‘You Said This In November!’ Gillibrand Lays Into Hegseth Walking Back ‘Brutal’ Past Statements on Women In the Military

President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to run the Pentagon, former Fox News host Pete Hegseth, received a tough grilling from Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) on Tuesday as his confirmation hearing got underway.

Gillibrand lit into Hegseth for some of his past statements on women serving in combat roles, which he has since disavowed.

The New York Democrat began her questioning by saying she has “many concerns about your record and particularly your public statements because they are so hurtful to the men and women who are currently serving in the U.S. military. Harmful to morale, harmful to good order and discipline.”

“If you are saying that women shouldn’t be serving in the military, and I’m going to read you your quotes because the quotes themselves are terrible, you will have to change how you see women to do this job well and I don’t know if you are capable of that,” she continued, adding:

So I want to press on these issues that my colleague Jeanne Shaheen brought up because she said it so well. So, first of all, you answered your questionnaire. Do you believe that any American who wants to serve their country in the military and can meet objective standards set by the military should be allowed to serve without limitation? You said yes to that question.

But then in all of these other circumstances, you’ve denigrated active duty service members. We have hundreds, hundreds of women who are currently in the infantry, lethal members of our military serving in the infantry. But you degrade them. You say we need moms, but not in the military, especially in combat units.

Gillibrand then referred to Sen. Tom Cotton’s (R-AR) earlier line of questioning, in which he and Hegseth discussed the various weights of military equipment that women would need to carry into combat.

“So specific to Senator Cotton’s question, because Senator Cotton was giving you layups to differentiate between different types of combat. And specifically, as secretary, would you take any action to reinstitute the combat arms exclusion for female service members, knowing full well you have hundreds of women doing that job right now and the standards your two-mile run, Tom, is about the Army combat fitness test. It is not the requirements to have it,” she continued, adding:

These are the requirements today for people serving in industry, men and women. They are gender-neutral and they are very difficult to meet. They have not been reduced in any way. And our combat units, our infantry is lethal. So please explain specifically because you will be in charge of 3 million personnel. It is a big job. And when you make these public statements, I get you are not secretary of defense. And I get you were on TV.

I get you were helping veterans. I get it was a different job. But most recently, you said this in November of 2024, knowing full well you might have been named as secretary of defense defense. So please explain these types of statements because they’re brutal and they’re mean and they disrespect men and women who are willing to die for this country.

“Well, Senator, I appreciate your your comments. And I would point out, I have never disparaged women serving in the military,” Hegseth replied, adding:

I respect every single female service member that has put on the uniform past and present. My critiques, Senator, recently and in the past and from personal experience have been instances where I’ve seen standards lowered. And you mentioned 11 Alpha, 11, Bravo, MOS places in units.

And the book that has been referenced multiple times here, The War I’m Warriors. I spent months talking to active duty service members, men and women, low ranks, high ranks, combat arms and not combat arms. And what each and every one of them told me and which personal instances have shown me, is that in ways direct, indirect, overt, and subtle standards have been changed inside infantry training units, ranger school infantry battalions to ensure that.

Gillibrand cut in, saying, “Give me one example, please give me an example I get. You’re making these generalized statements.”

“Standards to meet quotas to have a certain number of female infantry officers or infantry enlisted,” Hegseth replied.

“Commanders do not have quotas for the infantry! commanders do not have a quota for women in the infantry. That does not exist. It does not exist,” she hit back, adding:

And your statements are creating the impression that there that these exist because they do not there are not quotas. We want the most lethal force. But I’m telling you, having been here for 15 years, listening to testimony about men and women in combat and the type of operations that were successful in Afghanistan and in Iraq, women were essential for many of those units.

When Ranger units went in to find where the terrorists hiding in Afghanistan or in Iraq, if they had a woman in the unit, they could go in, talk to the women in a village, say, where are the terrorists hiding? Where are the weapons hiding? And get crucial information to make sure that we can win that battle. So just you cannot denigrate women in general and your statements do that.

We don’t want women in the military, especially in combat. What a terrible statement. So please do not deny that you’ve made those statements.

Watch the full clip above via CNN.