Watch: Gillibrand Demands “Enabler” Hegseth Resign After Dismissing USS Lincoln Suicide Attempts, Politically Motivated Firings

Watch: Gillibrand Demands "Enabler" Hegseth Resign After Dismissing USS Lincoln Suicide Attempts, Politically Motivated Firings

Sep 30, 2026

Gillibrand: "This Is A Secretary Of Defense Who Does Not Know How To Lead Our Country Productively To Keep Americans Safer."

***Watch Senator Gillibrand's Full Interview Here***

Today, in an interview on CNN's The Situation Room, U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), a member of the Senate Armed Services and Intelligence Committees, called for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's immediate resignation following recent revelations that 8 sailors in the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group had attempted suicide and that Hegseth plans to cut the number of generals and admirals in the military by 20%.

Gillibrand also continued to demand immediate passage of her bipartisan Campus Accountability and Safety Act (CASA) in light of the allegations in the Cornell University fraternity rape case. The legislation would hold campuses accountable, create a fair process for students, and ensure victims have access to a dedicated advocate to assist in navigating the adjudication process.

Footage of Senator Gillibrand's interview with Pamela Brown can be found here.

Transcripts of key moments can be found below:

ON HEGSETH'S INABILITY TO STAND UP TO PRESIDENT TRUMP AND ENSURE OUR MILITARY KEEPS AMERICANS SAFE:

GILLIBRAND: This administration and Pete Hegseth want $1.5 trillion for the military, showing that they want unlimited money for bombs. They have plenty of money for billionaires and ballrooms, but yet not sufficient money for regular people who are working hard for food, for housing, and for healthcare. It's just deeply demoralizing, the direction the secretary is taking.

BROWN: And you believe he should resign. Is that right?

GILLIBRAND: I've called on him to resign many times over almost all of these issues. Most recently, over the hitting of a girls' school in Iran, the fact that he continues to prosecute a war that the American people have not had a chance to even support. There's been no congressional approval. And again, asking for unlimited money for his bombs, waging this war when this administration refuses to fund things like Medicaid.

BROWN: But isn't - in terms of the war itself, it's more up to President Trump, right? As the commander-in-chief, and getting that sign-off, right?

GILLIBRAND: President Trump is bringing this country in the wrong direction on all these issues, but Secretary Hegseth is an enabler, and he is unwilling to do his job as the Secretary of Defense to prosecute wars properly, to have civilian harm reduction as part of his military services. He's firing people not based on qualifications, but how they look, the color of their skin. These are all red flags that this is a secretary of defense who does not know how to lead our country productively to keep Americans safer.

ON THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION'S LACK OF LEADERSHIP THAT FORCED SERVICE MEMBERS IN THE USS LINCOLN STRIKE GROUP TO SERVE IN DISMAL CONDITIONS:

BROWN: You're also calling for congressional hearings after the Navy confirmed to you in a letter that eight sailors on the USS Abraham Lincoln fleet - we should note there you have the carrier and then you have the fleet - that there were attempted suicides. So, what more have you learned about the conditions on board? Not just the carrier itself, which I was an embed on for three days back in July, but also just the other warships around it, where there were attempted suicides as well.

GILLIBRAND: Well, this goes to the lack of leadership of Secretary Hegseth again, and ultimately President Trump, deploying our service members for months upon months, far longer than they expected, not giving them the dwell time, the time at home that they need to recuperate and be ready to continue to go back into combat over and over again. We wrote a letter asking what is the status and well-being of the service members that are deployed, and the answer we got was shocking. Eight people have attempted suicide on these warships. Two threw themselves overboard, which, according to experts, is the most extreme scenario you can imagine being a sailor on a warship. And so I have serious questions about how Secretary Hegseth is leading this military and, ultimately, President Trump.

ON THE SERIOUS AND HORRIFIC ALLEGATIONS IN THE CORNELL RAPE CASE AND THE NEED FOR LEGISLATION LIKE THE CAMPUS ACCOUNTABILITY AND SAFETY ACT TO SUPPORT SURVIVORS:

BROWN: I want to turn to another issue, and that is this Cornell rape civil suit that is getting a lot of attention. You have called the allegations "serious and horrific." You and Republican Senator Chuck Grassley have introduced legislation to combat sexual assault on college campuses, but that bill was never passed. What role can Congress play here?

GILLIBRAND: Well, we should pass our legislation immediately. What it does is create rules of the road so that every student is protected on campus. We have to make sure that there's a person who's highly trained to receive these allegations in the first instance to tell a survivor what his or her rights are, what opportunity she has to report either through a civilian system, through a college system, or through a criminal system. She or he is given just the basic tools of advocacy about what's going to happen to their lives and whether the school will provide accommodations. And then you need a process that is a highly informed process, that is legitimate, and doesn't pit one student against another unfairly in a circumstance that doesn't actually resolve to justice. And so we need reform on all of these college campuses. It's not right that kids go off to school and are not safe. It's not right that what happened in this instance doesn't appear to have been assessed properly. So I'm grateful that the DA is looking at it again.

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