Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Sick.) is asking out Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth, who just lately refused on nationwide tv to acknowledge Russia because the aggressor within the Ukraine struggle — however brazenly did simply that in his former tenure as a Fox Information host.
“I don’t need to get into the characterization of we know who invaded who,” Hegseth mentioned Sunday throughout an look on Fox Information. “We understand the stakes of this game … Does all the finger-pointing and pearl-clutching make peace more likely?”
Duckworth, who held Hegseth’s ft to the hearth throughout his affirmation listening to final month, took to X on Wednesday with pictures of him internet hosting a Fox Information phase in March 2022 — below the clear-cut chyron “Tracking Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine.”
“Hegseth says he doesn’t know if Russia invaded Ukraine,” she wrote. “This you?”
The protection secretary’s blatant about-face has definitely raised eyebrows on social media, as Hegseth appears to be taking his lead from President Donald Trump, who mentioned final week that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “should have never started” the struggle.
Hegseth himself made an impassioned plea in March 2022 for the U.S. to extra fastidiously assist Ukraine towards Russian aggression, one month after Russian President Vladimir Putin led the invasion.
“What’s at stake is repelling an authoritarian who basically is saying I want the Soviet Union back, I want Ukraine back, I want Kyiv back,” Hegseth mentioned on Fox Information on the time, earlier than urging then-President Joe Biden to behave rapidly concerning Ukraine army support.
Manuel Balce Ceneta/Related Press
Trump overtly confirmed earlier this month that he’s solely focused on serving to Ukraine if the U.S. positive factors entry to the nation’s uncommon earth minerals, per The Related Press. He was beforehand accused of profitable the 2016 presidential election with assist from the Kremlin.
On Monday, the U.S. voted with North Korea, Belarus and Sudan towards a United Nations Common Meeting decision condemning Russia’s invasion. The Trump administration thus diverged from conventional U.S. allies within the matter, together with the U.Ok., Germany and France.
Hegseth’s evident reversal on Russia, in the meantime, spawned real outrage on social media from voters who’re nonetheless baffled that Trump appointed a former Fox Information host as his protection secretary — and made “Kash’s Corner” podcast host Kash Patel his FBI director.
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“I can’t believe we have a gameshow host running the country, a fox news anchor running the military, and now an extremist podcaster helping direct the FBI,” one person wrote Wednesday in response to Duckworth’s submit. “Absolute joke of a country.”
