Duckworth on Senate Floor: “Pete Hegseth is Unprepared, Unqualified, Unethical and Unfit to Be Secretary of Defense”

[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – Today, combat Veteran and U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL)—a member of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee who served 23 years in the Reserve Forces—delivered an impassioned speech on the Senate floor slamming U.S. Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth for his lack of experience and qualifications to lead the Department of Defense. Speaking next to a framed copy of the Soldier’s Creed—a copy that hangs over her desk in the Senate and hung above her bed during her recovery at Walter Reed Medical Center after the helicopter she co-piloted was shot down—Duckworth underscored that it would be insulting to ask our servicemembers to train and perform to the absolute highest standards if the Senate confirms a Secretary of Defense who is wholly unprepared and unqualified to lead them in any way. Video of Duckworth’s full remarks can be found on the Senator’s YouTube. 

Key quotes:

• “In these serious times, we need a serious candidate to lead our military. We need someone with merit to lead our meritocracy. Someone with moral strength to be in charge of protecting our national strength… Our troops deserve better than a guy who was seemingly only nominated because he used to host Trump’s favorite show on Fox News.”

• “At his confirmation hearing on Tuesday, I gave Mr. Hegseth every opportunity to show me that I was wrong. To prove that he could do this job. That he does know the first thing—or anything—about what it takes to take on this massive responsibility. I asked him basic questions that even the most junior folks working in the Pentagon would know, like naming one of the main international agreements he’d be responsible for leading. He couldn’t name one. I asked him to tell me just a single country in ASEAN. Again, he couldn’t give me one. Not one. This was shocking—yet not surprising—from a man whose main form of policy education has come from reading the Fox News teleprompter.”

• “I have next to me today a framed copy of the Soldier’s Creed... It’s the same copy that hung above my bed at Walter Reed, when I spent over a year in the hospital recovering from my shootdown. The same poster whose lines I read before I was wheeled into each of my surgeries… Our troops follow these words every day as we ask them to do the hardest thing imaginable… How can we ask these warriors to train and perform to the absolute highest standard if we’re going to confirm a guy who doesn’t seem to care enough to prepare to lead them in any way?”

Duckworth’s full remarks as prepared below:

Mr. President, I ask for unanimous consent to display a framed item during my remarks.

Look, in these serious times, we need a serious candidate to lead our military. We need someone with merit to lead our meritocracy. Someone with moral strength to be in charge of protecting our national strength.

For all these reasons and quite a few more, I will not be voting to confirm the supremely unqualified Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense.

Our troops deserve better than a guy who was seemingly only nominated because he used to host Trump’s favorite show on Fox News. I have plenty to say about Mr. Hegseth and the many, many ways in which he would degrade our military readiness.

It’s no secret that I disagreed with Trump on nearly everything during his first term. Yet I still voted to confirm both James Mattis and Mark Esper when he nominated them for this very role.

The thing is, Hegseth has never led thousands of people, like Mattis had. He never ran the entire Army, like Esper did. No. The only things Hegseth has ever run, he’s run into the ground. The only major organizations he’s ever led, he’s led into debt.

Pete Hegseth is unqualified. He is unprepared. He is unethical. And most of all, he is unfit.

Mr. Hegseth may talk about how having had dust on his boots makes him worthy of becoming Secretary of Defense. Well, as someone who left her boots in a dusty field in Iraq, let me tell you exactly why he is unfit to lead our heroes.

Mr. Hegseth likes to say our military is a great meritocracy. I agree. So let’s go over his merits for this role. The Secretary of Defense oversees the federal government’s largest agency. They manage a $900 billion budget, along with the 3 million servicemembers and civilians who fall under its umbrella.

During his time in uniform, Pete Hegseth never commanded a unit with more than 200 personnel. Meanwhile, on the civilian side, both organizations he led went into debt. In fact, he so badly mismanaged one of them that they had to bring in a forensic accountant to clean up the mess he had made.

That’s it. Those are his only supposed qualifications to head up one of the most complex, important organizations in the world.

Listen, there are plenty of Republicans whose policies I may disagree with, but who I would vote to confirm, because I know that they, too, have spent their lives working to keep our country strong and could demonstrate why they are qualified for this role. Mr. Hegseth is not one of those people.

Who knows why Donald Trump picked this guy. Maybe Hegseth’s business failures make Trump feel better about his own bankruptcies. Maybe it’s because Hegseth spent years fawning over Trump on Fox News—and Trump’s dream Cabinet is a bunch of yes-men who know how to kiss up to him on TV. Or maybe it’s just that all of Cadet Bone Spurs’ draft-dodging has left him with no clue what kind of leader our military needs.

Look, at his confirmation hearing on Tuesday, I gave Mr. Hegseth every opportunity to show me that I was wrong. To prove that he could do this job. That he does know the first thing—or anything—about what it takes to take on this massive responsibility.

I asked him basic questions that even the most junior folks working in the Pentagon would know, like naming one of the main international agreements he’d be responsible for leading. He couldn’t name one. I asked him to tell me just a single country in ASEAN. Again, he couldn’t give me one. Not one.

This was shocking—yet not surprising—from a man whose main form of policy education has come from reading the Fox News teleprompter. This was pitiful—yet predictable—from a guy who’s said that we women don’t belong in combat. Who’s dared to claim that the military is lowering its standard so the poor, fragile, fairer sex—and, God forbid, us moms—can serve.

Well, the only standards being lowered are the ones for Secretary of Defense. Our female servicemembers have earned the jobs they’re in—unlike Mr. Hegseth, who won’t even say whether he’d refuse an unlawful order.

I have next to me today a framed copy of the Soldier’s Creed—a poster that usually hangs over my desk here in the Senate. It’s the same copy that hung above my bed at Walter Reed, when I spent over a year in the hospital recovering from my shootdown. The same poster whose lines I read before I was wheeled into each of my surgeries. The same one whose words I repeated over and over to myself on the days when I was in so much pain that I couldn’t breathe, yet was determined to fight my way back to health so that I could serve again next to the buddies who saved my life. 

These words helped me find the strength I needed when I needed it the most. Because they reminded me who I was: and that was a proud member of the greatest fighting force on the face of the earth, whose duty it was to live up to the sacrifices of my fellow Soldiers.

I’d like to quote a couple lines from the Creed now: “I will always place the mission first… I am disciplined, physically and mentally tough, trained and proficient in my warrior tasks.”

Our troops follow these words every day as we ask them to do the hardest thing imaginable. We ask them to leave their families, to potentially never hold their spouse’s hand again, to maybe never get to see their babies take their first steps.

We ask them to do all that then walk into enemy fire and be good enough, competent enough, qualified enough, that regardless of the threat they face, they will still be able to do their jobs.

We ask them to be so ready for the mission at hand that they can still fly that helicopter, still man that ship, still fight that fire, until their very last breath.

How can we ask these warriors to train and perform to the absolute highest standard if we’re going to confirm a guy who doesn’t seem to care enough to prepare to lead them in any way? 

Listen, these are dangerous times on the geopolitical stage. Our adversaries are watching to see if we really will put in power someone so obviously unqualified. And Mr. Hegseth made a point of saying at Tuesday’s hearing that every single warfighter should be hired based on performance, readiness and merit. I agree. And he fails to meet every single one of those metrics.

He is asking to be handed a job he is not prepared for because of his relationship with Donald Trump. But this role is too important, our troops’ lives too precious, to let personal ambition get in the way of the mission at hand.

Let me close with this: Part of being a leader is knowing when you’re not competent enough to do the job.

Well, Mr. Hegseth, you are not technically proficient. You are not tactically proficient. And your nomination is an insult to those brave enough to be serving our nation.

So you, sir, are a no-go at this station. 

I am voting no on Pete Hegseth’s nomination to be Secretary of Defense.

If my colleagues care more about keeping our nation strong than genuflecting to Donald Trump, then they should have the courage to vote no as well.

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