, you could make a living for your family and eventually, possibly get an education. That was a good alternative,” Tuberville continued. “We’ve forgotten that… we can’t give up on our young people.”
It is unclear what Tuberville is referring to, as the provisions of the GI Bill, which provides members of the military with tuition assistance and heavily subsidized postsecondary education opportunities, remain in place today. In a survey conducted by Syracuse University among members of the military, 53 percent of the respondents stated that they joined the military for the express purpose of receiving educational benefits
Tuberville also accused the military’s service academies, like West Point, of becoming a “breeding ground for leftist activists and champions of DEI and critical theory.”
“Now not all, but some, and some is way too much. How are we going to eliminate this, Mr. Hegseth?” Tuberville asked.
Hegseth responded that “clear leadership” was the answer. “You have to rip, root and branch, the politics and divisive policies out of these institutions,” Hegseth said.
Hegseth also advocated for bringing back more uniformed servicemen and women to teach at these service academies “instead of just more civilian professors that came from the same left-wing, woke universities that they left and then try to push that into service academies.”
“When that changes, Senator, I truly believe under Donald Trump we will have a recruiting renaissance. That sends signals to the world, to our enemies and our allies alike, that America’s back and thankfully then we [will] have the men and women of our country willing and wanting to serve,” Hegseth added.
“I love your attitude,” Tuberville replied.
“Why would you fight for a country that you don’t love? That’s what I keep hearing from a lot of our college kids that they’re getting from these woke universities that they go to… That is one of the excuses I get from our kids, we’ve got to break that,” the senator added.
Tuberville ended his time by asking Hegseth about matters of DOD bureaucracy. Both Hegseth and the senator voiced their support for slashing staff positions at the department with Hegseth claiming that there is an “inverse relationship between the size of staffs and victory on the battlefield.”
Hegseth’s hearing ended after four hours of questioning by the committee with no Republicans indicating that they would vote against his confirmation. With a simple majority in the Senate, Republicans could confirm Hegseth’s nomination when the full chamber convenes for a vote.
