On the recordJanuary 16, 2025
I rise today to urge my colleagues to reject Pete Hegseth as the next Secretary of Defense. Pete Hegseth is the most unqualified nominee for Secretary of Defense in our Nation's history. At his confirmation hearing, Pete Hegseth bobbed and weaved to avoid answering just basic questions about his record, but what Hegseth failed to account for is that his entire record is damning. I would like my Senate colleagues, people who are seriously considering voting to confirm Pete Hegseth, to think long and hard about this decision. We need a Secretary of Defense who will be ready at 2 in the morning to give life-or-death national security advice to the President. Would you trust Pete Hegseth, who has allegedly been so drunk at work events that he passed out on a bus and urinated in front of the hotel where his colleagues were staying, to answer that call? We need a Secretary of Defense who will help us root out the problem of sexual assault in the military. Would you trust Pete Hegseth, who has been credibly accused of raping a woman and buying her silence, to protect victims of sexual assault? We need a Secretary of Defense who will be able to manage the Nation's largest Federal Agency, one that oversees almost 3.4 million people and a budget of nearly $850 billion a year. Would you trust Pete Hegseth, who drove a small veterans nonprofit to the brink of bankruptcy, to manage billions of our tax dollars? The list of glaring disqualifications goes on and on.…
