HEGSETH COLLAPSES: Mark Kelly EXPOSES The Documents That Ended The Hearing!

[0:00] Pete Hegseth walked into that confirmation hearing with a clear strategy. Stay composed, [0:05] project confidence, and if anything uncomfortable surfaces, call it a coordinated smear campaign [0:10] and move past it. What he did not account for was Senator Mark Kelly arriving with documentation, [0:16] not rumors, not anonymous accusations, not secondhand allegations that could be dismissed [0:21] as opposition research, actual documented allegations, financial settlements, statements [0:26] made on the record. And the moment Kelly began reading them aloud, Hegseth's composure started [0:32] visibly breaking down. Thank you for being here today. Thank you for your service to this country. [0:37] Thank you, Senator. A few nominees come into this room with all the necessary experience [0:42] to do this job to be Secretary of Defense. We get that. It's a reflection on just how big of a job [0:48] this is. What I want to understand is whether or not you bring any of the necessary experience that [0:56] this job requires. And here's where I'm concerned. Senator Coleman introducing you, and this is a quote, [1:04] he said, he has struggled and overcome great personal challenges, unquote. You walk in here saying that [1:12] you've had personal and character issues in your past, including heavy drinking, which you wrote about. [1:19] And you said, and this is a quote from you, that you said, I sit before you as an open book. Yet you [1:28] haven't actually said what personal challenges it is that you've overcome when you've been asked about [1:35] them. So I'm going to give you an opportunity here to be as forthright as you say you want to be. [1:42] So while leading Concerned Veterans of America, there were very specific cases cited by individuals [1:48] about your conduct. I'm going to go through a few of them. And I just want you to tell me if these are [1:54] true or false. Very simple. On Memorial Day 2014, at a CVA event in Virginia, you needed to be carried [2:03] out of the event for being intoxicated. Senator anonymous smears. True. Just true or false. [2:12] Very simple. Summer of 2014 in Cleveland, drunk in public with the CVA team. Anonymous smears. [2:21] I'm just asking for true or false questions. True or false answers. An event in North Carolina, [2:27] drunk in front of three young female staff members after you had instituted a no alcohol policy and [2:33] then reversed it. True or false. Anonymous smears. December of 2014 at the CVA Christmas party at the [2:40] Grand Hyatt at Washington, D.C., you were noticeably intoxicated and had to be carried up to your room. [2:48] Is that true or false? Anonymous smears. Another time a CVA staffer stated that you passed out in the back [2:56] of a party bus. Is that true or false? Anonymous smears. In 2014, while in Louisiana on official [3:04] business for CVA, did you take your staff, including young female staff members, to a strip club? [3:13] Absolutely not. Anonymous smears. So is it accurate that the organization reached a financial settlement [3:27] with a female staffer who claimed to be at a strip club with you and there was a colleague [3:34] who attempted to sexually assault her? Was there a financial settlement? Senator, I was not involved in [3:42] that. I don't know the nature of how that played out. But you understand there was a financial [3:49] settlement for a young female staffer who accused another member of the organization, not you, [3:57] of sexual assault in a strip club? We have multiple statements on the record referring to that. [4:04] But you claim you were not there when that occurred? Absolutely not. Now, the behavior I cited, [4:14] if true, do you think that this behavior of intoxication going into these type of establishments, [4:22] women on your staff being so uncomfortable that they have to file these sort of harassment claims, [4:27] do you think this is appropriate behavior for a leader? Senator, the overwhelming majority of [4:36] anyone who's worked for me, including the on the record statements that have been submitted to this [4:40] with their name on it, on the record, men and women who worked with me every day, [4:45] are the overwhelming preponderance of evidence that testify to my leadership and professionalism [4:51] in leading Vets for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America. My leadership has been completely [4:56] impugned on these veterans organizations that did fantastic work. Mr. Hexsheth, I'm not even [5:02] going to go into the, I'm not even going to go into the accusations. And we managed our financial [5:06] books with integrity across the board. How many people, everybody who runs the campaign. I have limited [5:11] time. I'm not going to get into the accusations that come from Fox News. I know you have some of your [5:16] Fox News colleagues here. There are multiple instances of accusations against you about drinking [5:22] on the job. All anonymous, all false, all refuted by my colleagues, who I worked with for 10 years [5:29] at 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. and everything in between. The challenge here for me, Mr. Hexsheth, [5:33] I've only seen me be professional every single time. Is when there is discussion about personal [5:37] challenges and you admittedly had issues with heavy drinking. It's hard to kind of square this, [5:46] to square the circle here. It's kind of a difficult thing to do. Let me ask you if, I have about 90 [5:52] seconds left here. If you had to answer these questions about sexual assault against you and your [5:59] drinking and your personal conduct, would it have been different if you were under oath? Senator, [6:08] all I'm pointing out is the false claims against me. Okay, I take it you do not want to answer that [6:12] question. I walked into this hearing this morning concerned that you haven't demonstrated adequate [6:19] leadership in your civilian roles. And this is a dangerous world we're living in here. And America cannot [6:26] afford a secretary of defense who is unprepared for that mission. I'm going to leave with concerns about [6:32] your transparency. You say you've had personal issues in your past, yet when asked about those very [6:39] issues, you blame an anonymous smear campaign, even when many of these claims are not anonymous. [6:47] Which is it? Have you overcome personal issues? Or are you the target of a smear campaign? It can't be [6:54] both. It's clear to me that you're not being honest with us or the American people because you know the [7:00] truth would disqualify you from getting the job. And just as concerning as each of these specific [7:07] disqualifying accusations are, what concerns me just as much is the idea of having a secretary of [7:16] defense who is not transparent. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back my two seconds. Thank you, [7:22] Senator Kelly. Hegseth had no answer for what Kelly put in front of him because there is no answer. And yet, [7:29] the Republican majority confirmed him anyway. The same conduct that would end virtually anyone else's [7:34] career in public service. The kind of documented behavior that would result in termination from [7:39] most professional environments. Waved through. Not because the evidence was absent. Not because [7:45] the questions were never asked. But because the votes were already committed before Hegseth walked [7:49] into that room. The confirmation hearing was not a deliberation. It was a formality. And that, [7:55] more than anything Hegseth did or did not do, is what demands attention. Not just the conduct itself, [8:02] but the fact that when it was placed directly on the record, documented and unavoidable, [8:06] it did not matter at all. He is now the Secretary of Defense of the United States.