Transcript of 'Nailed it': GOP senator believes Hegseth 'without question' will be the next SecDef

Now, senators Mark Wayne-Mullen and Tom Cotton both sit on the Senate Arm Services Committee. We're there today. Senator Mullen, let's start with you. Now, your colleague, Joni Ernst, just announced that she will back Hegset. That is huge. Do you anticipate any Republican defections, given how well Hegset did today?

I think Pete just absolutely nailed it, and thank you for having me on, by the way. I wasn't surprised at all for Joni making that announcement. I thought she played her hand right, meaning that she did exactly what she said she was going to do. She was going to hold until the hearing. She came out immediately, said she was going to support because of the performance that Pete had today. Then what happens with Susan Collins and Lisa Mekowski, I think they both said they want to listen to the hearing, too. I know Susan personally paid close attention to it. I believe without question, Pete's going to be confirmed, and I think you're going to have a strong support from all the Republicans, men and women alike. I think he is the right person for the job, and President Trump did a wonderful job by picking him to be the next Secretary of Defense.

Senator Cotton, I think a lot of Americans who caught little snippets of this today were shocked, frankly, to find out that we are doing a lot of this woke stuff in the military. People don't cover it like we do, and not every time follows every iteration of a change in policy in the military. But really, it has hurt hurt, in many ways, our military readiness and hurt our recruiting, which I think he talked about today.

Yeah, Laura, unfortunately, political correctness run amok and social engineering has harmed our military, therefore, harmed our national security. As you said, it's probably declined recruiting numbers to the point that we're at a recruiting crisis, and it's harmed readiness. Look, our troops don't deserve their pronouns on their ID They don't need to do privileged walks. They don't have to go through repeated training sessions about diversity, equity, and inclusion. What they deserve is hard, realistic training to help prepare them to defend this nation at wartime. The training that Pete Hegset has conducted and that he's run. That's one of the reasons why Donald Trump picked him to be Secretary of Defense and stuck with him through thick and thin. I do think pretty soon, Pete is going to have the requisite number of to be confirmed in the Senate. When that happens, I hope the Democrats will not delay or otherwise obstruct this nomination. If they want to vote against him, that's fine. But President Trump deserves to have his Secretary of Defense on the job properly.

Senator Mullen, Chuck Schumer claims that Hegsethe is unfit for the job. Watch.

He is, by outward appearance, woefully unfit for for a job like Secretary of Defense. Unfortunately for Mr. Hegsethe, his testimony thus far has failed to address the disturbing questions that plague his nomination. It appears Mr. Hegsethe's strategy is to follow the five Ds of dodgeball. Dodge, duck, dip, dive, and dodge.

This is just an unserious former Senate majority leader. He's He's reading his remarks. He can't even speak extemporaneously about such an important confirmation battle. That's the best he can do.

Well, what's unfortunate is where was Chuck Schumer calling out the President of the United States currently, President Biden, who is woefully unfit to serve. He's the one that has followed the 5Ds by dodging reporters for the last four years. His staff at the White House, openly covering, the left media, openly covering for him. Where was the call The hypocrisy that runs through the Democrat Party is so thick, it's laughable. What about Rachel, the undersecretary inside of HHS who doesn't even know her own pronoun, or Sam, the guy who worked in the Department of Energy who couldn't figure out his in the luggage. Or if you want to talk about being unqualified, Pete Heggseth, the gentleman... Or not Pete Heggseth, I'm sorry, Pete Buttadjaj, the gentleman that's over the Department of Transportation, the gentleman who truly was a mayor, and now he's over transportation. Where were There's no other call out on those individuals? It doesn't matter as long as it applies to them, because listen, if you're a Democrat, you're qualified for everything, evidently.

Well, Senator Cotton, if they thought that Heggseth was going to be a big stumbling block for Trump, they probably wouldn't have given him much trouble at this hearing. They were pathetic today. Nothing hit Pete. They think he's actually going to do what Trump directs him to do with consultation with military experts, but that's what really worried about, correct?

Yeah, they are, Laura. Just look at the issue that I discussed with Pete today, and that's women in ground combat roles. Sometimes people talk about women in combat. Look, women have been in combat for a long time as pilots or as medics or as mechanics. But when you talk about the infantry and artillery and special forces, there are certain irreducible physical demands. Nothing Pete Hexeth can do will make an M240 Bravo machine gun weigh less than 47 pounds. He's not going to make an artillery shell weigh less than 100 pounds. A soldier in full combat battle rattle weigh less than, say, 250 or even 300 pounds. Those are irreducible physical demands. We need high and gender-neutral standards for those jobs to make sure that all of our troops are safe and ready to fight. The Democrats, though, kept coming back to the issue because they don't care about that. They'd rather have social engineering and quotas to meet their desired instate, as opposed to having a fit, ready, fighting force to defend this nation.

Well, I I think, Senator Mullen, one thing that most Americans do want is an end to these forever wars. I know there's a big debate still, I guess, in the Republican Party, where people just want to keep shoveling money at the Pentagon, $900 billion and counting, no audit, and they were getting on him for an audit today. But most people are like, Look, this is not 1984 or 2004. We are out of money, and we have to smartly budget in every department, including the Pentagon.

That's right. What we have to do is we got to get refocused inside America and say, what is our wants and what is our needs? Our needs is to have a strong military because we got to have peace through strength. President Trump brings that to the White House. We've got to have a military that's capable and able to back it up. Now, it doesn't mean we continue to throw money at it. We are wasting a tremendous amount of money, billions of dollars inside the Pentagon, and we've got to get a handle on it. I think that's why they fear when you have somebody like Pete Hegssef who's willing to go in there because he doesn't come from the rank and file. He doesn't come from just racking and stacking someone else to come in and carry on as usual. He's going to bring change. That's why they also fear Elon, because they're going to go in there and figure out where the money is going to. We waste so much money, and yet they can't tell us where it's going. It's the only place in the world that you can be over budget and behind on delivery on a project that you bid and still get rewarded more and more money to do It's absolutely absurd.

That doesn't work in the private sector.

Well, Senator Cotton, do you believe the Pentagon will finally pass an audit? It's failed seven times with Hegset at the helm.

I hope so. Pete said the day that was a priority of his. As Mark Wayne says, there are certain things we need to be spending more money on, like commercial off-the-schelf technology, software solutions that are readily available. We don't need our military trying to design new systems. There's other things that we need to do to stop bad past practices like cost plus contracts that encourage these cost overruns and budget overruns. There's a lot that we can do inside the Pentagon to eliminate waste and inefficiency and reinvest that money in the tools that our troops need, and for that matter, more troops.

Yeah, and our manufacturing policy shouldn't be a giveaway to China under any circumstances and then shift the focus to China, only to enrich China on the other side. That's also, I know, a priority of this administration. Senator Mullen, I know you helped prep Pete. Good job there. Senator Cotton, as always, thank you very much.

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