'So nervous': Senator points out 'noticeable' reason defense sec is 'so afraid of Trump'



On Wednesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee to answer questions about ongoing crises both in the U.S. and overseas. And he was particularly cagey with Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) when she asked him about whether he would obey an illegal order from President Donald Trump.

In her questioning, Slotkin brought up Trump's deployment of military personnel to quell the ongoing protests of the Trump administration's aggressive approach to immigration enforcement in Los Angeles, California. And when she asked Hegseth whether he would issue an order to harm unarmed protesters — or convey such an order from Trump to military leadership — after citing a passage from former Defense Secretary Mark Esper's book in which Trump suggested shooting protesters in the legs, the Pentagon chief demurred.

"Senator … be careful what you read in books, and believing it. Except for the Bible," Hegseth said.

READ MORE: 'What is going on?' Trump appears to confuse the Revolutionary War with the Civil War

During a recent segment on MSNBC's "Deadline: White House," host Nicolle Wallace pointed out that Hegseth seemed "so afraid of Trump" in his refusal to give a direct answer to Slotkin's questions. The Michigan senator agreed, adding that she has seen a similar pattern among other Trump appointees.

"A lot of these political appointees have been very concerned about doing anything that would anger [Trump] because they know they'd lose their job, right? They know they'd have their nomination pulled," she said. "And there's varying degrees of it. And for Secretary Hegseth, he has always been the most nervous, most concerned, most hedging, most agitated."

"When you ask him a straight-up question about the Constitution, it's noticeable," she continued. "And then he's had a rough first few months, right? He's in the spotlight. We're talking more about his conduct and his behavior and use of Signal for war plans than we are about the leadership. And I think that makes him even more concerned."

Slotkin insisted that whether a defense secretary would issue or follow an illegal order "shouldn't be a hard question" to answer, and that adherence to the Constitution was "all we're asking for from the man who controls the entire U.S. military."

READ MORE: 'Ammo for Democrats': Swing state GOP rep forced to put Trump ahead of constituents

Watch the segment below, or by clicking this link.

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