US Senate News:
Source: United States Senator for Connecticut – Chris Murphy
January 24, 2025
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WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on Friday spoke on the U.S. Senate floor to oppose the confirmation of Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense. Murphy called on Republicans to reconsider advancing Hegseth’s nomination in light of serious unanswered questions about his character and conduct, troubling past statements and positions, and inadequate experience for this demanding and critical job.
“It is not hyperbole to say that we have never seen a candidate, at least in modern times, to lead our soldiers and our troops, who is as dangerously and woefully unqualified as Pete Hegseth,” said Murphy. “I think his history of personal misconduct in and of itself is disqualifying. It is just an embarrassment to the country at a moment when we want to win more friends and allies. It’s just the wrong match for a department that oversees the moral and professional development of young men and women, to have someone with that kind of history leading the agency. But it is also important [to consider] the views that he has expressed on how he would run the Department of Defense, because I fear he will run it into the ground.”
Murphy warned that Hegseth’s commitment to advancing Donald Trump’s ‘war on woke’ would sow mistrust, paranoia, and instability within the military: “He has promised to fire top-end military leaders who are engaged in his nebulous ‘war on woke.’ So if you care about making sure that you’ve got troops from different backgrounds and different parts of the country, maybe that’s a ‘war on woke.’ If you promote a woman, maybe that’s a ‘war on woke.’ If you care about making sure that your troops don’t engage in unethical conduct, maybe that’s a ‘war on woke.’ If you contract with a local business that may not be aligned with Donald Trump, maybe that’s part of the ‘war on woke.’ We have no idea. And so what will happen inside the Department of Defense is just a constant sense of paranoia, a constant looking over your shoulder, a grinding to a halt of business-as-normal because nobody knows what is a fireable offense and what isn’t. How do I stay on the good side of Pete Hegseth? What gets me on the bad side?”
On Hegseth’s comments in his book, ‘We need moms, but not in the military. Especially in combat units,’ Murphy said: “What an insulting thing to say. What a disgusting thing to believe. ‘Dads push us to take risks, moms put the training wheels on our bikes.’ My mom taught me to take risks. My dad told me to take risks, too. But is there a single United States senator here who believes that our mothers, the women in our lives, aren’t risk takers? That they didn’t push us to be better? Pete Hegseth believes–he just believes this–that women hold us back. That women hold men back. That women hold their sons back. And it just doesn’t matter that he has walked back these statements. Magically, he had a conversion on the issue of women in the military. Magically, he started saying less offensive things about women, right after he was nominated to be Secretary of Defense. Nobody believes this conversion. This is a conversion for political reasons only. It does not mask the fact that this is what Pete Hegseth believes. That he believes that women are inferior to men.”
Murphy added: “Many have pointed out the real impacts [Hegseth’s] ideas will have surrounding women in combat, and what those comments could mean for our more general readiness. Why? Because there are 360,000 women serving in the U.S. military today, in a variety of capacities. They are essential to keeping this nation safe. And now every single one of them knows that the man taking over the Department of Defense doesn’t think they are worthy to serve, and that their prospects for advancement upon his elevation in the Department of Defense are compromised. Their ability to get fair treatment inside the Department of Defense has been compromised. And it won’t shock anybody if we see many of those women leave the service, and if we see many fewer women sign up to protect this country. That would come at an enormous cost–an enormous cost to the security of this nation.”
Murphy pointed to Hegseth’s dismissal of concerns about extremism within the military, warning of the risks posed by failing to address the issue: “Hegseth has said that this issue of whether the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys have influence inside the military–and there are plenty of reports that there are lots of active channels of communication and recruitment between these right-wing groups and the military–he says that that problem is fake, it’s fake. Now, I don’t know the extent of this problem, but I know it’s something we should talk about, and I’m very, very worried to have a Secretary of Defense who doesn’t believe it’s a problem even worth mentioning.”
On Hegseth’s blatant disregard for international law and military justice processes , Murphy said: “Lastly, madam president, I want to talk about what I maybe think is the most dangerous part of Pete Hegseth’s views on the military, and that is his history of support for war criminals, his low regard for the code of military justice, and his disbelief, his nonbelief, in the concept of international law and the laws of war…He is interested in obliterating the rules of engagement. He doesn’t want any constraints on our soldiers. And while it is true that many of the enemies that we fight don’t follow any rules at all, it is not good for the United States’ security more broadly to give up on international law, the rules of war and the rules of engagement, and just accept a race to the bottom.”
Murphy concluded: “These questions about women in combat, about the political campaigns that will be run inside the department that will breed a sense of paranoia, about taking seriously small but growing real threats to us, like extremism in the military, and then this bigger question of making sure that we have fealty to the laws of war and prohibitions against torture, I think all of those really concerning views of this nominee– even if the misconduct didn’t exist–would be enough for us to say, find somebody else. Find somebody else who is just going to do the job, instead of trying to bring these political agendas, whether it’s misogyny or anti-wokeism or anti-multilateralism, into a job that really should be pretty simple. Lead our troops, protect the nation, lift up America’s standing in the world. I know the cake may be baked at this point, but I just want to make one more plea to my Republican colleagues to reconsider their decision to confirm to lead the Department of Defense somebody who seems just hell-bent mostly on pursuing a political, not military, agenda, that I truly believe is certain to weaken our armed forces and threaten our national security.”