The news of the day was the contentious confirmation hearings for Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth, and if you’ve been following along on our reporting through Tuesday, you’ll be well aware of the embarrassing theatrics of Democrats.
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Senate Republicans, on the other hand, have (mostly) rallied around Mr. Hegseth, and one female Air Force veteran in the House of Representatives, Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), has expressed her support as well.
MAGA loyalist Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna has a message for those who oppose Donald Trump‘s controversial defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth.
The Republican Florida lawmaker was spotted in the packed audience as Hegseth’s Senate confirmation hearing got underway on Tuesday.
She was there to submit letters of support from women veterans as Hegseth braced for brutal questioning from Democrats including over his past public remarks in which he claimed women should not serve in combat.
As a military veteran herself, Representative Luna would presumably understand that the mission of our armed forces is to close with and destroy the enemy by fire, maneuver, and shock effect. That’s not a universal understanding in Joe Biden’s Defense Department, but the Florida Republican does seem to have a solid notion of one attribute a SecDef should have, and that is having seen the elephant — which Pete Hegseth has.
Democrats have blasted a series of Hegseth’s past comments and writings as an author and Fox News personality as well has his qualifications for the job.
But Luna argued Hegseth, 44, would be a ‘great’ defense secretary and pushed back on those who would vote against his confirmation.
‘The one thing that I would like to see in our next secretary of defense, which he checks that box, is he has combat experience,’ she said.
‘We need people that have served in the frontlines and understand the gravity of their decisions in that it will impact people. This is a life death decision,’ Luna said.
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That’s the most important piece of this puzzle and one that Pete Hegseth’s Democrat inquisitors don’t seem to understand. Pete Hegseth has been there and smelled the smoke, which is more than one can say for a lot of the Biden top brass.
Previously on RedState: Pete Hegseth Responds to Alaska’s Senator Sullivan on Indo-Pacific Strategy
Rep. Luna went on to express support, as a female military veteran, for Hegseth’s reservations about placing women in combat-arms roles.
Luna, who served in the U.S. Air Force, also defended Hegseth’s comments on women in combat.
‘Mr. Hegseth supports women in the military, but there are certain roles that I would actually deem are very dangerous for women in the military,’ Luna declared.
She said women in ‘different combat roles, but I think that needs to be addressed very, very carefully.’
That may be something of an understatement, but the point is that there should be an evaluation done of this practice, and that should be based on only one consideration: readiness. Readiness to fight should always be not the first but the only criteria for these kinds of assignment considerations, and in his testimony, Pete Hegseth correctly noted that the ruck on one’s back and the M240 machine gun one may have to carry aren’t any lighter for a woman than for a man.
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Wednesday will bring yet more confirmation hearings for President-elect Trump’s cabinet picks, and we can anticipate just as many embarrassing displays by Democrats as we saw today. Stay tuned!
