Pete Hegseth EXPELLED FROM CONGRESS after Eric Sorensen Made This Public!

We're from Illinois, Mr. Sorensen. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the Secretary, to the General for joining us today. Mr. Secretary, I'm hopeful that we can come to an agreement that we need both sides of the chambers working together for the betterment of the military. Do you believe that bipartisanship is essential to the mission of our armed forces, yes or no? Bipartisanship. I think bipartisanship can be a wonderful thing. Great. Because I didn't come to Congress with political baggage. I was called here because I believe and my constituents believe that we need impartial, bipartisan people to find solutions to complex problems. But today, this nation is being pushed and pulled in so many different directions. I had a constituent this weekend that said, Eric, I don't even know what to believe anymore. Facts don't matter. Conspiracy theories run rampant like brush fires without anyone to quell them. So I'm hoping you can shoot straight from the hip with me. We're almost done. In a rare moment that cuts through today's toxic partisanship, Eric Sorensen challenged Pete Hegseth on whether bipartisan respect for veterans, including pioneers like Harvey Milk, should be the norm, not the exception. The premise is simple. Service is service, regardless of a veteran's race, gender, or sexual orientation. And the gratitude they receive should be just as consistent. Hegseth, to his credit, acknowledged that bipartisan cooperation can be valuable, a consensus toward common ground in an era defined by division. But Sorensen didn't stop there. In a political climate where truth is optional and outrage is currency, he pushed for clarity, demanding straightforward answers rather than evasive talking points. The exchange underscored an uncomfortable truth. Honoring veterans is not controversial unless politicians make it so. If bipartisan respect cannot exist here, based on the most basic recognition of sacrifice, what hope is there of addressing the far more complex crises tearing at the nation's seams? Do you have a targeted number of reductions in civilian personnel in our armed forces? We have very diligently tried to identify the places where we might need to make changes, but for the most part it's been a DRP process, a volunteer process, of civilians to try to reduce the number for cost savings. Is there an analysis that supports how you're coming up with these decisions? We looked at about 8 to 10 percent, Congressman, but ultimately everyone here acknowledges that the civilian size of the DOD has exploded over the last 20 years. And so where there are rooms for efficiencies, we are actively trying to find them and right-size those spots, because a lot of those places are not making us more nimble or faster at what we do. And it's not necessarily about the people, but it's the numbers. Right. What do we say to the people that have strived in their entire life? These are former, retired members of the military working as civilians back home. What do we say to them? Almost all of them took a voluntary DRP to separate. Do you have a timeline for making these cuts? The Pentagon's latest move to trim its civilian workforce through a voluntary reduction program may look like a tidy cost-saving measure on paper, but it speaks volumes about the shifting priorities and political realities of U.S. defense policy. Over the last two decades, the civilian side of the military has quietly swelled by 8 to 10 percent, often staffed by retired service members whose institutional knowledge is invaluable but whose salaries add up. Now, the Department of Defense is pitching early retirement as a way to make the force more nimble, a phrase that in Washington usually means, do more with less. Supporters frame it as modernization, while critics see it as hollowing out the ranks of seasoned professionals in the name of budget optics. The question is whether these cuts will streamline operations or simply erode the civilian expertise that keeps the military running, because efficiency on paper doesn't always translate to readiness in the field. Like I said, almost all of them were volunteers who themselves decided to retire early. Okay, I want to reset for just a moment. And I'm going to be honest with you. I learned a lot about military service from both of my grandpas who served and fought in World War II. My grandpa Sorensen was a proud Navy photographer. You know, I have his photos. They're framed above my desk here on Capitol Hill. You know, I learned to be proud of him. And from him, I learned how to become proud of veterans, which is why I want to talk about a different veteran, one who served in the Korean War from 1951 to 55. He served courageously like my grandpa Sorensen. But unlike my grandpa, this veteran was forced to resign from the Navy. I'm talking about Harvey Milk, because he was gay. You see, as a kid, all I wanted to be was the weatherman on TV. You know, I learned that I could have gone into the Army or the Navy to learn meteorology. Eric Sorensen's reflections on military service are more than a personal anecdote. They're a pointed commentary on the quiet injustices that have shaped who gets to serve and who doesn't. By tying his grandfather's service to a lesser-known Korean War veteran story, Sorensen underscores the universality of sacrifice across generations. But the most powerful moment comes when he reveals his own dream of joining the military as a weatherman, only to be discouraged because he is gay. It's a stark reminder that patriotism and capability have too often been sidelined by prejudice, costing the armed forces valuable talent in the process. In sharing this, Sorensen isn't just honoring veterans he's challenging the institution to reckon with its own history of exclusion. His message is clear. Service should be defined by skill, dedication, and love of country, not by outdated biases that deny Americans the chance to serve with honor. But someone like me wasn't allowed. They didn't want someone like me, Mr. Secretary. There wasn't anything that I could do to change myself, or the way that my nation thought of me. And so I want to keep this very simple. Do you believe that Harvey Milk is a veteran who deserves his country's thanks? Sir, the decision to rename the ship was— I'm just asking, do you believe that Harvey Milk is a veteran who deserves his country's thanks? Yes or no? If his service was deemed honorable? Yes. Yesterday, the Secretary of the Navy was in your seat. He couldn't give me a straight answer. I disagree with your leadership, and his, because I believe that every veteran deserves our thanks. We all walk in the footsteps of leaders before us, and you may not find the value in the fact that many of those people are women. Pete Hegseth's acknowledgment that Harvey Milk, if his service was deemed honorable, deserves his country's thanks is a rare moment of clarity in an era when even the simplest truths about service can get mired in culture war politics. Milk, remembered as a pioneering gay rights leader, also wore the uniform something that should transcend partisan and ideological divides. Hegseth's statement, while conditional, reinforces a fundamental principle. Honorable service to the nation is worthy of respect. Regardless of who you are or what you stood for after hanging up the uniform. Yet, the fact that such recognition still requires debate speaks to how politicized military honor has become. In a healthier political climate, this wouldn't be a headline. It would be common sense. But in today's environment, Hegseth's comment is both a nod to shared values and a subtle reminder of how far we still have to go in making gratitude truly universal. With different skin colors, different backgrounds, different talents, immigrants, gay, straight, transgender, disabled, you may want to change it, but you can't. Because the America that you and I both serve is a place where everyone has the ability or should have the ability to grow up and be the hero their grandpa was. I wanted to do that when I was a kid. We're going back to that time. Gay kids like me, they don't want to go into the Army. They don't want to go into the Navy because you don't care for them. It's happening all over our country. My grandpa taught me never to judge the value of a veteran's service. And I hope, Mr. Secretary, you learn to do the same in your capacity and you can find it in your heart to make that part of your process. May God continue to watch over our troops, our veterans, and our military families. I yield back. The gentleman yields back. Eric Sorensen's appeal to Pete Hegseth was more than a plea for courtesy. It was a dire challenge to expand the definition of patriotism beyond the narrow confines of ideology. By highlighting Harvey Milk, a trailblazing gay rights leader who also served in uniform, Sorensen underscored a truth too often lost in today's partisan noise. Service is service. Whether straight or gay, liberal or conservative, veterans who wore the uniform and served honorably deserve equal respect and gratitude. Sorensen's push forces the uncomfortable question, why should identity dictate the level of thanks a veteran receives? In a nation that prides itself on freedom, anything less than full recognition undermines the very values the military defends. His message to Hegseth was clear. Honoring veterans means honoring all veterans, without qualifiers, without political litmus tests, and without erasing the contributions of those whose identities don't fit a preferred narrative. That's patriotism without hypocrisy. So what do you think? Let us know in the comments. If you enjoyed this video, don't forget to hit the subscribe button. The next one is even more controversial.