[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 15 (Friday, January 24, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S345-S347]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                      Nomination of Peter Hegseth

  Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, Pete Hegseth is just not qualified to be 
in charge of the Department of Defense. He would oversee almost 3 
million employees around the world and an annual budget of over $800 
billion. But his only management experience today is running two very 
small veterans' organizations with, let's just say, mixed results.
  Even if he had done extraordinarily well in that job, you do not put 
a person in charge of a small shop suddenly in charge of 3 million 
employees. He ran organizations with just a few dozen employees and 
tiny little budgets and neither of them were anything like the Defense 
Department in size and scale. And so on what basis are we supposed to 
trust that Pete Hegseth can manage not just the largest employer in the 
country but one of the largest employers on the planet?
  Much like the rest of Donald Trump's Cabinet, the main criteria for 
Hegseth's nomination was his loyalty to Donald Trump. I am not saying 
loyalty to the President is some sort of disqualifier. You want your 
Cabinet to be loyal. But it can't be the only thing. You also have to 
be good at this. It is not like you couldn't have found a MAGA world 
person that was a three-star or a four-star or someone who had run a 
big enterprise or someone who had been a Governor or someone who had 
done big things and demonstrated they could run big complex 
organizations. That is what this is.
  This isn't about woke or not woke or foreign policy. This is about: 
Gosh, this is a big job; and to the extent that the U.S. Senate is in 
the personnel business to provide our advice and then our consent to a 
President providing us with a nominee, it is very hard to get to yes on 
someone who has just never run anything particularly large or 
complicated.
  In 2017--and this is his main qualification--he says:

       I think President Donald Trump is the final defensive line 
     for America.

  And as Trump ran for reelection, he said that there would be a 
``national divorce'' if Democrats won and that ``the military and 
police . . . will be forced''--``the military and the police . . . will 
be forced to make a choice [and] yes, there will be some form of civil 
war.''
  This is the guy we want to run the Defense Department who a couple of 
years ago suggested if Democrats win, there might be a civil war.
  It is not just that Hegseth is a Trump acolyte getting a plum job in 
the administration. There is plenty of that happening. It is also that 
he has no real understanding substantively of the job that he would be 
doing. Leading the Department of the Defense is not just a bureaucratic 
exercise. Day in and day out, month after month, you are issuing 
billions of dollars in contracts and making decisions that are not at 
all obvious and super complex and sensitive. There are tradeoffs and 
compromises, and you have to know how, as they say, the building works.
  So your knowledge and your experience really matter here, which is 
why it was so alarming that he wasn't able to name a single member of 
ASEAN when asked by my colleague Senator Tammy Duckworth. It wasn't a 
``gotcha'' question. That is pretty basic stuff. ASEAN, which stands 
for the Association of Southeastern Asian Nations, is an essential part 
of the strategy in the Indo-Pacific. These are key partners the Defense 
Secretary directly engages with. Hegseth didn't even know the first 
thing about them and named a bunch of countries that don't even belong 
to the organization.

[[Page S346]]

  Later, when he was asked by Senator Slotkin whether he would carry 
out an illegal order from Donald Trump, like using the military against 
civilians, he refused to give a straight answer. There are a lot of 
close calls when you are Defense Secretary, but whether or not to turn 
the military on the public, even if they are Democrats, is not a close 
call. That is a simple: No, I wouldn't do that. I will not carry out an 
illegal order. No, the United States military is not in existence for 
the purpose of carrying out orders against United States citizens 
exercising their constitutional rights.
  Leading our Armed Forces is not a part-time gig. The Pentagon is not 
a cable news set where you can roll up on a Saturday and say clever 
things. You can't improv your way out of global conflicts.
  The people who lace up and go into battle deserve better than that. 
They deserve someone who understands the world and all of its 
complexities and recognizes the weight of their decisions, especially 
when the chips are down. And Pete Hegseth is not that person.
  I urge my colleagues to do the right thing and vote no on his 
confirmation.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Justice). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I realize that some Republicans were 
hoping we would cut this process short, but I have no problem coming to 
the floor and having a lengthy discussion about Mr. Hegseth's 
nomination to be Defense Secretary. I am eager to talk about it.
  The only person who doesn't seem to want to talk about the Hegseth 
nomination is actually Mr. Hegseth himself, because I have been trying 
for weeks to schedule a meeting with Mr. Hegseth prior to his 
confirmation vote. I genuinely want a chance to ask him directly about 
my concerns with his character and fitness, yes, but also about the 
serious challenges facing our Nation, whether it is competition with 
China or aggression from Russia.
  As vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, I help write 
the bill that funds the Defense Department every year. And that bill 
only passes with bipartisan support. I don't think it is asking a lot 
to be able to meet with the person nominated to lead that Department.
  I have had the opportunity to meet with 10 of President Trump's 
Cabinet nominees, and I look forward to meeting with more before they 
are confirmed by the Senate. Conducting these meetings is the absolute 
bare minimum, given the role of each Senator and the constituents they 
represent. But Mr. Hegseth refused to meet with me and has refused to 
meet with many of my Democratic colleagues.
  I think most Americans would agree you shouldn't get the job if you 
decide you can skip the job interview. Every nominee--every nominee--
should be willing to meet with Senators, regardless of their party, to 
answer basic questions about how they would approach their role if 
confirmed. It is honestly beneath the dignity of the role he aspires to 
for Mr. Hegseth to refuse to meet one-on-one with most Democrats.
  What is he afraid of? Are the questions we have to ask really that 
hard? I mean, if Mr. Hegseth is afraid of me, how is he going to stand 
up to China?
  Meeting with Members on both sides isn't just some formality. If you 
are confirmed, it is part of the job. So this is a serious concern and 
one of the many concerns I have now with Mr. Hegseth's qualifications, 
his positions, and his character.
  Let's be perfectly clear about the stakes here. We are talking about 
who we will put in command of the most powerful military in the world. 
There is nothing on Mr. Hegseth's resume that remotely suggests he has 
the experience for that role. I have deep appreciation for his service 
to our country; I do. But let's not kid ourselves here. I don't see how 
being a FOX TV host prepares you to lead 3 million servicemembers and 
civilians. I don't see how bankrupting a veterans' nonprofit through 
wasteful spending qualifies you to manage a budget of nearly $900 
billion.
  Moreover, we really, truly have no sense of what his understanding of 
military policy is or what his strategic priorities would be. Thanks to 
Senator Duckworth, we know he is someone who can't name a single 
country in ASEAN. That ignorance is alarming. Senators only had 7 
minutes during his confirmation hearing to ask questions. Many asked 
the questions we knew our Republican colleagues would not regarding 
Hegseth's questionable character and fitness--important questions, 
absolutely. But because we had to spend so much time understanding if 
he even could do this job at the most basic level, we had precious 
little time to ask him about how he would do his job.
  How would Pete Hegseth ensure that our servicemembers and their 
families have the resources they need at home and abroad? How does he 
plan to reduce costs and development times for key military 
capabilities that are critical to our national security? How would he 
invest in our defense industrial base and public shipyards, like the 
one in my home State of Washington? How does he view the pacing threat 
in the Indo-Pacific? And how would he work with our partners and our 
allies to prepare for a potential conflict? Does he have any thoughts 
on that at all?
  This is just not a serious candidate who has thoughtful positions on 
the challenges we face.
  You know what position he is serious about, what he has stated over 
and over again?

       I'm straight up just saying we should not have women in 
     combat roles.

  He said that last November.
  Or:

       We need moms. But not in the military, especially in combat 
     units.

  That is infuriating and disqualifying. I don't have to try very hard 
to imagine how that kind of condescending attitude will go over with 
our women in uniform.
  And after decades of comments like this--denigrating the role of 
women in the military in ways that simply do not square with reality--
Mr. Hegseth's recent about-face on this topic is just not convincing. 
He has also made clear he has little regard for the Geneva Conventions.
  Maybe this is a bit old-fashioned of me, but I think we should have a 
Secretary of Defense who is firmly against war crimes; not one who has 
spoken in favor of torture like waterboarding, in favor of people 
convicted of war crimes, and questioned whether we should follow the 
Geneva Conventions.
  And let's not forget, in addition to having no real qualifications 
and many alarming positions, Mr. Hegseth has many red flags that raise 
serious concerns about his character and his conduct. There is the 
report that he and his management team pursued women on his staff. 
There is the report that he took his employees to a strip club and got 
drunk. There is the report that he got drunk in uniform and had to be 
carried out of a strip club. There is the report that he chanted ``Kill 
all Muslims'' while he was drunk.
  And beyond reporting, there are the police records backing up the 
account of a woman who told the nurse she may have been drugged and 
then raped by Pete Hegseth. We couldn't hear from that woman because 
Mr. Hegseth reached a financial settlement, and he has now threatened 
to sue her for speaking out. And we almost didn't hear about that 
incident at all since he didn't even disclose it when he was vetted.
  But there are other people we have now heard from. We know his mother 
once wrote to her son directly criticizing him as an abuser of women. 
We know his former sister-in-law, in a signed affidavit, has shared she 
saw Mr. Hegseth drink to excess and understood his ex-wife feared for 
her safety with him. And we know that same ex-wife told the FBI that 
``he drinks more than he doesn't.''
  That is an awful lot of smoke for us to be ignoring the fire.
  There is absolutely no world where someone who has a history of 
running up debts at nonprofits should be responsible for overseeing 
half of our discretionary spending. There is no world where someone 
with a history of failing

[[Page S347]]

to address his irresponsible alcohol use should be given one of the 
most stressful jobs imaginable and should be making life-and-death 
decisions on a daily and an hourly basis. There is no world where we 
should have a predator running the Department of Defense that is 
responsible for the well-being of millions of women and men in uniform.

  I don't get how that is complicated.
  Mr. President, let me just end on this. There is no world where the 
person in charge of our military should see his fellow Americans as the 
enemy. But Mr. Hegseth has made clear that is his view. Regarding 
Democrats and Republicans, he has written--and this is him:

       The other side--the Left--is not our friend. We are not 
     esteemed colleagues, nor mere political opponents. We are 
     foes. Either we win, or they win. We agree on nothing else.

  That is an especially dark view of our country. Our military uniforms 
do not say ``Democrat,'' they do not say ``Republican.'' They just 
don't.
  You cannot be an effective commander if your people don't trust you. 
But how are troops supposed to trust you to keep them safe in combat if 
you think half the Nation is an enemy? How are Muslim servicemembers 
supposed to trust you if you think their religion is a threat to our 
country? How are women servicemembers supposed to trust you if you 
think they should be at home?
  I don't have an answer to that. Maybe Mr. Hegseth doesn't either. 
Maybe that is why he won't meet with me. Then again, maybe it is 
because he thinks I am his foe because I am a Democrat, or maybe he 
doesn't think I should have a say in the military issues because I am a 
woman.
  Mr. President, I do have a say, and I say someone like Mr. Hegseth is 
grossly unqualified to take on one of the most important jobs in the 
world. And I will be voting against him. I urge my Republican 
colleagues to seriously consider the message it will send to confirm 
someone for Secretary of Defense who has failed time and again to meet 
the most basic standards of conduct our women and men in uniform are 
required to live up to.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.