Things got wild and wacky at the first stage of the Senate confirmation hearing for Army veteran and former Fox News Channel host Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Defense. Namely, a number of Democratic Senators breached all standards of decorum and started shouting at Hegseth, with one even smacking her binder on the table in front of her while doing so.
Amongst those who snapped and shouted at Mr. Hegseth was Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI). She at one point, said, “For those who I haven’t met in my one week that I’ve been sworn into the Senate, I’m a CIA officer recruited after 9/11. I did three tours armed in Iraq alongside the military and have worked for four different secretaries of defense, both Democrat and Republican, proudly, and watched them make decisions that literally determine the life and death of Americans in the dark of night.”
She continued, “I’m also a Democrat representing a state that Trump won. We both won on the same ballot. So I understand that President Trump has the the right to nominate his people. We are going to have policies that we disagree with. All of that to me comes very standard. What I think I’m most concerned with is that no president has the right to use the uniform military in a way that violates the US Constitution and further taints the military as that apolitical institution that we all want. Right?”
She then added, “And our founders designed the system so that, you know, we had posse comitatus that we weren’t going to use active-duty military inside the United States and make American citizens potentially scared of their own military. We went through our own experience with that with the British. As the secretary of defense, you will be the one man standing in the breach. Should President Trump give an illegal order? Right. I’m not saying he will, but if he does, you are going to be the guy that he calls to implement this order.”
She finally got to a question, then, saying, “Do you agree that there are some orders that can be given by the commander-in-chief that would violate the U.S. Constitution?” He fired back, not giving in, “Senator, thank you for your service. But I reject the premise that President Trump is going to be giving illegal orders.”
She then scrambled to clarify, saying, “No, I’m not saying he will. But do you believe there is such a thing as an illegal order? That Joe Biden or any other president, Donald Trump, could give, is there anything that a commander in chief could ask you to do with the uniformed military that would be in violation of the U.S. Constitution?” Hegseth told her, “Certainly, anybody of any party could give an order that is against the Constitution or against the law.”
Then, after a bit more back and forth that involved Hegseth saying he rejected her premise, and a bit of furious crosstalk, Slotkin snapped a series of ridiculous claims at Trump, saying, “This isn’t a hypothetical. Okay. Your predecessor in a Trump administration, Secretary Esper, was asked and did use uniformed military to clear unarmed protesters. He was given the order to potentially shoot at them. Helos flew low in Washington, DC as crowd control. He later apologized publicly for those actions. Was he right or wrong to apologize?”
After yet more pointless and angry back and forth, Slotkin asked, “President Trump said in November that he is willing to consider using the active duty military against the, quote, enemy within. Have you been personally involved in discussions of using the U.S. military active duty inside the United States?”
That’s when Hegseth brilliantly turned the question back on her, pivoting to immigration and getting in a great jab, saying, “Senator, I’m glad we finally got to the topic of border security equaling national security because it’s been abdicated and ignored for the last four years.” That totally set Slotkin off and, snapping and starting to shout at him, she said, “It wasn’t my question. I’m just asking, have you been involved? You’re about to be the secretary of defense, potentially. Have you been involved in discussions about using the active duty military inside the United States?”
Watch part of their tedious and tiresome back and forth here: