An Army Captain went after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for being "immature" after his recent decision to change the name of a ship honoring civil rights leader Harvey Milk.
Former Missouri Secretary of State and U.S. Senate candidate Jason Kander spoke to MSNBC on Wednesday about the Pentagon's decision to "rebrand" the USNS Harvey Milk, a fleet replenishment oiler that is named for the slain Navy veteran and San Francisco Board of Supervisors member who was the first openly gay man elected to office in California.
MSNBC host Chris Jansing noted that they'd heard from a veteran that moves like these do nothing to "help crew members prepare for war." She asked Kander if changing the name is inserting politics into the armed forces.
"Yeah, this is what happens when you put a Fox News host in charge of the Pentagon," Kander said simply. "I mean, everything looks like a tweet, and that's what he's doing. I mean, this is like a tweet to troll gay people during Pride Month. I mean, it's pretty immature."
But he said that it's also part of an old-school way of viewing the military.
"It also is representative of the 1980s action movie way that these folks in the Trump administration see the military. And certainly, clearly, the way Pete Hegseth sees the military. He talks constantly about trying to restore a warrior culture in the United States military. Well, I mean, Pete Hegseth may be confused because he was asked to leave the United States military because of the way he behaved," Kander slammed.
"But if he had stuck around, he would have been reminded every day that this is the most lethal, most effective, and most professional military in the history of planet Earth," he schooled Hegseth. "And that's the military that he inherited. So, when you say to sailors throughout the Navy, that is one of the branches that you're in charge of, that you cannot be gay and be part of the warrior ethos, the warrior mentality — well, that's a real problem in a military that rightfully got rid of the law that forced Harvey Milk out of the military."
He added that it isn't a bad thing to remind those serving what they're fighting for.
"And if you want to talk about a warrior ethos, I mean, how about somebody who joins the military during a war as an officer, gets kicked out over their own objections, and then goes on to fight for civil rights and gives their life for the cause," Kander said, referring to Milk. "That's probably the kind of thing that we want to remind our service members that America is about, and what we're fighting for in the first place."
See the clip below or at the link here.
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