Friday on C-SPAN’s “Ceasefire,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) said Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s time in office will “cause damage to our country for years to come.”
Host Dasha Burns said, “Given your military experience, given what you’ve been seeing at the Pentagon, what do you think the administration should do in terms of that role of the Secretary of Defense?’
Bacon said, ‘Well, I’ve been on the record already. After SignalGate, I think I’ve seen enough. What I really wanted to see was if someone would take responsibility, own up to a mistake. And then when he blamed the media or the journalist for the story, it just ruined his credibility. And he had some issues going into the hearings. But once he got confirmed, I said, ‘Well, let’s give him a fair chance.’ But what I’ve seen is what I call just poor decision-making. So, for example, not taking responsibility in SignalGate, but his rules on the media where now you have a bunch of second-rate journalists operating out of the Pentagon, but all the—you know, Fox and New York Times, Washington Post—they’re all outside of the Pentagon.”
He added, “And then we have rules that—we have military bases in our districts; they’re not allowed to talk to us because of his orders to them not to talk to anybody in Congress unless the actual questions have been vetted through the Pentagon first. So this is just a series of decision-making here that really bothers me. But really the most critical are some of the decisions made about Ukraine and NATO. Some of these things are just lack of judgment. But they’re decisions that have been undermining our support of NATO, I think, is the most troublesome, because we have a seventy-five-year history working with NATO. It’s been the pillar of our national security.”
“And I think some of the things being done by the Secretary—through some permission with the White House, but most of it’s coming out of the Under Secretary for Policy—a lot of decisions are coming from there. But it’s going to cause damage to our country for years to come, way after they leave. It’s undermining our trust with our allies and a very important alliance. And that troubles me more than anything.”
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