Van Hollen Floor Speech on Nomination of Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense

Today, U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) spoke on the Senate Floor in opposition to the nomination of Pete Hegseth to serve as Secretary of the Department of Defense. Video of the Senator's speech is available here and his remarks are available below:

So I want to turn now to the nomination of Pete Hegseth to be the Secretary of Defense. Now, I mentioned that presidents have the flexibility to appoint many political folks to positions in the U.S. Government. But for the top ones, for the Secretary of Defense, for example, the founders of this country, those who wrote the Constitution, put a little bit of check and balance in that. They said the Senate has the right to advise and consent on those very top positions, because those are incredible incredibly consequential decisions, and we want people of good judgment and good character in those positions. And so that's what the Senate is engaged in right now, is a debate under the advise and consent clause of the United States Constitution.

And I think we all recognize that we're here at a very perilous moment in the world. We have Putin's war of aggression against Ukraine. Our allies are watching closely to know whether we're going to stand with the people of Ukraine. Other people are watching too. President Xi of China, he has one eye on what's happening in Ukraine as he has another eye on Taiwan. And we have huge challenges in the Indo-Pacific region. We have a very combustible Middle East, with the malign actions that Iran continues to take. We have a very fragile ceasefire in Gaza, with the return of hostages. If you look around the world, it is in a very, very sensitive and explosive moment.

And we should keep that in mind as we decide whether we're going to provide advice and consent to Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense. Somebody who will be overseeing 3.4 million servicemembers and employees, someone who will be second to the President in making decisions on the operation of our nuclear forces, someone who will oversee what represents over half of the entire discretionary budget of the United States of America: $850 billion. So, in this moment, it's especially important that we look at his qualifications. Because what we don't want is somebody who is untested and incompetent and someone of low character running the Defense Department in the highest position of that department. And yet, as we've heard from ample testimony, that's exactly what will happen if Pete Hegseth is confirmed to be Secretary of Defense. As our colleague, Senator Reed of Rhode Island, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, someone who served in the 82nd Airborne, has said, "servicemembers, servicemembers with Mr. Hegseth's record would be disqualified, not just from the highest position of the Defense Department, but any position in the military." And yet this Secretary of Defense would be overseeing all of those men and women who we ask to uphold the highest tradition and values of our country. And yet the person who would be in charge if confirmed would be somebody who would be disqualified from being one of them. That is a terrible message to send.

Let's take a look at the record on management, as well as the personal conduct of the person that President Trump has nominated to be head of the Defense Department, Mr. Hegseth. He led two veterans' organizations, and based on the testimony, in both cases engaged in financial mismanagement and wasteful spending. When managing a budget of under $10 million, he repeatedly overspent, until the organization was on the edge of bankruptcy. In his next leadership role, he continued to overspend, including on social events and excessive drinking. His successor in that position was told, and I quote, "Among the staff, the disgust for Pete was pretty high. Most veterans do not think he represents them, nor their highest standard of excellence." He was told that funds had been used to fund Mr. Hegseth's partying and drinking as well as his use of work events to "hook up with women on the road."

Mr. Hegseth has a disturbing history of sexual harassment. In 2017 he was credibly accused of raping a woman in a California hotel room. We learned yesterday that Mr. Hegseth paid the woman $50,000 to prevent her from talking about the assault. We also know that he failed to disclose that information to the transition team, attempting to keep it secret. We can understand why he didn't want the American people and the Senate to know that. So, Mr. President, I really wonder how the Senate could possibly confirm Mr. Hegseth for an entry-level security clearance, let alone the enormous responsibility of leading the Department of Defense and the men and women who serve there.

Let's take a look at another aspect of Mr. Hegseth's record. Because whoever is Secretary of Defense has to understand that they represent the great American military - every single person in it - regardless of background, regardless of religion, regardless of race, regardless of sexual orientation. That is their job. They all bleed red. They're all out there fighting for the United States of America. They're all sworn to defend our country. And yet, if you look at his statements, it's very clear that he believes military service is for some, but not all Americans who want to serve. His remarks are centered on disparaging women, people in the LGBT community, and Muslim Americans.

Let's look at the women serving in the military. He has said, and I quote, "I'm straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles." Now I watched some of the hearing. I saw him try to wiggle out of statements that he had made, very clearly, like this one I just read. And, frankly, nobody should be fooled by this 11^th-hour conversion as he seeks to be confirmed by this United States Senate. He said what he said, and it was actually part of a pattern when it came to women serving in the military. In his 2024 book called The War on Warriors, Mr. Hegseth criticized both the Don't Ask, Don't Tell, as well as its repeal, writing that these policies are just part of a social justice agenda. I would say to those men and women who are serving in our military who have been condemned and criticized by Mr. Hegseth, we all thank you for your service - most of us thank you for your service.

In his 2020 book, American Crusade, Mr. Hegseth portrays contemporary, cultural, and political conflicts in the United States, he portrays them as part of the crusades - the crusades. And frames "Islamism and Muslim immigration as existential threats to American society." Again, we have a military comprised of people of all different faiths. They've all sworn an oath to defend this country, and we should not have a Secretary of Defense that maligns a big group based on their faith and engages in that kind of bigotry. And yet in 2015 a former employee reported that Hegseth chanted, "kill all Muslims," and then said in a "drunk and violent manner," they said he said that. So, Mr. President, these are just some examples of the words and conduct of the person that we are considering to be Secretary of Defense for all the men and women who serve in our armed forces and in the Pentagon. And we should not want any member of our military to be fearful of the person who's leading them. And yet, if you fall into one of these groups, or even if you're not, you should be very scared about what he has said, maligning certain Americans and trying to pit people against each other based on faith, based on gender, based on sexual orientation.

Mr. President, I want to turn to one other category of important issues that we would think, I hope we would think, should be upheld by a Secretary of Defense. Mr. Hegseth has lacked moral clarity and expertise about lots of elements of the military and war, including the laws of armed conflict, and his comments suggest that he does not believe that the United States Armed Forces should follow the laws of war. One of the very important principles we instill in our professional U.S. Military is the importance of following the laws of war. And yet Mr. Hegseth has lobbied for pardons of military members who were turned in - based on testimony of their peers - for illegal behavior and convicted by military courts. He defended military contractors convicted of war crimes, including killing 14 unarmed Iraqi citizens without cause. Just for fun. Just because they thought they could get away with it. He has repeatedly mocked the laws of armed conflict and expressed unequivocal support for servicemembers who have been convicted of war crimes. In his book, so-called The War on Warriors, he writes, and I quote, "Should we follow the Geneva conventions? Aren't we just better off in winning our wars according to our own rules?"

Mr. President, a former colleague of ours and a great American hero, Senator McCain, would be turning in his grave to hear these kind of comments. I want to read what Senator McCain said about the importance of the laws of war. "War is wretched beyond description, and only a fool or a fraud could sentimentalize its cruel reality. The Geneva Conventions and the Red Cross were created in response to the stark recognition of the true horrors of unbounded war, and I thank God for that. I am thankful for those whose dignity, health, and lives have been protected by the Conventions." Senator John McCain in 1999. Hegseth, 2025: let's just get rid of those rules of war - put in place because of the hard-earned lessons of, as Senator McCain said, "the wretchedness of war."

Mr. Hegseth has also talked about going back to the days of illegal waterboarding and ignoring the Geneva Convention on the rules when it comes to torture and interrogation. Saying that we should again, as he said, just sort of ignore those rules, do our own thing. Here's what Senator McCain said about that when it was debated here in the United States Senate. "I know from personal experience," Senator McCain said, "that the abuse of prisoners will produce more bad than good intelligence. I know that victims of torture will offer intentionally misleading information if they think their captors will believe it. I know they will say whatever they think their torturers want them to say if they believe it will stop their suffering. Most of all, I know the use of torture compromises that which most distinguishes us from our enemies: our belief that all people, even captured enemies, possess basic human rights, which are protected by international conventions the United States not only joined, but for the most part authored," Senator McCain.

Now I know that President Trump disdains that great American hero, Senator McCain. In fact, here's what candidate Trump said back in 2015, "He's not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren't captured," says somebody who never served in the military. Colleagues, I urge us to apply the standards that Senator McCain would apply. I urge us to listen to our colleague, Jack Reed, who served in the 82nd Airborne and has, with great diligence, serves as the Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. I would ask our colleagues, based on this record of personal misconduct, financial mismanagement, Pete Hegseth's disregard for many men and women who serve in the military, based on his own statements, and his contempt for the rules of war that John McCain so eloquently upheld.

So when it comes to this Senator, I hope other senators, when it comes to providing advice and consent as part of our constitutional duty under the Constitution and balance of powers, I will withhold my consent, and I urge my colleagues to vote no on the nomination of Pete Hegseth to serve as the Secretary of Defense.