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Floor Speech

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Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I realize that some Republicans were hoping we would cut this process short, but I have no problem coming to the floor and having a lengthy discussion about Mr. Hegseth's nomination to be Defense Secretary. I am eager to talk about it.

The only person who doesn't seem to want to talk about the Hegseth nomination is actually Mr. Hegseth himself, because I have been trying for weeks to schedule a meeting with Mr. Hegseth prior to his confirmation vote. I genuinely want a chance to ask him directly about my concerns with his character and fitness, yes, but also about the serious challenges facing our Nation, whether it is competition with China or aggression from Russia.

As vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, I help write the bill that funds the Defense Department every year. And that bill only passes with bipartisan support. I don't think it is asking a lot to be able to meet with the person nominated to lead that Department.

I have had the opportunity to meet with 10 of President Trump's Cabinet nominees, and I look forward to meeting with more before they are confirmed by the Senate. Conducting these meetings is the absolute bare minimum, given the role of each Senator and the constituents they represent. But Mr. Hegseth refused to meet with me and has refused to meet with many of my Democratic colleagues.

I think most Americans would agree you shouldn't get the job if you decide you can skip the job interview. Every nominee--every nominee-- should be willing to meet with Senators, regardless of their party, to answer basic questions about how they would approach their role if confirmed. It is honestly beneath the dignity of the role he aspires to for Mr. Hegseth to refuse to meet one-on-one with most Democrats.

What is he afraid of? Are the questions we have to ask really that hard? I mean, if Mr. Hegseth is afraid of me, how is he going to stand up to China?

Meeting with Members on both sides isn't just some formality. If you are confirmed, it is part of the job. So this is a serious concern and one of the many concerns I have now with Mr. Hegseth's qualifications, his positions, and his character.

Let's be perfectly clear about the stakes here. We are talking about who we will put in command of the most powerful military in the world. There is nothing on Mr. Hegseth's resume that remotely suggests he has the experience for that role. I have deep appreciation for his service to our country; I do. But let's not kid ourselves here. I don't see how being a FOX TV host prepares you to lead 3 million servicemembers and civilians. I don't see how bankrupting a veterans' nonprofit through wasteful spending qualifies you to manage a budget of nearly $900 billion.

Moreover, we really, truly have no sense of what his understanding of military policy is or what his strategic priorities would be. Thanks to Senator Duckworth, we know he is someone who can't name a single country in ASEAN. That ignorance is alarming. Senators only had 7 minutes during his confirmation hearing to ask questions. Many asked the questions we knew our Republican colleagues would not regarding Hegseth's questionable character and fitness--important questions, absolutely. But because we had to spend so much time understanding if he even could do this job at the most basic level, we had precious little time to ask him about how he would do his job.

How would Pete Hegseth ensure that our servicemembers and their families have the resources they need at home and abroad? How does he plan to reduce costs and development times for key military capabilities that are critical to our national security? How would he invest in our defense industrial base and public shipyards, like the one in my home State of Washington? How does he view the pacing threat in the Indo-Pacific? And how would he work with our partners and our allies to prepare for a potential conflict? Does he have any thoughts on that at all?

This is just not a serious candidate who has thoughtful positions on the challenges we face.

You know what position he is serious about, what he has stated over and over again?

I'm straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles.

He said that last November.

Or:

We need moms. But not in the military, especially in combat units.

That is infuriating and disqualifying. I don't have to try very hard to imagine how that kind of condescending attitude will go over with our women in uniform.

And after decades of comments like this--denigrating the role of women in the military in ways that simply do not square with reality-- Mr. Hegseth's recent about-face on this topic is just not convincing. He has also made clear he has little regard for the Geneva Conventions.

Maybe this is a bit old-fashioned of me, but I think we should have a Secretary of Defense who is firmly against war crimes; not one who has spoken in favor of torture like waterboarding, in favor of people convicted of war crimes, and questioned whether we should follow the Geneva Conventions.

And let's not forget, in addition to having no real qualifications and many alarming positions, Mr. Hegseth has many red flags that raise serious concerns about his character and his conduct. There is the report that he and his management team pursued women on his staff. There is the report that he took his employees to a strip club and got drunk. There is the report that he got drunk in uniform and had to be carried out of a strip club. There is the report that he chanted ``Kill all Muslims'' while he was drunk.

And beyond reporting, there are the police records backing up the account of a woman who told the nurse she may have been drugged and then raped by Pete Hegseth. We couldn't hear from that woman because Mr. Hegseth reached a financial settlement, and he has now threatened to sue her for speaking out. And we almost didn't hear about that incident at all since he didn't even disclose it when he was vetted.

But there are other people we have now heard from. We know his mother once wrote to her son directly criticizing him as an abuser of women. We know his former sister-in-law, in a signed affidavit, has shared she saw Mr. Hegseth drink to excess and understood his ex-wife feared for her safety with him. And we know that same ex-wife told the FBI that ``he drinks more than he doesn't.''

That is an awful lot of smoke for us to be ignoring the fire.

There is absolutely no world where someone who has a history of running up debts at nonprofits should be responsible for overseeing half of our discretionary spending. There is no world where someone with a history of failing to address his irresponsible alcohol use should be given one of the most stressful jobs imaginable and should be making life-and-death decisions on a daily and an hourly basis. There is no world where we should have a predator running the Department of Defense that is responsible for the well-being of millions of women and men in uniform.

I don't get how that is complicated.

Mr. President, let me just end on this. There is no world where the person in charge of our military should see his fellow Americans as the enemy. But Mr. Hegseth has made clear that is his view. Regarding Democrats and Republicans, he has written--and this is him:

The other side--the Left--is not our friend. We are not esteemed colleagues, nor mere political opponents. We are foes. Either we win, or they win. We agree on nothing else.

That is an especially dark view of our country. Our military uniforms do not say ``Democrat,'' they do not say ``Republican.'' They just don't.

You cannot be an effective commander if your people don't trust you. But how are troops supposed to trust you to keep them safe in combat if you think half the Nation is an enemy? How are Muslim servicemembers supposed to trust you if you think their religion is a threat to our country? How are women servicemembers supposed to trust you if you think they should be at home?

I don't have an answer to that. Maybe Mr. Hegseth doesn't either. Maybe that is why he won't meet with me. Then again, maybe it is because he thinks I am his foe because I am a Democrat, or maybe he doesn't think I should have a say in the military issues because I am a woman.

Mr. President, I do have a say, and I say someone like Mr. Hegseth is grossly unqualified to take on one of the most important jobs in the world. And I will be voting against him. I urge my Republican colleagues to seriously consider the message it will send to confirm someone for Secretary of Defense who has failed time and again to meet the most basic standards of conduct our women and men in uniform are required to live up to.

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