During a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee Wednesday, Senator Mazie Hirono, a Democrat from Hawaii, pressed Hegseth on whether he would carry out an order from the president “to shoot peaceful protesters in the legs.”
Hirono pointed out that the question was anything but hypothetical: “Considering that the president, in his first term, actually ordered such a thing, it’s not a premise that you can reject,” she replied.
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 18, 2025
During the widespread protests in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in 2020, Donald Trump had been enraged at the demonstrators and reportedly inquired to his Cabinet whether they could “just shoot them in the legs or something?” Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper called the president’s startling inquiry “a suggestion and a formal question.”
Hirono also directly asked Hegseth whether he would remove federal forces from Los Angeles if a court ordered him to do so. Last week, he’d pushed back on the idea that “local judges” (read: federal judges) could interfere with the president’s plans.
Hegseth said that the issue was still pending, before doubling down on his statement attacking the courts. “I don’t believe district courts should be determining national security policy. When it goes to the Supreme Court, we’ll see,” he said.
This has become a common defense for lawlessness by the Trump administration, which has argued that the courts have no place in challenging practically any aspect of the president’s agenda, from deportations to tariffs. As desperate as members of the Trump administration are to dismiss federal judges as so-called “local,” the courts remain a crucial pillar in the country’s checks and balances as set out in the U.S. Constitution.
On Tuesday, an appeals court seemed inclined to allow Trump’s federalization of the National Guard in Los Angeles, according to The New York Times.
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