June 18, 2025

‘Unqualified Yes Man!’ Senator Erupts On Pete Hegseth in Fiery Hearing Clash


Source: Mediaite

 

Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) tore into Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth during a Wednesday hearing on the Defense Department’s 2026 budget request.

After she was given the floor to speak, Duckworth went after the secretary for the costly operation the U.S. conducted on the Houthis in Yemen. That operation, Duckworth noted, “has not restored the transit of U.S. flag commercial vessels through the Red Sea,” and has even resulted in the loss of military aircraft.

“You are blowing through money like my fellow cadets and I did in our first liberty after basic camp,” Duckworth continued, “Luckily, I didn’t end up with a questionable tattoo.”

“Your failures, Mr. Secretary, since you’ve taken office, have been staggering. You sent classified operational information over Signal to chest thump in front of your wife — who, by the way, has no security clearance — risking service member lives in the process. You blew the $1 billion fight against the Houthis who, again, as my colleague says, has no navy; and yet you lost all of those aircraft.”

Duckworth also cited the chaotic turnover at the Defense Department, claiming that Hegseth “created such a hostile command environment that no one wants to serve as your chief of staff or work with you in other senior DOD leadership roles.”

Continuing her list of gripes, Duckworth even went after Hegseth for the “unjustified, un-American misuse” of soldiers in cities in Los Angeles. She then pivoted to the Defense Department, restoring the Confederate names of various facilities:

I don’t know if this is because you are too inexperienced and incompetent to understand the real threats facing our country, or if it’s because you are just an unqualified yes man who can’t tell the president how to keep Americans safe.

You’re focusing on renaming bases for Confederate generals. You said just now to Senator [Angus King] that, to a man and to a woman, we would rather be associated with the old Confederate names. Well, I am one of those women. I served at Fort Rucker, Alabama — a base that was named for a traitor who took arms against the United States of America, led troops who killed Americans. It was renamed for Mike Novosel, a Medal of Honor recipient who, in his citation for the Medal of Honor, includes that he saved 29 American lives, to include hovering backwards in a helicopter towards an enemy bunker where a wounded American was lying and saved that person — including after being taken fire himself. I know a little something about what it takes to fly a helicopter when you’ve been hit by enemy fire. That was heroic. I’d rather be associated with Mike Novosel than a failed Confederate traitor.


By:  Ahmad Austin Jr.