Laken Riley Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, 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. Hegseth supports requiring every senior military officer to pass a political litmus test. This politicization of the military is a slap in the face to leaders who have served their country honorably for decades.

But the point is that Pete Hegseth is not just unqualified for the role; he is a walking national security threat.

We need a Secretary of Defense who will help our country meet its recruiting goals--something we are already struggling with. Pete Hegseth has said that women in the military ``shouldn't be in combat at all.'' Mr. President, 300,000 women have served in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11. Pete Hegseth has now insulted every one of them. That is not how a leader of the military will inspire people to join our cause.

When people are responsible for our national defense, we ask something extraordinary of them. We ask them to put their lives on the line. All three of my brothers served in the military. My oldest brother was career military. So I know how important that service is and how important it is that we pick the right person to lead our men and women in uniform.

Pete Hegseth claims that our brave women in the military are somehow lowering our standards, but it is his lack of qualifications, his lack of character, and his lack of judgment that lower the standards for Secretary of Defense.

We need a Secretary of Defense whom we can rely on to keep all of us safe. Frankly, it is hard to imagine a worse choice than Pete Hegseth.

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