Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth kept his cool as he was shouted down by a woke Michigan senator during a tense hearing, even as the senator accused Hegseth of overstepping the boundaries of his position and argued that his predecessor had more “guts and balls” than Hegseth.
For context, during a Capitol Hill Hearing on June 18, 2025, Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) grilled Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth regarding his response to the Los Angeles anti-ICE riots, zeroing in on Secretary Hegseth’s use of the National Guard and Marines to quell the violent protests. In response, Sec. Hegseth calmly defended himself with just a few words, making Sen. Slotkin go berserk.
During the hearing, Sen. Slotkin criticized Sec. Hegseth and the Trump Administration for the use of the military to intervene in Los Angeles. Moreover, the senator asked if the secretary had authorized the military to “shoot at unarmed protestors in any way.” Secretary Hegseth responded by asking, “What is that based on? What evidence do you have that an order like that has ever been given?”
Attempting to back up her question, Sen. Slotkin referenced former Defense Secretary Mark Esper’s 2022 memoir, in which the Trump appointee claimed that the president had asked him to shoot at protestors in the wake of the death of George Floyd. Sen. Slotkin told Secretary Hegseth, “It is based on Donald Trump giving that order to your predecessor, to a Republican Secretary of Defense, who I give a lot of credit to, because he didn’t accept the order.”
Next, the senator said that Esper had “more guts and balls” than Secretary Hegseth because he claimed that he had refused the order from President Trump. Moreover, she asked the secretary again, “Have you given the order? Have you given the order that they can use lethal force against — I want the answer to be no. Please tell me it’s no. Have you given the order?”
In response to Sen. Slotkin’s incessant questions, Secretary Hegseth simply said, “Senator, I’d be careful what you read in books and believing it — except for the Bible.” Infuriated, Sen. Slotkin replied, “Oh, my God…I guess that’s not enough for you.” The senator then changed the subject to what she called a “cat fight” regarding “whether to go after Iran.”
Importantly, in former Defense Secretary Mark Esper’s 2022 memoir A Sacred Oath, Esper indeed claimed that the President called for violence when protestors were flanking the White House in the wake of the death of George Floyd, quoting Mr. Trump as saying, “Can’t you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?”
"*" indicates required fields
Moreover, on November 9, 2020, President Trump announced that he had fired Esper via a post on X (then called Twitter), writing, “I am pleased to announce that Christopher C. Miller, the highly respected Director of the National Counterterrorism Center (unanimously confirmed by the Senate), will be Acting Secretary of Defense, effective immediately.” The president added, “…Chris will do a GREAT job! Mark Esper has been terminated. I would like to thank him for his service.”
Watch the exchange between Sen. Slotkin and Secretary Hegseth:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video