Trump's Pentagon pick Hegseth fails Asean test

The Star

US President-elect Donald Trump's pick to lead the Pentagon, Pete Hegseth, failed to name a single member of the Asean bloc when asked about the alliance during his confirmation hearing on Tuesday (Jan 14).   Hegseth, a former Fox News host, is one of the most controversial figures ever nominated to be Secretary of Defense.   Read more at https://tinyurl.com/3d3bskh3   WATCH MORE: https://thestartv.com/c/news  SUBSCRIBE: https://cutt.ly/TheStar  LIKE: https://fb.com/TheStarOnline

Transcript

00:00What is the highest level of international security agreement that you have led and

00:06Can you name some that the Secretary of Defense would lead? There's three main ones

00:09Hmm, I have not been involved in international security arrangements because I have not been in government

00:15Okay, serving in the military. So my job has been to know

00:20Three main ones that the defense arrangements

00:23I mean you NATO might be one of them one that you're referring to

00:26Status of forces agreement would be one of them that a force status of forces agreement

00:30I've been a part of teaching about status of forces agreement, but you don't remember to mention it

00:36You're not qualified. Mr. Hexeth

00:38You're not qualified. You talk about repairing our defense industrial complex. You're not qualified to that

00:44You could do the acquisition and cross servicing agreements which essentially are security agreements

00:48You can't even mention that you've done none of those you talked about the Indo-pacific a little bit and I'm glad that you mentioned it

00:54Mention it. Can you name?

00:56the importance of at least one of the nations in the ASEAN in ASEAN and what type of

01:01Agreement we have with at least one of those nations and how many nations are in ASEAN, by the way

01:06I couldn't tell you the exact

01:09Allies in South Korea and Japan and in AUKUS with Australia and trying to work on submarines with

01:16Mr. Hexeth, none of those countries are in ASEAN. None of those three countries that you've mentioned are in ASEAN

01:22I suggest you do a little homework before you prepare for these types of

01:27negotiations. Listen

01:46You

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