Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth has labeled President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s military record as “pretty low grade” as he faces scrutiny for controversial comments he made about women who serve in battle.
Duckworth, a combat veteran who lost both her legs and mobility in one arm while serving in Iraq, appeared on CBS News’ Face the Nation, where she was asked about the TV personality tapped to run the Pentagon.
She said his comments about women in combat show he doesn’t understand where the military is, and called him unqualified for the role.
“He was a pretty low-ranking guy in the military, and he never had a command position. I think he was a platoon leader once or twice, but he never even commanded a company,” Duckworth said.
“And so this is a man who is grossly unsuitable for the position,” she continued.
Duckworth responded to Hegseth who claimed that women complicate fighting.
Trump made waves when he named Hegseth, a former television personality, author and Fox News veteran, as his nominee.
The 44-year-old is now under scrutiny not only for his comments about women in combat and experiences, but also for allegations of sexual abuse.
Pete Hegseth, Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, speaks to reporters on the Hill. Senator Tammy Duckworth denounced his qualifications to lead the Pentagon, calling him a “fairly low-level guy in the military.”
Hegseth served in the Minnesota National Guard and later in the Army National Guard, serving as an infantryman in Iraq and as a counterinsurgency instructor in Afghanistan. He was also part of a security platoon at Guantanamo Bay.
But the Trump nominee has no senior military or national security experience.
‘I’m just saying honestly that we shouldn’t have women in combat roles. It hasn’t made us more effective, it hasn’t made us more deadly and it hasn’t made fighting more complicated, Hegseth said on a Shawn Ryan podcast earlier this month.
But Duckworth said the U.S. military couldn’t go to war without the 220,000 women who serve, and argued that women who serve in combat are held to the same standards as men.
‘The women in our military make us more effective and more lethal,” she said.
She called Hegseth’s claims about women in the military “plain wrong.”
“America’s daughters are as capable of defending freedom and liberty as her sons,” she said.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) rejected Hegseth’s opposition to women serving in combat. She said he is “plain wrong.”
Hegseth was on Capitol Hill last week, meeting with Republican senators as he works to build support ahead of what is expected to be a nail-biting confirmation battle.
Duckworth, who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee, argued that Hegseth not only lacks senior military experience but has never led anything comparable in size to the U.S. military with its three million troops and a $900 billion budget.
At the same time, Hegseth is also under investigation for an allegation of sexual assault.
The alleged incident took place in 2017 at a hotel in California. A woman told police that Hegseth sexually assaulted her after refusing to let her leave the hotel, the police report said.
The former Fox News personality denies the allegations and says it was consensual, but he did pay off the woman.
No charges were ever filed. Monterey County District Attorney Jeannine Pacioni said Thursday that her office rejected a prosecutor because they had no evidence out there a reasonable doubt.’
Hegseth was accused of sexual assault by a woman in 2017. He denied the accusation but paid the woman to keep quiet. He was not charged
Duckworth said it will be up to Republicans whether they hear from Hegseth’s accuser, but suggested that is unlikely if GOP colleagues are willing to “cross over” for Trump.
She said she would ask questions and denounced the president-elect who nominated someone accused of assault, claiming this was not the kind of person who should lead the Defense Department.
“Remember, we just went through more than a decade of fighting and completely overhauling the military and the treatment of military sexual trauma,” Duckworth said.
“It is frankly insulting and deeply disturbing that Mr. Trump would nominate someone who has admitted to paying off a victim who has claimed rape allegations against him,” she continued.