At a press briefing on Tuesday, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries was asked about a report that Pete Hegseth will rename ships that are named after Civil Rights leaders, including Harvey Milk.
00:00Thank you Mr. Mayor. I just want to ask you about the reporting that he just published.
00:04He has used his work that the U.S. Navy is considered to be named in multiple neighborhoods
00:08after civil rights leaders and prominent Americans, among them the U.S. and S. Army
00:14Milk, which of course this is going to be during Pride Month, but other potential vessels
00:18including U.S. and S. Leonard Marshall, Richard Gibbsburg, Murray Tubman, Dolores Huerta,
00:24Sue Stone, Cesar Chavez, and then the others have been very critical over the defense department
00:29and the vice-secretary in which he's at the university, so I'm just going to take a reaction to that.
00:34It's a complete and total disgrace. It's an utter abomination in terms of the extreme
00:43mega republican effort to continue to erase American history. And we're not going to allow it to happen.
00:51And you wonder why do these far-right extremists who are utterly unqualified for the jobs that they
01:03currently hold in the United States government exhibit A, Pete Hexeth, the least qualified
01:13secretary of defense in American history, and this guy's leading the charge? It's a joke.
01:18You're not qualified for the job that you have. You didn't get that job on merit, and so here's
01:29what the outcome is going to be. Every single time they've raised this issue and tried to cancel
01:35a part of our history, they've had to walk it back. Because the American people, aided and
01:43assisted by Democrats, have aggressively pushed back. They tried to cancel Harriet Tugman. We reversed it.
01:53They tried to cancel Jackie Robinson. We reversed it. They tried to cancel the Tuskegee Airmen. We reversed it. They tried to ban hundreds of books in the Naval Academy. We reversed it. Every single time the extremists have tried to cancel certain parts of American history, the American people have risen up and said, no, it's not happening.
02:22And the MAGA extremists have chickened out. They are supposed to be tough guys. They regularly are pushed back. And they will again if they try to move on renaming these Navy vessels.
02:45And they will again if they leave you fastness. We're ready to leave them.
