Shame on U.S. Sens. Jerry Moran and Roger Marshall.
On Friday, Jan. 24, these men voted to confirm Pete Hegseth as U.S. Secretary of Defense. While this is probably not surprising for most people, it is nonetheless egregious because Hegseth is grossly unqualified to oversee the largest department and employer in the United States.
The defense department has a 2025 budget of nearly $1 trillion and oversees all branches of our military, including over 2 million active duty and reserve service members.
Beneath the DOD are three subordinate military departments and four national intelligence departments. The department has 4,800 sites in over 160 countries. It is directly involved in our diplomatic and military efforts around the world.
So why is Hegseth unqualified? It is not because of his politics, though it should be concerning that someone so openly partisan and antagonistic towards certain groups of people is coming in to lead a department that is supposed to be strictly bipartisan given the nature of its services. Rather, it is Hegseth’s resume and baggage that disqualifies him.
While a veteran with over 10 years of service, he has not been in active-duty military for over 10 years. Instead, his most recent experience has been as a TV personality.
Let that sink in a minute. The most employees he has ever managed, according to his own testimony during his confirmation hearing, was 200 people. He also testified that the largest budget he has ever managed is approximately $16 million (which many reports and records indicate he grossly mismanaged). Neither number is remotely close to what he will be tasked with overseeing at the defense department.
Then there are Hegseth’s personal issues. There have been a plethora of media reports on Hegseth’s alcohol problems, infidelity, and treatment of women and co-workers. His own mother even called into question his moral character. He has denied many of these issues, but in my experience, where there is lots of smoke there is usually some fire.
It is not my place to judge another person, but it is the place of our U.S. senators to judge the qualifications of cabinet appointees and to vote “NO” on those that are unqualified.
With their votes to approve Hegseth as Secretary of Defense, Senators Moran and Marshall have signaled they don’t care about qualifications for specific jobs and that it is OK to not have a deep knowledge, understanding and track record for managing an organization remotely the size of the DOD in order to run it.
Senators Moran and Marshall have also given the middle finger to our service members who are taught discipline and accountability, characteristics that Hegseth is clearly lacking.
One cannot truly support the troops and think this was a wise choice for Secretary of Defense.
The claims that President Donald Trump should be able to have his appointees approved because his reelection was a mandate by the American people are completely meritless.
Our service members and other civil servants deserve more than that. They deserve to have the most qualified leaders in place of the departments they serve under.
By voting for Hegseth, Senators Moran and Marshall have shown that they don’t care about those people but instead will only do what their party leaders tell them to do. This is shameful!
