"In these serious times, we need a serious candidate to lead our military. We need someone with merit to lead our meritocracy. Someone with moral strength to be in charge of protecting our national strength. Our troops deserve better than a guy who was seemingly only nominated because he used to host Trump’s favorite show on Fox News. Pete Hegseth is unqualified. He is unprepared. He is unethical. And most of all, he is unfit. The Secretary of Defense oversees the federal government’s largest agency. They manage a $900 billion budget, along with the 3 million servicemembers and civilians who fall under its umbrella. During his time in uniform, Pete Hegseth never commanded a unit with more than 200 personnel. Meanwhile, on the civilian side, both organizations he led went into debt. In fact, he so badly mismanaged one of them that they had to bring in a forensic accountant to clean up the mess he had made. Who knows why Donald Trump picked this guy. Maybe Hegseth’s business failures make Trump feel better about his own bankruptcies. Maybe it’s because Hegseth spent years fawning over Trump on Fox News—and Trump’s dream Cabinet is a bunch of yes-men who know how to kiss up to him on TV. Or maybe it’s just that all of Cadet Bone Spurs’ draft-dodging has left him with no clue what kind of leader our military needs. At his confirmation hearing on Tuesday, I gave Mr. Hegseth every opportunity to show me that I was wrong. To prove that he could do this job. That he does know the first thing—or anything—about what it takes to take on this massive responsibility. I asked him basic questions that even the most junior folks working in the Pentagon would know, like naming one of the main international agreements he’d be responsible for leading. He couldn’t name one. I asked him to tell me just a single country in ASEAN. Again, he couldn’t give me one. Not one. This was shocking—yet not surprising—from a man whose main form of policy education has come from reading the Fox News teleprompter. These are dangerous times on the geopolitical stage. Our adversaries are watching to see if we really will put in power someone so obviously unqualified. And Mr. Hegseth made a point of saying at Tuesday’s hearing that every single warfighter should be hired based on performance, readiness and merit. I agree. And he fails to meet every single one of those metrics. Part of being a leader is knowing when you’re not competent enough to do the job. Mr. Hegseth, you are not technically proficient. You are not tactically proficient. And your nomination is an insult to those brave enough to be serving our nation."