Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN) blasted Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), his former colleague on the House Armed Services Committee (HASC), after Bacon played up recent establishment media attacks on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Bacon latched onto the latest batch of establishment media attacks alleging Hegseth shared classified information in a Signal chat.
Banks attacked Bacon for using the reports as a pretense to attack the Trump agenda, which Hegseth is carrying out at the Department of Defense, pointing out Bacon has often cast votes to kill Trump’s America First agenda in the past.
“Rep. Bacon was often the deciding vote on the House Armed Services Committee to keep DEI programs in the military that I was fighting against,” Banks posted on X. “I’m not surprised he opposes Hegseth and President Trump’s efforts.”
Banks shared a report from Breitbart News’s Kristina Wong during the HASC markup of the 2024 defense authorization bill as evidence, which reads:
Reps. Don Bacon (R-NE) and Mike Turner (R-OH) on Wednesday voted against two Republican amendments to a defense bill that would have gutted diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) — tenets based on Marxist-rooted Critical Race Theory — from being pushed throughout the U.S. military.
One amendment, from Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), would have eliminated “diversity, equity, and inclusion” training in the military, and another, from Rep. Mark Alford (R-MO) would have eliminated the position of a deputy inspector general focused on “diversity and inclusion and extremism” in the military.
Both amendments failed 30-29 after Bacon and Turner sided with Democrats against them.
Bacon — a fence-sitting moderate Republican from a Trump-friendly state who often expresses his displeasure with the president — made clear he would fire Hegseth if he was in charge, though he was careful to not explicitly call for Trump to do so.
“I’m not in the White House, and I’m not going to tell the White House how to manage this … but I find it unacceptable, and I wouldn’t tolerate it if I was in charge,” he told Politico.
Bacon criticized Hegseth’s administration of the Pentagon while admitting he did not have a full picture of the Pentagon’s operations.
“There’s a lot — a lot — of smoke coming out of the Pentagon, and I got to believe there’s some fire there somewhere.”
Bradley Jaye is Deputy Political Editor for Breitbart News. Follow him on X/Twitter and Instagram @BradleyAJaye.
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