All posts tagged "Secretary Of Defense"

The Pentagon, under Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, is reportedly planning to scrap regulations meant to help victims of sexual assault in the military, according to reporting in The Intercept.

The action is in response to President Donald Trump's executive order slashing diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in government agencies.

According to The Intercept, Deputy Secretary of Defense Stephen Feinberg called on top officials and "ordered them to comb through their organizations’ regulations — identified in a spreadsheet attached to the memo — and specify whether any rules flagged in the executive order apply to them and indicate whether they should be altered or rescinded."...

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) used Pete Hegseth's own words against him during a tense exchange at Hegseth's confirmation hearing Tuesday.

President-elect Donald Trump nominated the controversial Hegseth to be his secretary of defense, opening up questions about his attitudes toward women and their role in the military. Warren claimed that Hegseth changed his tune on women in combat in order to get confirmed.

"Just 32 days after your last public comment saying that women absolutely should not be in combat, you declared that, quote, 'Some of our greatest warriors are women,' and you support having them serve in combat," Warren said. "Now that is a very, very big about face in a very, very short period of time. So, help me understand, Mr. Hegseth, what extraordinary event happened in that 32-day period that made you change the core values you had expressed for the preceding 12 years?"...

Defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth slammed the "liberal media" during his confirmation hearing Tuesday, blaming it for a "coordinated smear campaign" against him.

"What became very evident to us from the beginning, there was a coordinated smear campaign orchestrated in the media against us that was clear from moment one," Hegseth said.

He continued, "What we knew is that it wasn't about me. Most of it was about President Donald Trump, who's had to endure the very same thing for much longer amounts of time, and he endured it in incredibly strong ways. So we, in some ways, knew it was coming. ...

Some Senate insiders, including Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), are blowing up Pete Hegseth's nomination for Secretary of Defense citing his lack of qualifications a day before the former Fox News host's confirmation hearings are set to begin.

Rebecca Traister, writer-at-large with The Intelligencer, quoted Kelly's devastating take on Hegseth in a column posted Monday.

"I don’t expect any candidate to check every single box. But he doesn’t seem to check any boxes,” Kelly said....

New U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel delivers remarks to service members and civilian employees at the Pentagon.

Members of the United States Senate will reconsider a failed cloture vote on the nomination of Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense.