Pete Hegseth is SCARED after Donal Davis REVEALS this secret: 'These are words from a pilot'

Ladies and gentlemen, from North Carolina, Mr. Davis. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being here today, and to General Kane. The radar just lit up, and at that point, we were in an hour-long fight, just trying to kill whatever we could. These were words of a pilot at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, speaking of a deployment that occurred on April 13, 2024, in the Middle East, where pilots shot down rockets and drones heading to Israel from Iran. Another pilot said, it was a deployment like we have never seen before. Mr. Secretary, I'm incredibly proud of the airmen at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, and I was glad to join the ACC commander at a decoration ceremony, recognizing 31 of the airmen and what they accomplished, and they accomplished the mission on April 13. As you have highlighted, the warrior ethos, lethality, and readiness, I cannot think of a better example than what we saw on April 13. It was not a lot of time, it was a lot of scrambling. They packed up, took those F-15s to the Middle East, and they got the job done. Seymour Johnson plays a key role in our national defense. It also is a location of the Air Task Force. We have one in our Air Task Force, which aims to generate more efficient, integrated, and deployable units. Mr. Secretary, the Air Force has conveyed a commitment of plans to bring back F-15Es with the 229 engines from Lake and Heath. Meanwhile, we're working right here, trying to prioritize operational and maintenance needs at the installation. We also have to come back and address the training needs. In your opening statement, you mentioned NGAD, the F-47. Could you please just briefly expand further in terms of your vision of NGAD and looking long-term at the potential of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base and others to deliver and ensure the nation's continued air superiority in face of growing global threats? I'll take it briefly and then hand it to the Chairman. I have met some of those men and women from April 13th, impressive Americans. Some of the refuelers I've had a chance to talk to from that evening. We are investing in NGAD in a historic way in the F-47. A lot of its capabilities are obviously classified, but with a sixth-generation fighter of that type, it shows to our adversaries that we are prepared to project power in the future. Where those go and where they're stationed is an open question, but we're happy to take a look, and I'll hand it to the Chairman. Thanks for speaking with our Airmen, Mr. Secretary. Hey, sir. First, thanks for your service in the Air Force and in the Joint Force as well, just piling on here. That particular day for the Air Force not just was those Strike Eagle crews, but also the maintainers on the ground who were loading missiles up while there was engagements going on right over their heads. So extraordinary acts of bravery under fire out of your home district there. Thank you so much. General McCain, thank you, too, for your service and the opening statement you shared that you were honored to serve alongside some of the most incredible warriors and civilians and their families. And you didn't stop there, and I appreciate it. You said, I always especially remember our fallen and their families. They demonstrate true sacrifice, courage, and commitment to our families. Corporal Ryan Russell was a medic, 2nd Battalion, Fort Bragg, was killed March 5, 2007, in Iraq I talked to his mother. He was 20 years old, putting a face on this, 20 years old, killed with others about the same age. And she said the only thing she missed the most was his smile. My question is, we have, for instance, we can't bring back those loved ones, but we have the honor to remember Flagg, Representative Kiggins, myself, if you could take a look at HR 1363, I would ask you to do so. And Mr. Secretary, I would simply ask, what else are we doing to honor our fallen? We'll take a look at 1363. I will tell you, we initiated the first ever Advisory Board for Gold Star Families at the Defense Department to follow through on their families as well, and finding every way possible to recognize. And I, too, heard your Memorial Day comments. Thank you, and I yield back. We will yield. The gentleman yields back, his time has expired. We will now go to another North Carolinian, Mr. Harrigan, for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Secretary Hegseth and Chairman Kaine, thank you all for your testimony today. I'd like to first identify with my colleague's comments from Wisconsin, but I'd like to take it a step further. I think you all are owed an apology. And although I really wish that all of my Democratic colleagues' comments were of the nature of my colleague from North Carolina just a minute ago, that is not what happened today. And all we saw was flagrant disrespect towards both of you, and that's not what this committee is about. We should be able to disagree without showing disrespect. We should be able to have discourse without sowing discord. And we should be able to question without using words that you can't take back. And that's not what happened today from the other side of this committee. We need to do a lot better than this. But I will say, gentlemen, that you handled those questions with humility and grace. And today, many of my Democratic colleagues have struck out. And it's the second day in a row that many of my Democratic colleagues have struck out. So with that, I've got a couple questions for you today. Mr. Secretary, I want to talk about Army Transformation Initiative. I want to thank you for the bold work that you have done to reshape our nation's Army. Purging our Department of Defense and our Army of legacy weapon systems, force structures, and contracting mechanisms that have not helped us win the last 30 years of war, are not relevant to helping us deter or defeat China, is something that this country desperately needed. It's something that American taxpayers desperately needed. It's something that our servicemen and servicewomen have desperately needed. What is your plan to iterate the Army Transformation Initiative across both our Navy and our Air Forces? It's a great point. I want to first compliment Army Chief General George, as well as Army Secretary Driscoll, for their initiative, out the gate, to not waste any time in recognizing precisely what you said, that we need an Army structured and prepared to fight the wars of the future. We owe it to the service, we owe it to the American people. And they followed, in large part, a Marine Corps that led the way overall in those, as sometimes they do, often. But I recognize other services, the Navy and the Air Force, could do more in that regard as well. Different ships, you might say, to steer than an Army in how you effectuate that modernization or that shift. We think the hard choices we're making in platforms and capabilities in those services mirror the kind of hard choices we're making in the Army. And that's what we see as our job. In this moment right now, considering the threats we face, the world we live in, I'm going to spend the capital I have to be happy to take the arrows of constituencies or districts and say, no, we're going to put forward what's best for the Army or the Marine Corps or the Navy or the Air Force, and we're going to make the tough calls. And that might create some consternation, and that's OK. But our job is to ensure our budget matches those capabilities. Army transformation is a great example, and we're going to look for it in other services too. I very much look forward to seeing what you'll have the Navy and the Air Force do, and we'll be behind you 100% of the way. And Chairman Koehn, a lot of talk today about the Golden Dome. I don't really fully appreciate some of my Democratic colleagues not knowing what that's about or knowing the threats behind why we have to have the Golden Dome. But I also believe that we have to have many domes all across our country. As we've seen, we've had very low-cost, high-impact technology proliferate all around the world. And I think we need to look no further than what happened in Ukraine just two weeks ago, where you had $100,000 investment by the Ukrainian scuttle, over $7 billion worth of hardware by the Russians. I think that we have to look forward into the future and anticipate that we may face the exact same threats, maybe not against our military, but against our infrastructure, against our stadiums, against our city centers. And we need many domes to protect this country against those threats. How are you all working that problem set? Well, sir, first, thanks for the question. Thanks for your service. You know, one of the things that we're learning is the nature and way we fight wars is changing. We're starting to face, as you're alluding to, problems of mass, where numbers of exchanges, kinetic exchanges, and frankly, non-kinetic in the cyber domain are increasing exponentially. So we have to match networks with networks and mass with mass. And so as we move forward to create the force of the future, that's on our radar. The exchange between Representative Don Davis, Secretary Pete Hegseth, and later contributions by Representative Cisneros illuminates the dual imperatives of U.S. defense policy, projecting power abroad while honoring sacrifice at home. This hearing unfolds against a backdrop of intensifying global threats and a domestic political environment struggling to reconcile fiscal prudence with military modernization. From the heroism of airmen scrambling under fire to debates over structural reforms in the armed forces, the discussion captures the tension between tradition and transformation, security and accountability, strategy and sentiment. The dialogue begins with Davis invoking a dramatic episode of military readiness, a last-minute deployment to defend Israel from Iranian rocket and drone attacks before pivoting to broader questions of modernization and commemoration. Cisneros' later intervention underscores bipartisan concern for balancing national security with moral obligations to those who serve and those who fall. Together, these threads form a narrative that is both operationally pragmatic and emotionally resonant, revealing the human dimension of an otherwise abstract defense policy debate. Representative Don Davis opened with a vivid account of on the 13th of April 2024 deployment involving airmen from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base. He quoted pilots who described an hour-long firefight to intercept rockets and drones targeting Israel, an operation that epitomized agility and resolve. Davis praised the airmen's readiness and linked their success to the evolving concept of the Air Task Force, a unit designed for rapid deployment and integrated operations. This anecdote served as a springboard for his question. How does the Air Force's modernization strategy, particularly the development of the Next Generation Air Dominance, NGAD platform, and the F-47 sixth-generation fighter, align with the future of Seymour Johnson and other key installations? Secretary Hegseth responded by reaffirming historic investments in NGAD, framing the F-47 as a classified but transformative capability that signals U.S. resolve to maintain air superiority. While details remain sparse due to classification, Hegseth emphasized the deterrent value of such advancements and left open the question of basing decisions. General Kane added texture, lauding the maintainers who rearmed jets under fire during the 13th of April engagement and characterizing their efforts as extraordinary acts of courage. Davis then shifted to a solemn theme, honoring fallen service members. Citing the story of Corporal Ryan Russell, a two-zero-year-old medic killed in Iraq in 2007, Davis personalized the cost of war through the voice of a grieving mother who missed her son's smile. He urged consideration of H.R. 1363, a bill concerning the honor and remember flag, and asked what additional steps the Department of Defense was taking to recognize Gold Star families. Hegseth pledged to review the legislation and highlighted the creation of the Pentagon's first advisory board for Gold Star families as a mechanism for sustained engagement and support. When Representative Harrigan assumed the floor, the tone turned sharply partisan. In a pointed rebuke, he accused Democratic colleagues of exhibiting flagrant disrespect toward witnesses, contrasting their conduct with Davis's collegiality. This interlude underscored the performative aspect of congressional oversight, where moments of policy substance often intersect with rhetorical skirmishes over decorum. Pivoting to substance, Harrigan commended Hegseth for spearheading the Army Transformation Initiative, a campaign to retire legacy systems and reconfigure force structures for future conflict scenarios, particularly vis-a-vis China. He framed these reforms as essential to fiscal responsibility and operational relevance, challenging the inertia that had plagued the U.S. defense posture for decades. Hegseth acknowledged the difficulty of these choices, stressing their necessity and signaling intent to extend similar modernization logic to the Navy and Air Force. His remarks conveyed a willingness to absorb political costs in pursuit of strategic alignment, a stance that implicitly critiques parochialism in defense budgeting. Finally, Harrigan raised concerns about emerging threats from low-cost, high-impact technologies, drones, loitering munitions, and cyber tools that can neutralize expensive platforms and destabilize critical infrastructure. Invoking Ukraine's recent success in destroying Russian assets with inexpensive systems, he pressed for a many-domes approach to layered defense, extending beyond military installations to civilian spaces. General Kane concurred, warning that the future battlespace will feature exponential exchanges across kinetic and non-kinetic domains, necessitating symmetrical investments in resilience and mass. The thematic arc of this hearing is anchored in three interrelated priorities, operational readiness, force modernization, and moral stewardship. Davis's opening narrative exemplifies the first priority, casting Seymour Johnson Airmen as avatars of an agile lethal force capable of rapid global projection. This anecdote is not mere embellishment. It functions as evidence for the viability of the Air Task Force concept and, by extension, the strategic rationale for sustaining and upgrading air power. Modernization emerges as the second and arguably most contentious priority. Pegasus's endorsement of platform divestitures and structural reforms reflects a break with entrenched procurement orthodoxy, signaling a pivot from industrial age paradigms to information age imperatives. Yet this posture is not without political risk. Efforts to purge legacy systems often collide with congressional parochialism, where defense contracts are tethered to local economies and electoral incentives. Harrigan's rhetorical embrace of these reforms thus positions him as a champion of strategic clarity against the gravitational pull of distributive politics. The third priority, honoring sacrifice, injects a normative dimension into an otherwise technocratic discourse. By invoking Corporal Russell's story, Davis re-humanizes defense policy, reminding the committee that modernization debates are inseparable from the lived experiences of those who serve and fall. Hegseth's response, while procedural, reflects institutional awareness that legitimacy in defense governance is contingent not only on efficacy but on ethical reciprocity toward military families. Partisan undercurrents permeate this dialogue. Harrigan's censure of Democratic colleagues for alleged incivility illustrates how hearings function as stages for symbolic politics, where decorum becomes a proxy for patriotism and loyalty. This maneuver simultaneously deflects from substantive critique and galvanizes partisan solidarity, reinforcing the cultural scripts that structure contemporary civil military discourse. This hearing exemplifies the dialectic between continuity and change in American defense policy. On one hand, the invocation of heir dominance, deterrence, and family honor reflects enduring tropes in U.S. strategic culture. On the other, the emphasis on agile task forces, sixth-generation fighters, and counter-drone architectures signals adaptation to a threat environment defined by technological asymmetry and great power rivalry. Politically, these dynamics intersect with broader debates over fiscal discipline and industrial policy. Calls to retire legacy systems resonate with neoliberal imperatives of efficiency but clash with the distributive logic of congressional budgeting. This tension is amplified by the spatial geography of defense spending, where modernization often entails redistributive consequences across districts and states. Moreover, the moral economy of military sacrifice manifests in legislative proposals like H.R. 1363 highlights a paradox. Even as the all-volunteer force becomes increasingly insular, its symbolic capital in the political sphere remains immense. Lawmakers leverage this capital to legitimate both incremental reforms and radical restructuring, illustrating how the Looking forward, three trajectories merit attention. First, the institutionalization of the air task force concept may herald a doctrinal shift toward modular expeditionary formations optimized for contested logistics and distributed operations. Second, the success or failure of the Army Transformation Initiative will serve as a bellwether for cross-service modernization, shaping the political feasibility of similar reforms in naval and aerospace domains. Third, the diffusion of low-cost disruptive technologies will accelerate demand for layered adaptive defense systems, compelling a reallocation of resources from exquisite platforms to resilient networks. These trajectories will unfold within a volatile political environment where partisan polarization coexists with episodic bipartisanship on defense. While consensus may endure on headline objectives, deterrence, readiness, honor, the distributive and ethical controversies surrounding means will persist, ensuring that hearings like this remain crucibles for both policy deliberation and political theater. The Davis-Hegseth-Cisneros exchange offers a textured portrait of American defense governance at an inflection point. It dramatizes the interplay between valor and vulnerability, between strategic foresight and political constraint. At stake is not merely the configuration of platforms or the calibration of budgets, but the very grammar of American power, how a republic reconciles its martial ambitions with its democratic ethos, its technological aspirations with its human obligations. In elevating stories of airmen under fire and families in mourning, the hearing resists the abstraction that often sterilizes defense debates. In pressing for structural reforms, it confronts the inertia that imperils strategic adaptability. And in foregrounding civility, or the lack thereof, it exposes the performative dimension of congressional oversight, where the contest for narrative supremacy rivals the contest for policy influence. Ultimately, the path charted in these deliberations will shape not only the architecture of American military power, but the moral architecture of the American state. For in the crucible of modernization lies a perennial question. Can a nation that honors its dead also re-imagine its defenses before the next war writes its verdict in blood?