Duckworth on Hegseth speaking out against women in combat: ‘Where do you think I lost my legs?’

Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) criticized President-elect Trump’s nomination of Fox News host Pete Hegseth as Defense secretary, after he called for women to not serve in combat roles.

“Where do you think I lost my legs?” Duckworth told CNN's Kaitlan Collins in an interview Wednesday.

Duckworth, an Iraq war veteran and Purple Heart recipient, was among some of the first women to fly combat missions as a U.S. Army helicopter pilot. Her helicopter was hit by a grenade in 2004, and she lost both legs and some mobility in her right arm.

Hegseth, who Trump tapped Tuesday to lead his Department of Defense, is also an Army veteran who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, and he now serves as co-host of Fox News’s “Fox & Friends Weekend.”

He has called for the firing of other generals involved in diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and said women should not serve in combat roles.

“Look, he’s not qualified to serve as Secretary of Defense, and obviously, he’s made these comments about how he doesn’t think women should be in combat and that he wants to be able to fire the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” Duckworth said in Wednesday's interview, highlighted by Mediaite. “I ask him, how does that strengthen our nation’s military?”

“We can’t go to war today without our women military members,” she said, noting there are more than 225,000 active-duty women serving in the military right now.

Trump is forging ahead with his dramatic shake-up of the military, even as concerns grow over what Hegseth will bring to the administration. His proposals for the Pentagon include promises to slash spending, thin top ranks and roll back efforts to make the military more inclusive to transgender and women soldiers.