Duckworth rips into Hegseth: ‘He is unqualified for the position’

Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) said Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, is “unqualified for the position,” and ripped into his past comments that women should not serve in combat.

Duckworth, an Army veteran who lost both of her legs in combat in Iraq, said Hegseth’s comments on women in combat show “his lack of understanding of where our military is” and that if women were to be taken out of the military, the U.S. military would not be prepared for deployment. She said it shows he is unqualified because he does not understand women are essential for a strong military.

“He’s wrong because women have made us more effective. In fact, our military could not go to war without its 223,000 women who serve in uniform,” Duckworth said in an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.” “We would have an ineffective military that was not capable of deployment. If we were to pull out all the women and say, you cannot be in combat.”

Trump announced he will nominate Hegseth, a Fox News personality and former veteran, as his pick for Defense. Hegseth is now under scrutiny for sexual assault allegations and past comments resurfacing of him saying “we should not have women in combat roles” because it hasn’t made the military more “effective” or “lethal” and “has made fighting more complicated.”

“This shows that Mr. Hegseth is not qualified for the position because he doesn’t understand apparently, even after having served, that women are actually vitally important to an effective military,” Duckworth said. “With the recruiting challenges we’re having right now, if we were to pull all those women out and say, you can’t go into combat, we would face a severe personnel crisis in the military.”

Duckworth also questioned whether Hegseth’s experience has made him qualified to lead the Department of Defense. She noted that the Pentagon includes 3 million servicemen and an over $900 billion budget — and that Hegseth has “never run anything anywhere near that size.”

“He was a pretty low-ranking guy in the military, and he never had a command position,” Duckworth said. “He was a platoon leader, I think, once or twice, but he never even commanded a company. And so this is a man who is inordinately unqualified for the position.”

She added that the women in these combat roles, such as Special Forces or the SEALs, have had to pass the same standards and “rigorous testing” as the men. “The ones who are in those roles have met the same standards as the men and have passed very rigorous testing. And so he’s just flat out wrong,” Duckworth said in an interview with Margaret Brennan on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

Hegseth’s comments, combined with past allegations of sexual assault, are “really troubling,” Duckworth said.

Duckworth did say she was not necessarily opposed to all of Trump’s picks, like former Georgia Rep. Doug Collins for VA secretary and her colleague in the Senate, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, for secretary of State. She noted she is friends with Rubio and wants to question Collins about privatization of VA healthcare coverage.

But Duckworth also expressed concern over former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s pick for Director of National Intelligence, saying that she believes Gabbard is “compromised” and worries she couldn’t pass a background check.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), a fellow member of the Armed Services Committee who is supporting Hegseth after meeting with him Thursday, said that Duckworth is “dead wrong” on Gabbard.

“I got a lot of respect for Tammy, and I’ve known her for years we served together in the House, but for her to say ridiculous and outright dangerous words like that is wrong,” Mullin said in an interview with Bash on “State of the Union.” “Tulsi Gabbard is still a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army. She commands the reserve unit here in Oklahoma and Missouri. If she was compromised, if she wasn’t able to pass a background check, if she wasn’t able to do her job, she still wouldn’t be in the Army.”

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