Rep. Luna torpedoes Democratic narrative about Hegseth's views on women with Glenn Beck

In a conversation Wednesday with Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck, Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R) blew up Democrats' preferred narrative about Army veteran Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump's pick to run the Pentagon, along with the egalitarian conceit that women can or should perform all roles in the U.S. military.

Luna, who served in the U.S. Air Force from 2009 to 2014, earning the Air Force Achievement Medal along the way, highlighted Democrats' desperate efforts to twist Hegseth's past comments regarding women in the military into supposed disqualifiers during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.

"Pete never said that he never wanted women to serve in the military," said Luna. "In fact, it's quite the opposite."

Hegseth has long emphasized the need to maintain high standards for combat, even if that means fewer female service members on the battlefield — something he reiterated in his opening remarks, stating, "Our standards will be high, and they will be equal, not equitable."

"It hasn't made us more effective, hasn't made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated. … We've all served with women, and they're great," Hegseth told the titular host of "The Shawn Ryan Show" in November. "But our institutions don't have to incentivize that in places where, traditionally — not traditionally, over human history — men in those positions are more capable."

As Luna indicated, Democrats were more than willing to distort Hegseth's views on the matter.

Blaze News previously reported that Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.) asked the two-time recipient of the Bronze Star at his hearing Tuesday, "Should we believe you think the two women in this committee who served in the military made our military less capable?"

'There are different standards for women and men.'

"No, their contributions are indispensable," Hegseth said of the former female service members. "My comments are about having the same standards across the board."

Luna noted further that gender equity in terms of representation in various roles in the military is problematized not only by physical disparities between the sexes but also by the social and psychological realities that have manifested naturally as a result of these objective differences over the course of eons.

"There are certain rules that women should not be subjected to in the military," said Luna. "So in a lot of foreign countries, you will see there will be women-only sniper teams and/or women-only teams that will see certain combat. Now, I preface this by saying that there was a study that was done, and it shows that when women were placed in harm's way ... the natural instinct for men was to protect that woman. And that's the right thing to do. That's that 'toxic masculinity' that the left tries to attack us with all the time."

"That's human nature," said Beck. "We're born with that."

Luna noted that while a noble instinct, it could undermine the work of co-ed teams. The congresswoman provided the hypothetical of a female service member taking fire, then suffering an injury on a special forces team. Luna suggested that whereas if the injured party was a man, his comrades would likely maintain focus on the mission, in the case of a woman, the men on the team might instead feel compelled to rush to her defense.

"It could ultimately result in ... more casualties, more people getting hurt, and then also jeopardize the success of the mission," said Luna. "And so I think when we're looking at military policy as a whole, we need to take these things into consideration."

Recognizing that Hegseth is a prime target for demonization because he is a white, Christian male, Luna seized upon the opportunity and the relative safety of her identity to push the point home, stressing that men and women are not interchangeable and there are certain roles for which women should be ineligible.

"There are different standards for women and men. That's just a fact," said the congresswoman. "It doesn't mean that women aren't as good as men. I think there's been cases where women can be better snipers than men are."

After a RAND-led and Congress-ordered study determined that women were not only "injured at significantly higher rates than men" but were "failing at noticeably higher rates" than their male counterparts — the ACFT pass rate for women enlisted in the regular Army was 52%, whereas the pass rate for men was 92% — the Army jettisoned its gender-neutral Army Combat Fitness Test in 2022 and lowered standards for female soldiers.

After stating that women should not be required to register for the draft — something former Democratic Sen. Jon Tester (Mont.) pushed for with Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) before voters rejected him at the ballot box — Luna underscored once again, "Women should not be placed in certain combat roles in the military."

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!