Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) had harsh words for embattled Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth during a Capitol Hill hearing Wednesday: President Trump’s previous Defense leader, Mark Esper, “had more guts and balls” than Hegseth because Esper refused to maim unarmed protesters, she said.
“[Esper] didn’t accept the order,” Slotkin, a former CIA analyst and Defense official, told Hegseth. “He had more guts and balls than you, because he said, I’m not going to send in the uniformed military to do something that I know in my gut isn’t right.”
Esper, who was Defense secretary for a year until Trump fired him after the 2020 election, wrote in his 2022 memoir that Trump wanted authorities to shoot protesters in the legs during demonstrations after the murder of George Floyd.
“I had to figure out a way to walk Trump back without creating the mess I was trying to avoid,” Esper wrote in the book, describing Trump as “red-faced and complaining loudly about the protests underway in Washington, D.C.”
He wrote that Trump asked, “Can’t you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?”
Slotkin questioned Hegseth about whether he had received a similar directive during recent protests against Trump’s immigration crackdown in Los Angeles. Trump deployed thousands of National Guardsmen and Marines to protect federal workers and facilities, despite objections from California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D).
Police officers have used rubber bullets and other “less lethal” tactics to quell protests in LA, and an Australian reporter was shot in the leg with a rubber bullet on live television.
During his January confirmation hearing, Hegseth would not rule out shooting protesters if Trump ordered it.
“One of the things that President Trump is so good at is never strategically tipping his hand, and so I would never in this public forum give one way or another what orders the president gives to me in any context,” Hegseth said at the time.
Slotkin pressed him again on the topic Wednesday.
“Have you given the order to be able to shoot at unarmed protesters in any way?” Slotkin asked Hegseth. “I’m just asking the question, don’t laugh.”
“It just shows you don’t understand who we are as a country, and all of my colleagues across the aisle, especially the ones that have served, should want an apolitical military and not want citizens to be scared of their own military,” she added.
Hegseth didn’t directly answer the question.
“Senator, I’d be careful of what you read in books and believing it — except for the Bible,” he said.
Hegseth said members of the military acting in self-defense “could temporarily detain and hand over” protesters to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
