00:00Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and also Secretary Mattis had to have this waiver as well.
00:05Mr. Hex said, this hearing is about whether you are qualified to be Secretary of Defense,
00:10and one of the qualifications to answer my colleague's question is to actually
00:14win the votes of every member of this committee and to be confirmed by the United States Senate.
00:18And you need to convince us that you're worthy of that vote because the people of the state of
00:22Illinois voted for me to be their senator so that I could cast that vote when it comes to picking
00:27who is going to be the next Secretary of Defense. This hearing now seems to be a hearing about
00:32whether or not women are qualified to serve in combat and not about whether or not you are
00:38qualified to be Secretary of Defense. And let me just say that the American people need a SecDef
00:42who's ready to lead on day one. You are not that person. Our adversaries watch closely during times
00:48of transition and any sense that the Department of Defense that keeps us safe is being steered by
00:53someone who is wholly unprepared for the job puts America at risk. And I am not willing to do that.
00:59With that in mind, Mr. Hex said, I want you to try to explain to the American people, this committee,
01:04who have to vote for you, and to our troops who are deployed around the world, why you are qualified
01:09to lead the Department of Defense. We already know that you've only led as large as a 200 person
01:14organization. We already know that you so badly mangled a budget that after you left they had to bring in
01:21a
01:21forensic accountant to figure out what went wrong. And then the largest budget you ever managed was
01:27about 18 billion dollars. You know that is about 51,560 times fewer lower than the Department of Defense
01:36budget of 825 billion dollars. Sixteen million dollars is 51,568 times smaller than the defense budget.
01:47Please describe to me, Mr. Hex said, you talk about DOD passing an audit.
01:52Please describe to me a time or an organization when you, that you led, underwent an audit. Because
01:59you say you're going to hire smarter people than you to run this audit. I'm not asking you to be
02:03an
02:03accountant. I want you to be able to tell me what kind of guidance will be given to those employees,
02:09what will happen if, whether or not you pass that audit. Have you led an audit of any organization?
02:14Yes or no? I don't want a long answer. Yes or no, have you led an audit of any organization
02:19of which
02:19you were in charge? Senator, in both of the organizations I ran, we were always completely
02:24fiscally responsible. Yes or no, did you lead an audit? Yes or no, did you lead an audit?
02:29Yes or no. What are you afraid of? You can't answer this question? Yes or no, did you lead an
02:34audit?
02:35Do you not know this answer? Senator, every part of my leadership of these organizations has been
02:40misrepresented from top to bottom. I will take that as a no. What were the findings? Though there
02:43were no findings because you've never led an audit. What guidance did you give the auditors? None,
02:48because you've never led an audit. Nobody expects you to be an accountant, Mr. Hextheth. What we expect
02:53is for you to understand the complexity of this Pentagon budget process that is absolutely necessary to
02:59outfit our warfighters. Look, the Secretary of Defense is required to make quick decisions every single day
03:06that, well, with high-level information that's being provided for them. A Secretary of Defense has
03:10to have breadth and depth of knowledge. Right now, I am concerned that you have neither. Mr. Hextheth,
03:15what is the highest level of international negotiations that you have engaged in, that you have led in? Because
03:21the Secretary of Defense does lead international security negotiations. There are three main ones that
03:26the Secretary of Defense leads and signs. Can you name at least one of them? Could you repeat the question,
03:32Senator?
03:32Sure. What is the highest level of international security agreement that you have led, and can you
03:39name some that the Secretary of Defense would lead? There are three main ones. Do you know? I have not
03:43been involved in international security arrangements because I have not been in government other than
03:48serving in the military. So my job has been to lead men and women in combat. So no, the answer
03:51is,
03:51can you name one of the three main ones that the Secretary of Defense signs? You're talking about defense
03:54arrangements. I mean, NATO might be one of them, one that you're referring to. Status of forces agreement would be
04:00one of them.
04:01Status of forces agreement? I've been a part of teaching about status of forces agreements.
04:06But you don't remember to mention it? You're not qualified, Mr. Hextheth. You're not qualified. You
04:12talk about repairing our defense industrial complex. You're not qualified to that. You could do the
04:17acquisition and cross-servicing agreements, which essentially are security agreements. You can't
04:20even mention that. You've done none of those. You talked about the Indo-Pacific a little bit, and I'm glad
04:25did you mention it. Can you name the importance of at least one of the nations in ASEAN and what
04:33type of agreement we have with at least one of those nations? And how many nations are in ASEAN,
04:38by the way? I couldn't tell you the exact amount of nations in that, but I know we have allies
04:42in
04:42South Korea and Japan and in AUKUS with Australia and trying to work on submarines with them.
04:48Mr. Hextheth, none of those countries are in ASEAN. None of those three countries that you've
04:54mentioned are in ASEAN. I suggest you do a little homework before you prepare for these types of
04:59negotiations. Listen. Mr. Hextheth, we ask our troops to go into harm's way all the time. We ask them to
05:11go into harm's way. And this behind me is a copy of the soldier's creed, a copy that usually hangs
05:17over
05:17my desk here in the Senate. And you should be familiar with it. It's the same copy that hung
05:21over my desk at Walter Reed every single day that I woke up and fought my way back because I
05:26wanted
05:27to go back and serve next to my buddies who'd saved my life. This same copy, these words, I repeated
05:33over
05:34and over and over again. And let me read out two things to you, two sentences. I will always place
05:40the
05:40mission first. And I am disciplined physically and mentally tough, trained and proficient in my
05:46warrior task. Mr. Hextheth, our troops follow these words every single day. And they man up and they
05:52pack their rucksacks and they go to war. And they deserve a leader who can lead them, not a leader
05:58who
05:58wants to lower the standards for himself or raising the standards for other people. And by the way, our
06:04troops already meet the standards. We ask troops to man that ship, fight that fire, fly that helicopter,
06:10until their very last breath. And they do that every single day. They cannot be led by someone
06:17who's not competent to do the job. How can we ask these warriors to train and perform the absolute
06:21highest standards when you are asking us to lower the standards to make you the Secretary of Defense
06:26simply because you are buddies with our president-elect? And by the way, he has filed for bankruptcy six
06:32times. I'm not quite sure he's the kind of CEO you want to refer to as a successful businessman.
06:36Let me make it clear. You can't seem to grasp that there is no U.S. military as we know
06:43it
06:44without the incredible women that we serve. Women who've earned their place in their units.
06:50You have not earned your place as Secretary of Defense. You say you care about keeping our
06:53armed forces strong and that you like that our armed forces are meritocracy. Then let's not
06:59lower the standards for you. You, sir, are a no-go.
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