[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 102 (Wednesday, June 17, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2871-S2873]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
U.S. Military
Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the U.S.
military and its role as an apolitical institution.
For 250 years, our military's most important source of strength has
been the trust of the American people. Their trust is hard won and
relies upon the belief that our military remains above politics. I fear
that trust is being eroded by the current Secretary of Defense.
I want to begin with Dwight Eisenhower. This month marks the 82nd
anniversary of D-Day and the American invasion at Normandy. General
Eisenhower spent the night before those landings walking among the men
he was sending into battle, asking where they were from, what they did
back home, and how were their families.
He wrote two messages after that meeting. The rallying call for the
soldiers, sailors, and airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force was one
of those messages, but a second message--a message he had hoped no one
would ever read--was written in case the landings failed.
It read:
If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt, it is mine
alone.
Fortunately, he never had to send it, but he wrote it because he
understood that the privilege of command carried the full weight of its
consequences.
In 1947, Eisenhower addressed the graduating class at West Point. He
had just finished commanding the largest military campaign in human
history and witnessed the deaths of hundreds of thousands of young
Americans. He knew what war was, and this is what he told the cadets:
War is mankind's most tragic and stupid folly . . .
Fifteen years later, GEN Douglas MacArthur--no stranger to war
himself--again stood at West Point and said:
[T]he soldier, above all other people, prays for peace . .
.
Those commanders understood that lethality is a terrible tool and
humility is paramount in warfare.
Last weekend, Pete Hegseth traveled to Normandy to observe the D-Day
anniversary. He stood at the American cemetery above the beaches where
more than 2,500 Americans died in a single morning. Standing on that
sacred historic site, Secretary Hegseth did not use his platform to
express humility or unity, but to preach an anti-immigrant message. He
said:
Sadly, today, different European beaches are stormed by
different dangerous ideologies. Beaches in Spain, in Italy,
in Greece and Bulgaria. Boats and men arrive. When will
European capitals do something about that invasion?
Well, many historians and veterans, hearing his words, called his
speech grotesque. I would call it a desecration and an ignorant one
also.
I doubt the Secretary knows that during World War II, more than
300,000 foreign-born individuals served in the U.S. Army alone. More
than 109,000 of them were not even American citizens. They were men and
women who crossed an ocean to fight and die for a country that had not
yet fully claimed them and earned their citizenship through their
service.
Hundreds of thousands more were first-generation Americans, the
children of immigrants. For example, U.S. Navy coxswain Amin Isbir, the
son of Syrian immigrants who settled in Pittsburgh, was among the first
men off his landing craft when it reached Omaha Beach under heavy fire.
After securing his landing craft on the beach, he was killed by a
German shell while helping load a fellow wounded soldier onto a
stretcher.
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Coxswain Isbir and countless heroes like him are buried at Normandy,
the sons and daughters of immigrants or immigrants themselves. Yet
Secretary Hegseth stood above their graves and used the moment to
deride the kind of people they were.
Last month, Secretary Hegseth got his own chance to address West
Point cadets at their commencement. Where Eisenhower and McArthur spoke
of wisdom, humility, and caution, Pete Hegseth boasted about lethality,
claimed that West Point had turned into ``woke Princeton'' and made
such bluster as ``you can't throw your pronouns at the enemy.''
He told the class of 2026, the most diverse class in the history of
the U.S. Military Academy, that strength in diversity is ``the single
dumbest phrase in military history.'' He mocked the service of women
officers and criticized those with nonconservative political beliefs.
He told a captive audience of newly commissioned officers that the
presence of their classmates with different beliefs and demographics
represented a lowering of standards. It was a shameful, divisive, and
self-centered speech.
I attended West Point as a cadet. I taught there as a professor. I
served on Active Duty as an Army officer. I hope I know what West Point
stands for and what its graduates embrace: principled leadership to
serve their soldiers and the Nation. Where past leaders asked West
Point cadets to understand the economic, political, and spiritual
aspirations of other peoples, to devote their lives as seriously to
leading toward peace as preparing for war, Hegseth gave them a culture
war speech.
Indeed, as James Bennet observed in The Economist:
[W]here past military leaders treated violence as a tragic
necessity, Hegseth celebrated it as righteous and thrilling.
His hyperpartisan remarks were both morally and factually wrong. But
this was not an isolated incident. It is a part of a pattern of
partisan political behavior antithetical to the role of the Secretary
of Defense.
Last month, Secretary Hegseth traveled to Kentucky to campaign for a
Republican House candidate the day before a primary election. He stood
on a stage, attacked a sitting Republican Member of Congress, and told
the crowd to send a different person to Washington. He announced a
disclaimer, apparently ``for the lawyers,'' that he was there in his
personal capacity.
That disclaimer is void. The Secretary of Defense does not have a
personal capacity. He represents, at every moment, this Nation and its
military forces.
Indeed, this trip seems to violate the Defense Department's own
political activity rules which expressly prohibit Senate-confirmed
officials from taking an active part in political campaigns. The
Department rules are explicit. Even making speeches or knocking doors
constitutes a prohibited political act for someone in Hegseth's
position.
Pete Hegseth arrived in Kentucky as the civilian leader of the most
powerful military on Earth, in the middle of an active war. The
``Secretary'' title travels with him. He can't leave it at the office.
The authority of the office travels with him. And every servicemember
watching the news understood exactly what they were seeing: the man who
controls their careers, their promotions, and their deployments
inserting himself into a partisan election on behalf of the President's
favorite candidate.
This was an abuse of office and created an image that every Secretary
of Defense, in my memory, has worked to avoid.
The Kentucky party's own former spokesperson questioned whether
Secretary Hegseth violated the Hatch Act, and numerous independent
groups have filed complaints with the Pentagon's inspector general.
This isn't about my opposition to the Secretary or President Trump. I
am driven by the corrosive impacts of his rhetoric, his actions, and
what they mean for the strength of our volunteer military. We need to
think about what this means for the men and women in uniform who serve
under this Secretary. They took an oath to the Constitution--not to a
political party, not to a candidate, not to a President. The Uniform
Code of Military Justice restricts their partisan activity precisely
because we have always understood that a politicized military is a
dangerous military. And now our servicemembers are watching their
Secretary of Defense do what they are forbidden to do.
What message does that send? What chilling effect does it have on
good order and discipline throughout the ranks?
Secretary Hegseth has personally intervened in the careers of nearly
50 senior officers that we know of, firing them or blocking their
promotions without explanation. Just last month, we learned he had
personally blocked and delayed the promotions of dozens of top
performing Navy and Air Force officers, the majority of whom are women
and minority officers. These are leaders, selected by their peers,
based on merit and performance, in a promotion system that has
functioned on those principles for generations.
The chilling effect is real. Senior officers across the force are
asking themselves whether their professional military advice--the kind
that keeps soldiers alive--will cost them their careers.
And this is not hypothetical. We have already seen it happen. General
Kruse, the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, was fired
last year after his analysts produced an intelligence report that
contradicted the Secretary's public claims about Iran.
The message was received by those advising him, and here we are
today, more than 100 days into a war with Iran.
I would also note, that under U.S. law, only the President may remove
an officer from a promotion list. Secretary Hegseth has refused to
explain why or how he believes he has the authority to terminate or
delay these officers' careers.
And, of course, there is the Kid Rock incident. In March, two Army
Apache helicopters flew to the Nashville home of Kid Rock--a well-known
Trump supporter--and hovered over his pool while he filmed them for
social media. This was an obvious violation of military protocol and
aviation safety laws, and the Army immediately launched an
investigation and suspended the crews. But within hours, Secretary
Hegseth intervened. He posted on social media:
No punishment. No investigation. Carry on, patriots.
The Army's chain of command was overruled by a tweet because the man
being entertained was a friend of the President.
Secretary Hegseth later doubled down by taking Kid Rock for a ride in
an Army Apache helicopter as part of a promotional video.
The Army's aviation safety regulations exist for a reason. The chain
of command exists for a reason. It ensures commanders hold each other
and their troops accountable, that those who break regulations face
consequences, and that military assets are used for legitimate
operational needs, not political theater.
When the Secretary of Defense short-circuits good order and
discipline to benefit a political ally, he does not just bend the
rules; he signals to every officer that accountability is conditional
on politics.
These actions are emblematic of the Secretary's broader focus on his
own personal agenda. In the past 3 months alone, while our
servicemembers have been fighting and dying overseas, he has taken it
upon himself to cancel flu vaccine requirements, repeal firearm
restrictions on military posts, bar servicemembers from attending
certain universities, and upend the Chaplin Corps.
My point is this: Secretary Hegseth is behaving as though his time as
Defense Secretary is an opportunity to impose his personal political
views on our military men and women. He is wrong. The Office of
Secretary of Defense is about leading millions of American
servicemembers of every faith, race, and gender with the character and
composure they deserve. The military's apolitical mission is not
incidental to its strength; it is foundational to its strength.
When the Secretary of Defense uses his office to promote a sectarian
vision of his culture war, he does not inspire the force; he divides
it.
Taken together, the Secretary's actions are an assault on the norms,
traditions, and structures that have kept
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the American military the most trusted institution in this country for
250 years.
Good order and discipline is not a slogan. It means that the rules
apply to everyone, including the leaders at the top. It means that
accountability flows both ways and that promotions are based on merit,
not loyalty to a party. And it means that servicemembers of every faith
and background are welcomed and respected.
Secretary Hegseth is undermining every one of those tenets. Our
servicemembers deserve better, and we have an obligation as a body,
this Senate, to say so plainly and to counter this abuse of power.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Democratic leader.
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