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Floor Speech

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Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, when I came out of graduate school, I was hired by Secretary Weinberger as a Presidential Management Intern--now called PMF, or Presidential Management Fellows--five of us who were brought in to do a series of rotations to bring, well, an injection of policy determination to the conversation in Secretary of Defense's Office.

And it was really quite an enlightening experience. My first assignment involved being desk officer for Jordan at the Defense Security Systems Agency, because the desk officer who worked for both Jordan and Lebanon had to pay a lot more attention to Lebanon because we had the horrific bombing of the Marines in the tower.

And then there was an argument inside the defense establishment about how to keep Russia from going forward at a faster pace technologically. And the research and development side said: If you classify everything, you will slow us down and Russia will catch up.

And the policy said: Unless we classify everything, the Russians will steal so much, they will speed up and catch up.

And there was this fundamental difference of opinion about how to control technology in order to maintain our technological lead over Russia.

And I was asked to set up a steering committee and bring both parties to the table to try to work out where they could work together and try to resolve their differences.

And in the course of things, I was drafted to become a programmer to do computer studies of survivability related to what strategies with our strategic forces would decrease the risk of nuclear war happening? What would strengthen deterrence? And then on to a service at NATO, and then to an R&D budgeting cycle, where I learned many of the budget games the Defense Department employs in order to get a whole lot of money that seems to be never accounted for.

In fact, it has become universally recognized that the Defense Department can never pass a budget, can never pass a budget test--that is, an audit--because they don't track anything very closely, and there are just all kinds of loose ends left.

And year after year, Democrats and Republicans have said: Audit the Secretary of Defense. Audit the Defense Department. We want to know where our funds go.

And here we are, decades and decades later, and we still have that same problem.

You know, it was a valuable several years that led, then, to me working for Congress on strategic nuclear issues. And in the decade of the 1980s, we saw some real advances in our security. We saw some real advances in terms of the stability of the nuclear dynamic with the then-Soviet Union.

And, in fact, the folks who put together the Doomsday Clock, which was very close to midnight when I started working on defense issues, was turned back some 13 or 15 minutes from midnight by the late eighties because of a series of agreements and policies and force changes that had been worked out over the eighties.

The Defense Department is massive. It is massive--an annual budget of about $850 billion, 3.4 million people working for it, 2.5 million servicemembers, 900,000 civilians. It is massive. It is complicated.

But what experience does Mr. Hegseth bring? He ran two little micrononprofits, and he ran them into the ground. He had documented problems with drinking on the job. He had credible and repeated accusations of sexual assault. He showed disrespect for female servicemembers and diverse servicemembers, including the current--well, the former Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Brown.

What?

This man who couldn't manage his way out of a paper bag, who mismanaged the enterprise he had undertaken--that is the man we are going to confirm to run the U.S. military that has massive needs for reform?

Is this man some expert in military strategy? No. Is he some esteemed driver of the new technology of war with drones? No. Did he have diverse experiences inside the Defense Department that gave him many perspectives about the incredible sections of the Defense Department that deal with so many different issues? No, no.

So why are we having this conversation? What has happened to the idea of credible leadership? I can tell you what happened. The President of the United States, President Trump, said: Do what I want, or I will primary you. And now we have a bunch of folks across the aisle that are not doing their job under the Constitution. The Constitution says it is our responsibility to advise and consent, to vet nominees and to make sure they are qualified before they take these positions.

I say to my colleagues: Stop shaking and shivering under the aura of an authoritarian President and do your job. And your job is to say no, because this man is not qualified.

He did not even tell President-elect Trump about all the accusations made against him. If he could not tell President Trump the truth before he was serving and before President Trump is President Trump, how will he be able to stand up for the truth and say what needs to be said after President Trump is in office and he is Secretary of Defense?

The Department of Defense has failed seven audits in a row. The Secretary of Defense must be able to get the department on track to pass an audit. It is mandated by Congress. It has been mandated before, and they still fail year after year. But both sides say it should happen. We should put some teeth into that.

But I tell you, putting a man who can't manage a tiny nonprofit isn't going to get the job done. They ran up enormous debt. And by 2008, the financial records show they were unable to pay their creditors-- irresponsible in the max.

I know running a small nonprofit is hard. I was the director of an affiliate of Habitat for Humanity, and I ran the housing division of another nonprofit that developed affordable housing, and then I was President of the World Affairs Council and had the managerial responsibilities. And it was tough making sure we hit payroll each month, making sure we raise more money for the aspirations we had for those organizations. It was hard work. I worried about it all the time, but we always met payroll. We always advanced in our mission.

Maybe, if we are going to hire somebody from a sole nonprofit to run a gigantic organization, we should at least know they can run the small organization before they get promoted to running an organization with millions of people and the better part of a trillion dollars in its budget.

A Republican strategist who worked with him at that organization said:

I don't know how he's going to run an organization with an $857 billion budget and 3 million individuals.

On more than a dozen occasions, Mr. Hegseth's FOX News colleagues report smelling alcohol on him before he went on air, including just a couple of months ago. Former employees of the nonprofit he ran reported him being drunk on the job and having to be carried out of events.

That is the person we want running the Department of Defense?

A former employee noted in a letter of complaint that Mr. Hegseth was drunkenly chanting ``Kill all Muslims, Kill all Muslims'' at a bar while on a work trip.

You know, we have many faiths serving us in the defense of this country because we are a multifaith Nation. Having a person who advocates for killing people of a particular religious faith is not acceptable to run the Department of Defense.

He said: Well, I will reform. I have broken the rules on drinking before, but I will reform. How many times have you heard that from people who are--well, they have an addiction. They try to reform. Maybe they make it for a little while. But in the end, they relapse. Shall we put that risk upon the security of the United States of America?

We used to have a more responsible attitude here in the Senate. In 1989, when President George H. W. Bush nominated John Tower, an FBI investigation revealed that he was a drunk and a womanizer and Mr. Tower pledged not to drink any alcoholic beverages during his time as Secretary of Defense, just as Mr. Hegseth has. And then the Senate weighed the risk of putting somebody with an addiction in charge of the Department of Defense and rejected his nomination.

It is an insult to the servicemembers of the United States of America to put a man with an addiction in charge of them. It is irresponsible to the security of the Nation and all civilians of this Nation.

The Department of Defense struggles with high levels of sexual assault of female servicemembers, so a person who has been involved in numerous incidents of misbehavior on the issue of treating women isn't the right person to have as the Secretary of Defense.

In 2023, the year I have numbers for, 29,000 Active-Duty troops reported experiencing unwanted sexual contact. Mr. Hegseth has been accused of sexual assault. He paid the accuser $50,000 in a settlement. It took place in 2017 after a speaking appearance at a Republican women's event in Monterey, CA. No charges were filed. But this, in combination with multiple other reports of his treatment--accusations of mistreatment of women, means he is the wrong person to have at an organization in which women provide enormously valuable contributions.

During his time at the head of a veterans' organization, the employees report that Mr. Hegseth ``sexually pursued the organization's female staffers.'' It is not like this was one misunderstood event somewhere in his way past life.

Women are 18 percent of our Active-Duty servicemembers, but Mr. Hegseth dismisses them.

We need moms. But not in the military, especially not in combat boots.

He went on to say:

I'm straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles. It hasn't made us more effective. Hasn't made us more lethal. Has made fighting more complicated.

And he is wrong on every point. Women in combat roles have helped fill out ranks. We do have a volunteer Army. We do recruit to get the staff we need in the military in order to be able to operate the weapons systems and the communication systems and the supply systems and the repair systems--all of it. They work in every role--valuable, valuable contributors.

We should not put a person at the head of our Department of Defense who somehow thinks half the jobs in the world can only be done by men, because it is wrong and because it undermines the effectiveness of the military providing security.

He also doesn't like minorities. Well, minority groups comprise 30 percent of servicemembers. I don't care what color of skin you have. I do care if you work hard as a member of the military to support the security of this Nation. And people of every race are a valuable part of our military. And a man who thinks the color of your skin controls the content of your character and the ability and talents that you possess doesn't belong as the head of the military.

He has said:

The dumbest phrase on planet Earth is ``our diversity is our strength.''

You take away the diversity in our service and you will soon see our diverse servicemembers are invaluable, and a person who doesn't understand that should never be confirmed. That is our job. Our job, under the Constitution, is to say: Mr. President, sometime Presidents get it wrong. Maybe it is for political reasons; maybe you woke up and didn't know all the background of the person. But we have to vet them, and we have to help make sure your executive branch is successful.

That is our job. You are not helping President Trump by voting for a man totally unqualified--the most unqualified man who could be found in America to head the Department of Defense.

Mr. Hegseth says:

I told my platoon they could ignore directives limiting when they can shoot.

A person who violates the directives in the military doesn't belong running the military. There is a strong command structure in the military, and it includes how you behave in certain situations that are crucial to the security of this Nation. But he did not understand that.

He has argued that ``U.S. forces should ignore the Geneva Conventions and other elements of international law governing the conduct of war.''

As my colleague from Maryland was just talking about and reciting the wisdom of John McCain saying how the Geneva Conventions and rules on torture serve us well, because you get misinformation when you torture people and you get Americans tortured when they are captured if we are torturing people. So a man who believes in torturing people doesn't understand how to get accurate information and is putting our own servicemembers at risk when they are captured.

Why would any Member of this body so disrespect the servicemembers of the United States of America as to put this man in charge?

I was honored to work for Secretary Weinberger. I believed that the world was at great risk of the possibility of nuclear war, and that is the issue I focused on in my time there and then my time working for Congress. There is nothing I saw during my time in the Pentagon that equals this level of failure to protect and defend the United States of America. I did not see people put into command who talked about killing members who were of a different religion than they were. I did not hear people talking about how women should not even be there or how diversity was a problem rather than a strength. I saw her as people working hard together, people who had served in Vietnam together.

Many of the folks who I served with during those 2 years in my role as a civilian being hired to work with Secretary Weinberger had served in Vietnam. The war had ended by the time I had reached draft age, and I so respected the service that they had given and their dedication to the security of this country.

If you are dedicated to the security of this country, if you respect the servicemembers of the United States of America, then do not give them a boss who is the wrong fit in every way possible.

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