U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is making clear how he feels about Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s attack on women, especially pregnant women, serving in the U.S. Armed Forces.
“The Secretary certainly shares the revulsion of so many others to what Mr. Carlson said,” Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby told reporters Thursday, as CNN reports.
He said the U.S. Military may still have “a lot of work to do” to become “more inclusive, more respectful of everyone — especially women,” and suggested Carlson’s remarks may have been prompted by some personal shortcoming.
“We pledge to do better, and we will,” Kirby said. “What we absolutely won’t do is take personnel advice from a talk show host, or the Chinese military. Maybe those folks feel like they have something to prove. That’s on them.”
On air CNN’s Barbara Starr just said the Pentagon is “really furious” about these remarks.
In remarks that just went viral Thursday morning, Carlson Tuesday attacked women serving in the armed forces, suggesting they made the entire military more “feminine,” as if that would be bad or somehow less effective or lethal.
After praising China’s military and a Chinese official who warned China’s young men are becoming too feminine, Carlson said: “So we’ve got new hairstyles and maternity flight suits. Pregnant women are going to fight our wars. It’s a mockery of the U.S. Military. While China’s military becomes more masculine as it’s assembled the world’s largest navy, our military needs to become as Joe Biden says more feminine, whatever feminine means anymore since men and women no longer exist. The bottom line is it’s out of control, and the Pentagon is going along with this.”
Secretary Austin was far from the only member of the military who took offensive with Carlson’s remarks. Many service members, including top officers, took to social media to express disgust against the attack and to praise women in the military.
Here’s but one example:
The U.S. Army offered up this response as well:
Image: DoD photo by Lisa Ferdinando via Flickr and a CC license