Chris Murphy Asks Pete Hegseth Point Blank If National Guard Should've Been Deployed On Jan. 6

Forbes Breaking News

7 months ago

At today's Senate Appropriations Committee, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) questioned Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Transcript

00:00Senator Murphy you're up thank you very much Mr. Chairman thank you Mr. Secretary for being here

00:14today I wanted to build on some of the the questions that Senator Schatz was asking just

00:19to try to build a fact predicate for some of the tough spending decisions we're going to have to

00:25make here just to confirm I heard you say with respect to the gift of the plane from

00:32Qatar that we do not yet have a signed MOU with the government of Qatar is that right

00:39correct we're in the process of working through that and did you also say we don't have a signed

00:47contract with the company that is going to do the work or did you say that we have a contract

00:52you're just not willing to disclose the terms the terms should not be disclosed of anything

00:57related to an aircraft of this type so in 2018 when the contract was signed with Boeing to do

01:04the upgrades or the new contracts for Air Force One the terms of that contract were disclosed they

01:12were made public in fact it was the Trump administration that issued a press release

01:18giving the total is 3.9 billion dollars are you saying this time around even after you sign the

01:24contract you're not going to make public any of the terms of the contract I wasn't involved in that

01:31previous administration decision but we're happy to take a look the Air Force testified before the

01:38House that that contract would likely deliver the new Air Force Ones by the 2028 time frame it doesn't

01:48stand to reason that you will be able to retrofit the plane from Qatar much sooner than 2028 so I'm

01:59trying to have I'm trying to understand what the gap is that we're trying to fill if this contract ends

02:05up being a half a billion dollars and the gap only ends up being six months that doesn't sound like a

02:11wise investment for this committee to make senator I would defer to the expertise of the airport Air Force

02:17as far as timing of modifications and when that would happen but there's also been delay after

02:22delay after delay on the Boeing side so I don't know that's a firm fixed date yet unfortunately can

02:29be counted on so obviously the underlying question here is what is going to happen to the plane at the

02:37end of Trump's presidency the president said on May 12th that this plane would be transferred to his

02:45presidential library at the end of his term is that your understanding of what is going to happen to

02:51this plane the president said that that's my understanding although I would look at what comes

02:57out of the MOU but why would we ask the American taxpayer to spend upwards of a billion dollars on a plane

03:05that would then only be used for a handful of months and then transferred directly to the president

03:10that doesn't sound like a wise use of taxpayer dollars a lot of the capabilities as you know

03:17senator of that particular platform are and should remain classified so there are reasons why you might

03:23modify even for a short period of time and aircraft to ensure the safety and security of the president

03:29of the United States but when do you believe that those upgrades would be made how long would the

03:34president have it before it got transferred to his personal possession that would be a determination of

03:40the air force that would take take hold of it and make those modifications within whatever time window

03:45they believe gets it to the place where it need to be yeah i i i think this is extraordinary mr

03:50chairman we're talking about a pretty massive investment of appropriations dollars into a plane that

03:55the secretary is saying um is currently planned to be transferred personally to the to the president

04:02uh there's a there's a lot of other pending needs that we need to fund this would seem to be low on the

04:08list um mr secretary one final question um obviously you know that there is a concern in the public um about

04:17a double standard that is applied to protest sometimes protest that turns violent the president when he came

04:24into office issued pardons to the individuals that attacked the united states capitol including those

04:30individuals who beat savagely police officers you have deployed the national guard and readied marines

04:38in a way that many people think is unnecessary given the state and the local resources

04:43so maybe let me ask the question this way so that you can assuage people's concerns that there is

04:47a double standard the national guard was deployed here on january 6th and that was a decision made by the

04:54department of defense um do you support that decision do you believe that that was the right decision

05:00to deploy the national guard to defend the capitol on january 6th all i know is it's the right decision

05:07to be deploying the national guard in los angeles to defend ice agents who deserve to be defended in the

05:12execution of their jobs but i think it's important to know whether you think it was also important to

05:17have the national guard defending the united states capitol when there were violent protesters here on the

05:24president's behalf to make sure that folks know that you care about protest whether it's against the

05:28president or on behalf of the president senator i was in the washington dc national guard uh when that

05:35happened and was uh initially ordered to go guard the inauguration of joe biden but because of the

05:41politicization of the biden administration uh my orders were revoked uh and ultimately because of the

05:47politics that being played inside the defense department by the previous administration but do you support

05:52the decision made on january 6th to send the national guard here to i support the decision that

05:57president trump made and requesting the national guard is denied so you do not president trump did not

06:02support the decision support you do not or the national guard in the national guard here to defend

06:08the capitol i think that speaks to the worry that many americans have that there is a double standard

06:12that you are not willing to defend against attacks made on our democracy by supporters of the president but

06:19you are willing to deploy the national guard to to protect against protesters who are criticizing the

06:26president um that's that's not how our taxpayer dollars are supposed to work they're supposed to

06:30use they're supposed to be used to defend the united states no matter the nature of the political

06:34the political affiliation of the protesters thank you mr chairman

Chris Murphy Asks Pete Hegseth Point Blank If National Guard Should've Been Deployed On Jan. 6

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