Three sources told CBS News over the weekend that Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has privately confirmed to President-elect Donald Trump that despite earlier reservations from Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and other Republican senators, his choice to lead the Pentagon, Pete Hegseth, will have the votes necessary to be confirmed as secretary of defense.
Nevertheless, Democrats — especially Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) — appear keen to fully exploit the opportunity to further denigrate the recipient of the Combat Infantry Badge, two Bronze Stars, and two Army Commendation Medals for valor.
Warren sent a 33-page missive late Monday to Hegseth, recycling establishmentarians’ go-to smears and revealing the nature of Democrats’ likely final line of attack on the decorated Army veteran at his confirmation hearing on Jan. 14.
“I am deeply concerned by the many ways in which your behavior and rhetoric indicates that you are unfit to lead the Department of Defense,” wrote Warren, fresh off sympathizing with UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s alleged killer. “These are the qualifications that we should be looking for in the next Secretary of Defense. However, your past behavior and rhetoric indicates your inability to effectively lead this organization and properly support our servicemembers.”
Warren’s woke disquisition, which contained over 70 accusations presented as questions to Hegseth, was divided into several condemning sections, including sections attacking Hegseth’s organizational management at Veterans for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America; his consumption of alcohol; a 2017 sexual assault allegation that resulted in no charges and has been repeatedly blasted as false by Hegseth’s attorneys; and his prioritization of American soldiers’ safety over the perceived battlefield rights of enemy combatants.
In other sections, Warren tried framing Hegseth’s popular proposals for how to depoliticize and improve the military as disqualifying. For instance, the leftist senator smeared Hegseth as a misogynist for suggesting that men are physically stronger than women; that expanding combat roles to women “hasn’t made us more effective, hasn’t made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated”; and that affirmative action pursued so recruiters can “feel good about themselves” has “nothing to do with national security.”
When complaining about Hegseth’s views on women in the military, Warren also managed to squeeze in a question about the potential secretary of defense’s views on abortion: “Do you support servicemembers having the right to make decisions regarding their reproductive healthcare?”
After concern-mongering about female soldiers’ continued ability to kill unborn babies, Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services subcommittee on personnel, took issue with Hegseth’s comments about medical transvestites in the military and the Pentagon’s embrace of “‘trans’ lunacy.”
‘Exactly what the American voters rejected on November 5.’
Contradicting the conclusion in a Feb. 22, 2018, Pentagon memo from then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis, which stated, “There are substantial risks associated with allowing the accession and retention of individuals with a history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria and require or have already undertaken a course of treatment to change their gender,” Warren — presuming Hegseth to be on board — claimed that reinstating Trump’s ban on medical transvestites “would undermine military readiness.”
Warren, presenting the Pentagon in recent years as “apolitical” in nature, argued that Hegseth is poised to politicize it, in part by purging woke and incompetent generals, including those ideologically captive Pentagon officials involved in President Joe Biden’s disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal.
The gun-control advocate also took issue with Hegseth’s defense of American troops accused of war crimes, his instruction to his platoon, “Men, if you see an enemy who you believe is a threat, you engage and destroy the threat,” and his comment in the book “The War on Warriors” that “modern war-fighters fight lawyers as much as we fight bad guys. Our enemies should get bullets, not attorneys.”
“If confirmed as Secretary of Defense, will you commit to upholding the Geneva Convention and other international law governing the conduct of war?” asked Warren. “Do you think servicemembers should ignore directives limiting when they can shoot?”
Prior to wrapping up her lengthy effort to paint virtues as vices, Warren asked Hegseth whether he would commit to opposing any American withdrawal from NATO or the United Nations and blasted his apparent intolerance of radical Islam, citing his suggestion in the book “American Crusade” that Islam “is neither a religion of peace nor a religion of violence; it is a religion of submission” that has been largely captured by radicals.
Warren requested that Hegseth provide written answers to her questions by Jan. 10 and to be ready to field them at his Senate nomination hearing.
Brian Hughes, a spokesman for the Trump transition team, said in a statement obtained by the Associated Press that Warren’s letter “is exactly what the American voters rejected on November 5. Instead of focusing on ‘woke’ policies that have weakened our national defense, the voters gave a mandate to rebuild our military, and that’s exactly what a reform-minded secretary of defense like Pete Hegseth will do.”
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Elizabeth warren, Warren, Pete hegseth, Hegseth, Leftism, Senate, Confirmation, Donald trump, Trump, Pentagon, Department of defense, Dod, Military, Woke, Politics
