WASHINGTON − At Pete Hegseth’s confirmation hearing for Secretary of Defense on Tuesday, senators picked relentlessly at his widely espoused – then quickly reversed – view that women don’t belong in combat roles.
Hegseth was also questioned on accusations of sexual assault and alcohol abuse, which he denies, but recent statements on the role of women in the military were a key sticking point at the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.
If Hegseth is confirmed and restricts women from combat roles, “our military can no longer do its job,” Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., said Thursday, after she declared in a floor speech that he is unqualified and she won’t vote for him.
“We cannot have an expeditionary military that can fight America’s battles around the world, or even maintain national security around the world without the women,” said Duckworth, a veteran who lost both her legs in Iraq.
More:Why Pete Hegseth nomination is a milestone for the rightwing Christian movement he follows
After winning the support of Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, a veteran and survivor of military sexual abuse, Hegselth appears likely to be confirmed, senators said. The defense secretary will head the largest military force in U.S. history, with more than 2 million active duty and reserve trools − around 360,000 of them women.
Some women combat veterans and military experts say Hegseth’s likely rise to Trump’s cabinet has left them frustrated and exhausted and has revived tired, sexist arguments against their service.
More:Sparks, but Hegseth unscathed in Defense confirmation hearing
“It really is so heartbreaking,” said Charley Falletta, part of the first class of gender-integrated armor officers in 2016, the year ground combat troops were opened to women.
“These women have served so courageously and so bravely and so patriotically, and now, as they do their job, they’re having, essentially, the person who may be their future boss basically call their years of service meaningless,” she said.
Democratic senators at Tuesday’s hearing stuck on Hegseth’s comments in a Nov. 7 podcast interview, released just five days before Trump named him to lead the U.S. military.
“I’m straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles,” he said in the clip, adding, “It hasn’t made us more effective. Hasn’t made us more lethal. Has made fighting more complicated.”
But with his nomination on the line, the former Fox and Friends co-host has walked those comments back.
“We support all women serving in our military today who do a fantastic job across the globe, in our Pentagon, and deliver critical aspects, all aspects, combat included,” he told reporters at the Capitol last month.
But some senators weren’t satisfied. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., called his backtrack on the issue “a very very big about face in a very very short amount of time” and said she was concerned he would “go back to the old guy.”
More:Trump’s embattled Pentagon nominee Pete Hegseth reverses position on women in combat
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., said he’d “denigrated” women in the military.
Hegseth replied that he respected women servicemembers and said women would have access to combat roles.
In his most recent book, “The War on Warriors,” published last summer, Hegseth argued that “women cannot physically meet the same standards as men.”
“Men are, gasp, biologically stronger, faster and bigger. Dare I say, physically superior,” Hegseth wrote.
More:No experience? No problem. Trump’s Cabinet raises concerns about government dysfunction.
Now, Hegseth must pass acceptance with the narrow Republican majority in the Senate. His nomination could depend on three Republican women senators – Ernst of Iowa, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.
But, after a cordial round of questions to Hegseth at the hearing, Ernst announced he had her support, bumping up his chances of passing.
Lorry Fenner, a 26-year Air Force veteran and historian of women in the military, said a ban on women serving in combat roles would demoralize women servicemembers.
More:Just 10 years ago, women were banned from combat. Now, they’re on the front lines, climbing the ranks.
“You tell somebody you’re not really wanted in our club, but will you come in and be a secretary and make the coffee like we did in the 1940s and 50s – and even that’s a fiction,” Fenner said. “The women who are left, they look around and say, our Secretary of Defense doesn’t care about women.”
Historically, Fenner said, women were allowed into gradually more military roles on a “you need us, you want us” basis. Long before they were officially allowed to take on combat positions, women servicemembers took on direct roles on the frontline and were subject to the same dangers as men.
“That somehow women are in a clean, white nurse’s outfit in the rear area – this is all a major fiction,” she said.
More:Assault allegations, women in combat: Takeaways from Hegseth confirmation hearing
Kayla Williams, who served in combat foot patrols with the infantry during her deployment to Iraq, was part of the push to rescind policies excluding women from combat. “To see us rehashing the same arguments is really quite emotionally draining,” she said.
The policy was rescinded in 2013, paving the way for the first women to officially join combat units three years later, “because leaders at the time saw how ineffective and actively counterproductive it was,” Williams said.
“The American people did not rise up in protest” over the policy change, Williams said. “They honored and respected women who died in combat the same exact way that they honored and respected men.”
