--- title: Hegseth Hearing: Iraq Vet Senator Explains Opposition description: Sen. Tammy Duckworth, who lost both legs in Iraq, tells TIME that PEte Hegseth is "unqualified" to be Donald Trump's Defense Secretary. canonical: https://time.com/7206587/hegseth-hearing-military-duckworth/ author: Philip Elliott article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2025-01-14T01:10:38.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:50:14.306Z article:section: Politics og:title: Hegseth Hearing: Iraq Veteran Senator Explains Her Opposition og:description: Sen. Tammy Duckworth, who lost both legs in Iraq, talked to TIME ahead of Pete Hegseth's confirmation hearing about his opposition to women in combat roles og:url: https://time.com/7206587/hegseth-hearing-military-duckworth/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltebb0d91589b3bd8b/6998b26f1500fb1835aa4107/GettyImages-2157339766.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: Democratic Senators Holds Press Conference Discussing "Right To IVF" Act og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Hegseth Hearing: Iraq Veteran Senator Explains Her Opposition twitter:description: Sen. Tammy Duckworth, who lost both legs in Iraq, talked to TIME ahead of Pete Hegseth's confirmation hearing about his opposition to women in combat roles twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltebb0d91589b3bd8b/6998b26f1500fb1835aa4107/GettyImages-2157339766.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # 'Not Qualified' And 'Out of Touch': Combat Veteran Tammy Duckworth on Why She Opposes Pete Hegseth's Nomination > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: September 2026. ## TIME Newsletters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME publishes seven free email newsletters, written and edited by TIME journalists, reaching more than 1.1 million engaged readers. TIME has reported on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world since 1923, and its newsletters bring that same authority directly to the inbox. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=fbe90665-2840-4204-9c2e-1bd288d4cce1&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Should the U.S. Defense Secretary Know What ASEAN Is? Pete Hegseth Doesn’t Appear To [Watch (HLS stream): Should the U.S. Defense Secretary Know What ASEAN Is? Pete Hegseth Doesn’t Appear To](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/ptQIjGjA.m3u8) (1:30)  _Published 2025-01-15. During Tuesday's heated Senate confirmation hearing, Senator Tammy Duckworth grilled for Pete Hegseth over the Association of Southeast Asian Nations._  by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Senior Correspondent Jan 14, 2025 1:10 AM UTC  Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Illinois, speaks during a news conference outside of the U.S. Capitol Building on June 12, 2024 in Washington, DC. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Illinois, speaks during a news conference outside of the U.S. Capitol Building on June 12, 2024 in Washington, DC. Anna Moneymaker—Getty Images  by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Senior Correspondent Jan 14, 2025 1:10 AM UTC _This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up_ [_here_](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/signup?nln=dc-brief&source=dc%5Fonsite) _to get stories like this sent to your inbox._ Pete Hegseth’s nomination to lead the Pentagon is, at the moment, the most [endangered](https://time.com/7199646/pete-hegseth-nomination-trump-republican-senators/) of President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet choices. Hegseth’s [hearing](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/01/13/pete-hegseth-confirmation-secretary-defense-allegations/) with the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday—among the first of the incoming Administration—could offer some clarity on whether the former Fox News host is still on track to lead the nation’s largest employer. Central to that debate is likely to be Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat on the committee who happens to be disabled combat veteran who lost both of her legs when a rocket-propelled grenade hit the Army Black Hawk helicopter she was piloting in Iraq. Duckworth is among the first women to have flown combat missions. Hegseth [says](https://apnews.com/article/pete-hegseth-background-defense-secretary-confirmation-hearing-e160e10c86385a8beff110d9190fb34e) women have no place in combat operations. “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,” Hegseth said in November before he was nominated. That position is among a host of past comments that have come to dog Hegseth's nomination to be Defense Secretary—along with a raft of allegations about [alcohol](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/pete-hegseths-drinking-worried-colleagues-fox-news-sources-tell-nbc-ne-rcna181471), [women](https://www.npr.org/2024/11/21/nx-s1-5199630/police-report-gives-details-timeline-of-the-sexual-assault-claim-against-pete-hegseth), and [mismanagement](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pete-hegseth-concerned-veterans-for-america-jessie-jane-duff/). “He's not qualified for the job,” Duckworth told TIME Monday evening ahead of Hegseth’s confirmation hearing. She points to not only his background, but his positions on issues like women in the military. “We could not go to war and keep America safe if we were to keep our female service members out of combat or areas of combat,” she says. Below are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. **TIME: Based on what you know at this hour, is Mr. Hegseth qualified?** Duckworth: Based on what I know so far, no. I was not afforded the opportunity to meet with him in person, either. **I understand there was a scheduling conflict there.** Oh, no, there's no scheduling conflict. I have the receipts. I have an email dated Dec. 18 where his team gives me the date of the week of Jan. 19\. He was never planning on meeting with the Democrats prior to this. And we've made ourselves more than available. So whatever they're telling you is a fib. **I went back through your voting** [**record**](https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/tammy-duckworth/) **from the first Trump term. You have not been an automatic rejector of his Cabinet. Why is this nomination different?** He's not qualified for the job. The largest organization that this man has led, best I can tell, was a 40-person platoon—if that was a fully manned-up platoon. The largest budget that I can tell that he has managed was somewhere around $16 or $18 million. And even that was in financial [distress](https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/pete-hegseths-secret-history) while he was in charge of it. We're talking about a 3 million personnel organization, military and civilian, and a budget this year of $825 billion. The manager of the local Applebee's has managed more people than Mr. Hegseth has. And I would no more want that person in charge of the Pentagon than I would Mr. Hegseth. **You've served in combat as a woman. Can you explain what a Secretary Hegseth would mean for folks like yourself?** It's not just about me as a woman serving. It's the fact that he's not qualified for the job. The military, what I love about it is that it's a pure meritocracy. Can you do the job? Can you meet the standards? If you can't fly the helicopter, you don't get to be a helicopter pilot. Yet here's a guy who can't meet the standards and is asking for special dispensation to do a job that he's not qualified to do. And so what does that say to the women who've earned their position? What does it say to the team leader, the company commander, or the brigade commander who has earned that position, to look and see there's a guy there who's a weekend talk show host who has no experience, and now he gets to do the job? It undermines the meritocracy and the very foundation on which the military trains and executes its mission. **You're a retired member of the military now. You're on the Senate Armed Services Committee. You've seen the effects of DEI programs that Mr. Hegseth has made one of the cornerstones of his candidacy here. Do they hurt national security in the way he says?** Not at all. Diversity is one of the greatest strengths of our military. You could just look at things like [The Lionesses](https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/southasiasource/the-lionesses-of-kabul-tehran-in-khorasan/), right? The Marine Corps's women who formed units after it was found out that they could better get information on enemy actions from Afghan women villagers because they would talk to them. When we were in Iraq, especially in the early days of the war, we were attaching women who were supply clerks or medics to infantry units as they're going to kick down doors looking for insurgents, because then the women were there and they could actually frisk the local women who could not be examined by our male counterparts. Having people within the ranks from all different perspectives and backgrounds with language abilities makes our military more diverse and stronger and more able to defend America. I wish Mr. Hegseth would focus on our adversaries and the needs of the military and less on being a culture warrior. This seems to be all that he's talking about when we don't have enough battleships and the Chinese are [building](https://media.defense.gov/2023/Oct/19/2003323409/-1/-1/1/2023-MILITARY-AND-SECURITY-DEVELOPMENTS-INVOLVING-THE-PEOPLES-REPUBLIC-OF-CHINA.PDF#page=73) more and more submarines to rival our submarine force. He's worried about [renaming](https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/13/politics/pete-hegseth-confederate-generals-military-bases/index.html) a military base for the worst generals in the Confederate war. It's, like, where are you focused, buddy? **Those are tangible experiences of women in combat or combat-adjacent roles who actually made the United States safer. Why would there be a downside to that?** The nature of modern warfare and the nature of the United States military is one that we could not go to war and keep America safe if we were to keep our female service members out of combat or areas of combat. In Iraq, over 50% of the casualties that we took in Operation Iraqi Freedom happened not when we were kicking down doors. It actually happened during convoy operations. Women have been driving vehicles in the military since the first World War. So if we were to take all of the females out of those convoy operations, they would never have happened. This is not like the Civil War, the Revolutionary War where we have a forward line of troops someplace and everybody stands behind it, and you can keep the women back 30 miles or 50 miles. That's not how war works today. He is completely out of touch with the realities of modern warfare and our military. So what does he want to do? Keep the women from being deployed completely? So that's 20% of the force that can't deploy. Does that mean that the men have to deploy more often? It's going to make our military unable to execute the mission. **Is there any way you get to yes on him?** Maybe he has hidden talents I don't know about. Maybe he's run a major multinational corporation. Maybe he actually has negotiated a major diplomatic agreement with a foreign military. Maybe he just is being very, very, shy and not telling us about it. **Can Democrats stop this, though?** I don't know. Unfortunately, if you'd asked me this a month ago, I would've said there are certainly Republican members who care enough about the military and the ability to secure our nation and provide for national security who would step up. But unfortunately, the ones who did speak up with anything other than enthusiastic support from Mr. Hegseth immediately came under extremely volatile attack from everybody from President Trump down to his MAGA base. I know \[Sen.\] Joni Ernst \[of Iowa\] certainly faced an onslaught of attacks. My understanding is that many of these attacks were very threatening to her physical security. I don't know what my Republican colleagues are going to do, whether they're going to choose to put country over self, or MAGA over country. _Make sense of what matters in Washington._ [_Sign up for the D.C. Brief newsletter_](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/signup?nln=dc-brief&source=dc%5Fonsite)_._ ## Transcript Repeat the question, Senator? Sure. What is the highest level of international security agreement that you have led? And can you name some that the Secretary of Defense would lead? There's three main ones. I have not been involved in international security arrangements because I have not been in government other than serving in the military. So my job has no. You name one of the three main ones Secretary of Defense Defense arrangements. I mean, NATO might be one that you're referring to. Status of Forces agreement would be one of them. Status of Forces agreement. I've been a part of teaching about status of forces agreement. But you don't remember do you mention it? You're not qualified, Mr. Hegeth. You're not qualified. You talk about repairing our defense industrial complex. You're not qualified to that. You could do acquisition and cross servicing agreements, which is essentially are security agreements. You can't even mention that. You've done none of those. You talked about the Indo Pacific a little bit, and I'm glad that you mentioned it up mentioned it. Can you name the importance of at least one of the nations in the Ossian in Ossian and what type of agreement we have with at least one of those nations. And how many nations are in Ossian, by the way? I couldn't tell you the exact I know we have allies in South Korea and Japan and in August with Australia and trying to work on submarines with them Missa Hexa None of those countries allies cross None of those three countries that you've mentioned are in Ossian. 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