‘You’re Not Being Honest!’ Sen. Mark Kelly Battles With Hegseth After He Repeatedly Dodges Questions on Allegations

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) sparred with Pete Hegseth at the Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday for his nomination to serve as President-elect Donald Trump’s secretary of defense.

Since Trump announced his intention to nominate the former Fox News host to head the Department of Defense, Hegseth has been grappling with a multitude of critical stories, including disturbing accusations of sexual assault, alleged incidents of alcohol abuse, his multiple reported infidelities, and an email his mother sent him in which she called him an “abuser of women.”

Hegseth has denied any wrongdoing and his mother has walked back the email while staunchly defending her son. Nonetheless, his critics have still raised concerns over the allegations and argued that his résumé is far thinner than past nominees for a job that entails exercising command and control over our all military service branches, overseeing a nearly $900 billion budget, and supervising millions of people.

Kelly, himself a former combat naval aviator and NASA astronaut, focused on the issues of transparency and experience in his questioning of Hegseth. The nominee repeatedly attributed the allegations against him to  “anonymous smears” when Kelly asked him about them.

Below, a transcript of their exchange:

KELLY: Mr. Hegseth, thank you for being here today. Thank you for your service to this country.

HEGSETH: Thank you, Senator.

KELLY: Few nominees come into this room with all the necessary experience to do this job, to be secretary of defense. We get that. It’s a reflection on just how big of a job this is. What I want to understand is whether or not you bring any of the necessary experience that this job requires.

And here’s where I’m concerned. Senator Coleman, introducing you, and this is a quote, “he said he has struggled and overcome great personal challenges,” unquote. You walk in here saying that you’ve had personal and character issues in your past, including heavy drinking, which you wrote about, and you said, and this is a quote from you that you said, “I sit before you as an open book,” yet you haven’t actually said what personal challenges it is that you’ve overcome, when you’ve been asked about them. So I’m going to give you an opportunity here to be as forthright as you say you want to be.

So while leading Concerned Veterans of America, there were very specific cases cited by individuals about your conduct. I’m going to go through a few of them, and I just want you to tell me if these are true or false. Very simple.

A Memorial Day 2014 at a CVA event in Virginia, you needed to be carried out of the event for being intoxicated.

HEGSETH: Senator, Anonymous smears.

KELLY: True — just true or false. Very simple. Summer of 2014, in Cleveland. Drunk in public with the CVA team.

HEGSETH: Anonymous smears.

KELLY: I’m just asking for true or false questions — true or false answers. An event in North Carolina, drunk in front of three young female staff members, after you had instituted a no alcohol policy and then reversed it. True or false?

HEGSETH: Anonymous smears.

KELLY: December of 2014 at the CVA Christmas party at the Grand Hyatt at Washington, DC, you were noticeably intoxicated and had to be carried up to your room. Is that true or false?

HEGSETH: Anonymous smears.

KELLY: Another time, a CVA staffer stated that you passed out in the back of a party bus. Is that true or false?

HEGSETH: Anonymous smears.

KELLY: In 2014, while in Louisiana on official business for CVA, did you take your staff, including young female staff members, to a strip club?

HEGSETH: Absolutely not. Anonymous smears.

KELLY: So, is it accurate that the organization reached a financial settlement with a female staffer who claimed to be at a strip club with you, and there was a colleague who attempted to sexually assault her. Was there a financial settlement?

HEGSETH: Senator, I was not involved in that. I don’t know the nature of how that played out.

KELLY: But you understand there was a financial settlement for a young female staffer who accused another member of the organization, not you, of sexual assault in a strip club.

HEGSETH: We have multiple statements on the record referring to that.

KELLY: But you claim you were not there when that occurred?

HEGSETH: Absolutely not.

KELLY: Now, the behavior I cited, if true, do you think that this behavior of intoxication going into these type of establishments, women on your staff being so uncomfortable that they have to file these sort of harassment claims — do you think this is appropriate behavior for a leader?

HEGSETH: Senator, Senator, the overwhelming majority of anyone who has worked for me, including the on the record statements that have been submitted to this, with their name on it, on the record, men and women who worked with me every day are the overwhelming preponderance of evidence that testify to my leadership and professionalism in leading Vets for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America. My leadership has been completely impugned on these veterans organizations that did fantastic work on behalf of the men and women fighting overseas —

KELLY: Mr. Hegseth, I’m not even going to go into the — I’m not even going to go into the accusations —

HEGSETH — and we managed our financial books with integrity across the board. How many people, everybody who runs a campaign —

KELLY: I have limited time. I’m not going to get into the accusations that come from Fox News. I know you have some of your Fox News colleagues here. There are multiple instances of accusations against you about drinking on the job.

HEGSETH: All anonymous, all false, all refuted by my colleagues who’ve I worked with for ten years at 6 am to 9 pm and everything in between and they’ve only seen me be professional every single time —

KELLY: And the challenge here for me, Mr. Hegseth, is when there is discussion about personal challenges and you admittedly had issues with heavy drinking. It’s hard to kind of square this, to square the circle here. It’s — it’s kind of a difficult thing to do. Let me ask you if — I have about a 90 seconds left here — if, if you had to answer these questions about sexual assault against you and your drinking and your personal conduct, would it have been different if this, if you were under oath?

HEGSETH: Senator, all I’m pointing out is the false claims against me.

KELLY: Okay. I take it you do not want to answer that question. I walked in, walked into into this hearing this morning, concerned that you haven’t demonstrated adequate leadership in your civilian roles. And this is a dangerous world we’re living in here, and America cannot afford a Secretary of Defense who is unprepared for that mission.

I’m going to leave with concerns about your transparency. You say you’ve had personal issues in your past, yet when asked about those very issues, you blame an anonymous smear campaign, even when many of these claims are not anonymous.

Which is it? Have you overcome personal issues or are you the target of a smear campaign? It can’t be both. It’s clear to me that you’re not being honest with us or the American people because you know the truth would disqualify you from getting the job. And just as concerning as each of these specific disqualifying accusations are, what concerns me just as much is the idea of having a secretary of defense who is not transparent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back my two seconds.

Watch the clip above via CNN.