Sherrill Statement on Gathering of Senior Military Commanders

WASHINGTON, DC – Representative Mikie Sherrill (NJ-11) released the following statement regarding President Trump and Secretary Hegseth’s partisan speeches to the top U.S. military commanders:

“In yet another display of incompetence, President Trump and Secretary Hegseth made hundreds of our senior-most military commanders fly to D.C. from around the world to listen to a partisan campaign speech. These commanders are responsible for leading combat troops, aircraft carriers, and nuclear bombers in places like Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. But instead of protecting our national security, our military commanders were all brought together in a single location for President Trump and Secretary Hegseth’s vanity rally. Serving in the military is a serious business for serious people. Today’s campaign rally is just the latest example of how Secretary Hegseth is incapable of doing his job and has to resort to theatrics to distract from his failures. Instead of focusing on improving our readiness or deterrence against our adversaries, President Trump and Secretary Hegseth clearly only care about further infecting our military with partisan, culture war ideologies that will ultimately make us less safe. 

“Eliminating the current highly rigorous standards for women in combat positions has nothing to do with increasing lethality and everything to do with forcing women out of the Armed Forces. Secretary Hegseth has said he does not believe women should serve in combat. Now he is trying to make that happen by escalating his war on women in the military, despite presenting no evidence that women cannot ably serve in combat positions. 

“Politics has no place in our military, and our military has no place for partisan hacks. Today’s speeches wasted millions in taxpayer dollars to put together and did nothing to strengthen our military — demonstrating Hegseth is completely unfit to be Secretary of Defense.”

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