An Assembly Republican is using the authority of the Elon Musk-inspired GOAT Committee to investigate the diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives of local governments across the state before the committee has even met.

Rep. Shae Sortwell, R-Two Rivers, the committee’s vice chair, has sent information requests to local governments across the state, many of them in Democratic communities, according to copies of the requests obtained by Wisconsin Watch. Fitchburg, Green Bay, Kenosha, Madison, Manitowoc, Oshkosh, Racine and Sun Prairie all received requests from the GOAT Committee — which stands for government operations, accountability and transparency. According to eight requests obtained by Wisconsin Watch, Sortwell sent them on Feb. 20.

The requests state that GOAT “has been charged with undertaking a review of county use of taxpayer dollars for positions, policies, and activities related to diversity, equity, and inclusion.” Sortwell’s emails ask for “documentation” from January 2019 to the present relating to the following items:

• DEI-related grants the communities may have received.
• the communities’ “adopted/enacted” DEI policies. 
• any DEI training programs the communities might be involved with.
• the titles and salaries of employees with DEI-related positions. 
• and the “estimated associated costs” of DEI-related policies and trainings.

Officials for Fitchburg, Manitowoc, Oshkosh and Racine told Wisconsin Watch their respective cities plan to treat and fulfill Sortewll’s request like any other public records request they receive.

Sortwell did not respond to questions for Wisconsin Watch about his information requests and the committee’s work.

The committee is new to the Assembly this legislative session. It is inspired by the so-called federal Department of Government Efficiency — which has bulldozed through federal agencies in the early days of the second Trump administration — and is similarly named after a pop culture meme (GOAT is shorthand for greatest of all time; DOGE is named after a meme turned cryptocurrency).

The committee’s chair, Rep. Amanda Nedweski, R-Pleasant Prairie, recently told Wisconsin Watch the body was created “to identify opportunities to increase state government efficiency and to decrease spending.” Nedweski did not respond to questions about the committee’s work for this story.

The move to investigate DEI policies was made without the knowledge of the committee’s Democratic members, according to a Tuesday letter the three lawmakers sent to Nedweski, a copy of which was obtained by Wisconsin Watch.

“One member sending a request implying the participation of the entirety of the Committee’s membership violates the spirit of bipartisanship and cooperation you have shared with us as your intent for the Committee,” Reps. Mike Bare, Francesca Hong and Angelina Cruz wrote. “Empowering one Committee member to act in the interest of an entire Committee’s membership without their prior knowledge or consent is a dangerous precedent.”

The three Democrats also questioned the committee’s authority to seek the information. Sortwell’s request cites a little-known statute that states “departments, officers and employees of Wisconsin state government, and the governing bodies of the political subdivisions of this state, shall assist legislative committees in the completion of their tasks.” “Political subdivisions” include counties, cities, villages and towns.

“They shall provide legislative committees with ready access to any books, records or other information relating to such tasks,” the law continues.

But, the Democratic lawmakers argue, the committee “does not have any discernible ‘task’ before it.” They noted the committee has not met and no bills have been referred to it.

“The committee has nothing but a name,” Bare told Wisconsin Watch in an interview. “That’s all we know about it.”

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, said GOP lawmakers are searching for “grants that are going to local governments that have requirements in them that add extra cost or extra burden that we could look to say we’re not going to allow that to happen.”

Lawmakers are requesting information from local governments because Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has not granted GOP legislators access to state agencies, Vos said.

The speaker added that the goal is “to make sure that whatever we are rooting out for waste, fraud and abuse, we have data to be able to utilize, and it’s just hard to get from an administration that’s uncooperative.”

Vos also rejected Democrats’ concerns that Sortwell is operating without notifying his colleagues first.

“It’s pretty normal to do fact gathering before you have a hearing,” Vos said. “I don’t know why anybody would be concerned. I am the subject of open requests at least weekly. It’s not always the (most fun) part of your job, but it’s part of what makes Wisconsin’s government open.”

Numerous counties have also received communication from the GOAT Committee, according to a legal memo crafted for the Wisconsin Counties Association, though the exact number was not clear at the time of publication.

The memo questions whether the committee’s requests were submitted to the correct bodies of government and outlines concerns that responding to the request for five years of information “may involve a significant undertaking requiring expenditure of county staff resources.”

“There are concerns surrounding the validity of the request and a county’s legal obligation to respond,” the memo states, adding “we understand there may be legitimate concerns the GOAT Committee is attempting to address.”

Bare expressed concerns GOP lawmakers would try to hold up resources for local governments unless they cut back on DEI initiatives, which was a piece of a larger deal in 2023 that reworked how the state sends aid to local governments.

Part of that bill allowed the city of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County, both of which were facing financial headwinds, to increase the sales tax in their jurisdictions to raise additional revenue. But the legislation also mandated that both Milwaukee governments “may not use moneys raised by levying taxes for funding any position for which the principal duties consist of promoting individuals on the basis of their race, color, ancestry, national origin, or sexual orientation.”

Vos deployed a similar playbook to target DEI efforts on UW System campuses during the last budget cycle.

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President Donald Trump signs the “Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports" executive order in the East Room at the White House on Feb. 5, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday that prohibits transgender athletes from competing on women’s sports teams consistent with their gender identity.

Trump, who repeatedly pledged throughout his campaign to “keep men out of women’s sports,” is already following through on his broader anti-trans agenda in just the two weeks since he took office.  

Trump recently signed an executive order barring openly transgender service members from the U.S. military and another that restricts access to gender-affirming care for kids.

He also signed an executive order on his first day in office that makes it the “policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female.”

Just last month, the U.S. House passed a measure that would bar transgender students from participating on women’s school sports teams consistent with their gender identity.

Speaking at the signing ceremony inside a crowded White House room, Trump said that under his administration, “we will defend the proud tradition of female athletes, and we will not allow men to beat up, injure and cheat our women and our girls.”

“From now on, women’s sports will be only for women,” he said.

Dozens of women and young girls, some wearing sports uniforms, stood behind him.

The room was full of prominent GOP senators, members of Congress, governors, state attorneys general and leading voices in the movement opposing trans athletes’ participation in sports that align with their gender identity.

The Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group, has noted that there has been “considerable disinformation and misinformation about what the inclusion of transgender youth in sports entails” and that trans students’ sports participation “has been a non-issue.”

Language of order

The order states that it is “the policy of the United States to rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities, which results in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls and deprives them of privacy.”

The order also directs all departments and agencies to “review grants to educational programs and, where appropriate, rescind funding to programs that fail to comply with the policy established in this order.”

Trump also asks the Department of Justice to offer resources to relevant agencies to “ensure expeditious enforcement of the policy established in this order.”

The order also calls on the assistant to the president for domestic policy to, within the next two months, convene state attorneys general to “identify best practices in defining and enforcing” the measure.

The executive order is sure to be met with legal challenges.

“We all want sports to be fair, students to be safe, and young people to have the opportunity to participate alongside their peers,” Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement ahead of the executive order.

“But an attempted blanket ban deprives kids of those things. This order could expose young people to harassment and discrimination, emboldening people to question the gender of kids who don’t fit a narrow view of how they’re supposed to dress or look,” Robinson said.

Biden rule struck down

In January, a federal judge in Kentucky struck down the Biden administration’s final rule for Title IX, part of which aimed to bolster federal protections for LGBTQ+ students.

Title IX is a landmark federal civil rights law that bars schools that receive federal funding from practicing sex-based discrimination.

The Education Department, under the Trump administration, clarified in a Dear Colleague letter last week that, following the judge’s order, the agency will enforce an earlier interpretation of Title IX from Trump’s first White House term.

“The department will return to enforcing Title IX protections on the basis of biological sex in schools and on campuses,” the agency noted. 

The state endangered regal fritillary butterfly. (Photo courtesy of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources)

With nature comes change. It’s seen in migrating birds, heard in frog songs, smelled between wildflower petals, touched in the gentle landing of a butterfly, and tasted in the pollinator-dependent food we eat. But what happens when the flocks thin out and the marshlands fall silent? When flowers cease to bloom, and crops wait in vain for the aid of bees, butterflies, bats, or hummingbirds? What happens when the biodiversity witnessed by one generation fades into memory the next? 

These questions are crossroads at which modern societies, including the U.S., now find themselves. And for researchers like Jay Watson, a conservation biologist focusing on terrestrial insects, it’s heartbreaking. “It’s very frustrating and depressing,” said Watson, who works with the Bureau of Natural Heritage Conservation/Division of Fish, Wildlife, and Parks in the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR). “You just want to keep trying to help any way you can.” 

For years, scientists have warned of Earth’s 6th great mass extinction, with species now disappearing at an estimated rate of 1,000 to 10,000 times higher than natural according to the World Wildlife Foundation. From 1970-2020, according to the 2024 Living Planet Report, there has been a 73% decline in the population sizes of over 5,400 vertebrate (backboned) species. About 3 billion birds have been lost in the United States and Canada over a single human lifetime. 

Research in 2019 also showed that 40% of insect species worldwide were declining, and expected to disappear entirely within a century. How that shows up in Wisconsin depends on where and how you look. Many people reflect on memories of cleaning cars of insects after traveling with both nostalgia and sadness. If you’re one of those people, then you’re not alone. 

Change before our eyes 

“Since I started in 2010, [the] northern blue butterfly, that’s related to the Karner blue butterfly . . . has, as far as we know, been extirpated from the state,” said Watson. In other words, we can no longer find the butterfly species in the Badger State. The butterfly thrived on a rare plant species called the dwarf bilberry which grows in frost packets, or areas that freeze late enough to where other plants wouldn’t survive.

Butterflies are crucial for ecological balance. Many plant species depend on their pollinating prowess, including food crops. According to an article in Forbes, pollinators contribute between $235 billion and $577 billion in global food production. Butterflies and moths are also important in the food chain as prey for many species such as bats. “One in three bites of [human] food have been touched by some type of insect, typically as pollination,” said Watson.

Although just as valuable as insects, bats are often misunderstood creatures. J. Paul White, a DNR ecologist studying mammals with a specialty in bats, told Wisconsin Examiner that the flying mammals contribute “upwards of $3 billion to the U.S. agricultural industry, through pest control and in other ways.”

Wisconsin bats mostly consume insects, including those that harm crops and forests. “So they keep our forests healthy,” said White. “Bats provide many different benefits…They’re the primary nighttime flying insect predator.” Bats, especially when coming out of hibernation or when rearing young, can regularly eat their own weight in insects. With that, White explained, “they bridge a lot of gaps between you know, farmers, forestry industry and just in general, the human population and helping predate on many of the insects that can cause people either discomfort, or crop damage, or forestry damage.”

Wisconsin has eight bat species, some of which migrate and others that over-winter in caves.  A ninth – now listed as federally endangered – hasn’t been seen in the state since the 1950’s. 

It’s not unheard of, though, for nature to throw us a curveball. “For the longest time, we only had seven species,” said White. Around 2015, breeding colonies of a newcomer species – the evening bat — were discovered in southern Wisconsin. It’s not the only time that happened. In Grant County, populations of Indiana bats were found hibernating, unusually far north for the species. 

Watson pointed to a similar situation with the Southern Plains bumble bee. Another newcomer, the bee was first noticed within the last couple of years. “We’ve had a few observations last year [2023] and a few again this year,” said Watson in a 2024 interview. “So it’s like, you know, what’s going on here?” Watson speculated that it likely began moving north slightly. It’s also possible, however, that naturalists and enthusiasts just missed it. “Something’s changed,” said Watson, “because we’re having people detect it, and we didn’t have that prior.”

Both the evening bat and bumble bee discoveries underscore the importance of field work. The evening bat was found as researchers looked for two species threatened in the state, the northern long-eared bat and tri-colored bat, also known as the eastern pipistrelle. White explained that the area being searched was not a traditional survey area. Nets established near a small riverway captured bats flying on their night time hunts. “And we happened upon a juvenile evening bat,” said White, “which indicated, obviously, that there was at least some reproduction occurring within a short area and short distance.” 

Several Wisconsin bat species are vulnerable. The Northern long-eared bat is listed as federally endangered. “All four cave bats are considered state threatened in [Wisconsin],” said White. Others are being reviewed for possible new listings.

Among the greatest risks to Wisconsin bats is an invasive fungus which causes White Nose Syndrome. “There is no greater threat to bats,” White said of the fungus. It targets hibernating bats by causing them to be more active during hibernation and burn through their reserves. “Leaving a hibernation site anywhere from January, February, March, is pretty much a death sentence,” White told Wisconsin Examiner. “So we had individuals not only dying from exposure to the elements, but also predation.” Predators would circle around bat dwellings, picking them off as they left.

Pesticides, habitat degradation, and climate change could also be macro-stressors for Wisconsin’s bats. Yet, it’s not always easy to know why a species may be disappearing. Over the years, Wisconsin populations of grassland skippers, a group of numerous butterfly species, have also declined. 

“They get their name because they skip across as they fly,” Watson explained. “But quite a few of those have been disappearing or decreasing from sites in Wisconsin, and I know that’s happening on a bigger scale when you look outside of Wisconsin too.” According to the Wisconsin Natural Heritage Inventory’s working list, six species of skipper butterfly are listed as rare. Watson said that one, the Cobweb Skipper, can’t be found in Wisconsin anymore. Another, the Poweshiek skipperling, hasn’t been seen in Wisconsin since 2012. “We lost it,” Watson told Wisconsin Examiner, “we don’t know exactly why.” 

The more you know 

Determining what causes biodiversity declines can be tricky. Sometimes, a species vanishes due to natural selection and evolution. Owen Boyle, species management section manager at the DNR’s Bureau of Natural Heritage Conservation, highlighted that all living things on earth – including humans – are the results of billions of species that have come and gone with time. Boyle told Wisconsin Examiner that “extinction is a natural process…it’s the flipside of evolution.” Climate change and human behavior can produce a perfect storm.

In other cases, surveying is difficult, whether it’s tracking frog songs in springtime marshes or carefully searching for the rarely seen Eastern Massasauga rattlesnake. This small, well-camouflaged, shy species — nicknamed the swamp rattlesnake —  is listed as federally endangered. “Wisconsin has very few populations of that left in the state,” said Andrew Badje, a conservation biologist and herpetologist at the Bureau of Natural Heritage Conservation. 

Another unique and difficult-to-monitor reptile is the state endangered slender glass lizard. It’s Wisconsin’s only species of legless lizard, differentiated from snakes by visible ear openings and blinking eyes. Their ability to jettison their tails — a trait of some lizards but not snakes — gives the glass lizards their name. The slender glass lizard is found in south central Wisconsin, preferring sandy habitats. These are some of the glass lizard’s northernmost populations, Badje noted. 

There also isn’t a whole lot we know about their populations. Lots of favorable habitat for glass lizards has been destroyed by  humans. Prior to colonization, Badje explained, indigenous tribes in Wisconsin would clear environments with controlled burns. After colonization — with many tribes shuttled off to reservations and their liveways interrupted — Wisconsin’s forests were left to thicken and mature. That change was difficult for the glass lizard, which prefers open sandy areas. 

Some regions have been rendered unrecognizable. “When what we now call Wisconsin was surveyed back in 1836 by the General Land Office, in Milwaukee County as a sample, they found there were about 2,822 hectares of oak savanna,” said Chris Young, director of conservation and environmental science at UW-Milwaukee. “And in 2000 there were zero…That’s a whole… community that’s gone and so that wouldn’t just be the loss of a particular species. That would be a loss of a whole web of species.” 

Young explained the number of wetlands has been reduced from 6,392 hectares in 1836 to 1,904 in 2000. “So that’s not as significant a reduction,” said Young. “And it actually points to the fact that hey, Milwaukee County still had a bunch of wetland. Where are those wetlands? What’s still there? And to what degree might we see persisting, intact communities?” 

Wetlands are sensitive habitats offering refuge to often equally sensitive beings. The Milwaukee-area used to have healthy populations of wetland-loving frogs like spring peepers and wood frogs. “Even if those wetlands that they used to breed don’t necessarily get taken away,” said Badje, “a lot of people are building in the uplands nearby,” which are important for foraging and surviving winter. In other regions, habitat for reptiles like the land-dwelling ornate box turtle have been turned into farmland. Badje said this has caused box turtle populations to collapse and not be sustainable. Even turtles with some strong populations, like the Blanding’s turtle, are on the decline. 

The state endangered queensnake is another sensitive and difficult to survey species. It’s a non-venomous snake specializing in eating freshly molted crayfish.  It depends on clean waterways and is a “good indicator of water quality”, Badje told Wisconsin Examiner. Water quality remains a top environmental policy concern statewide for both urban and rural communities, which dot the landscape in southeastern Wisconsin where queensnakes are found. 

The quest to understand changing ecosystems holds a special place in Wisconsin’s history. Naturalists like Aldo Leopold (1887-1948), sometimes called “the father of conservation”, began the labor of counting species. “As a pioneer, one of the things that he did was start to quantify species,” said Young. With a forest service background, Leopold applied his talents at quantifying lumber and acreage to hunting and game management. 

Game species are good for conservation. Whitetail deer and walleye are great examples — “You know, the species that you can harvest,” Boyle told Wisconsin Examiner. Yet those species also provide public interest and revenue. Hunting licenses help fund wildlife management, and Wisconsinites can buy license plates emboldened with the images of wolves and eagles to help support conservation efforts. Boyle noted that at one time, both wolves and bald eagles had all but disappeared from Wisconsin. “Both have made amazing comebacks,” he said.  

Wisconsin has some of the earliest game surveys of anywhere in the U.S., Young explained. “Leopold was going across the Midwest, so he extended beyond Wisconsin,” he told Wisconsin Examiner. “But this was his home starting in 1924 and really was the focus of a lot of his work.” 

To know that biodiversity is declining, it helps to have a baseline to work with. “And I think in Wisconsin we have pretty good baselines for a lot of game species in particular, and also predator species which were extirpated, if we’re talking about wolves, even before the 1920’s really,” Young said.

Although not flawless, quantitative work provides benchmarks for comparison. “So I think what scientists and what species specialists are always doing is, they’re saying what’s the best baseline numbers that we have, and where are we at now with the methods that we’re using, and how do we make adjustments?” he said.

Piercing the veil 

Boots-on-the-ground field work is an important tool. It’s also one which the DNR and conservation organizations heavily rely on the public for. Every year Wisconsinites participate in frog and toad surveys, bat roost monitoring, the Bumble Bee Brigade and other programs to assess our ecological neighbors. Hunters, farmers, hikers, fishermen, and other enthusiasts also provide valuable data by reporting deer harvests, black bear dens, wolf tracks, and even the occasional game trail capture of mountain lions. 

Using modern genetic science — another tool in the chest — we can get even deeper perspectives. Emily Latch, a professor of biodiversity genomics at UW-Milwaukee, said that genetics can help answer questions like whether populations are isolated, if they’re migrating, how individuals are related, the prevalence of disease, and more. 

“All of those demographic trends can be, are, reflected in their genetic diversity,” Latch told Wisconsin Examiner. Genetic material comes from a variety of places such as waste, hair, skin, or carcasses. There have also been advancements in testing, such as using environmental DNA, or “eDNA” for short. By sampling things like soil or water, scientists can test for any DNA left behind. This provides incredible glimpses into what organisms may reside within an ecosystem, especially those most elusive.

“You can do a lot of things with genetics that help you understand the ecology of a system,” said Latch. The data allows researchers to peer into the secret lives of organisms, like the badger. Although it’s our state animal, we know little about the badger. “They were listed as a species with information needs,” said Latch. Without knowing more, it’s impossible to know how best to protect it. 

To shed light, UW-Milwaukee launched a badger genetic study. It aimed to learn about isolated and vulnerable populations, gather data on what habitats badgers favor and what barriers they may face. “You might imagine things like the Wisconsin River,” said Latch as she listed off examples of barriers. “You might think of things like farms.” Scientists relied on roadkill animals, public reporting, hair samples, den finds and other data points. 

While badgers are admired for their connection to Wisconsin, other animals attract controversy. Wolf management is a contentious issue, with hunting concerns remaining high among conservationists. Surveying wolves through collars, field work, and genetics have helped monitor the animals in Wisconsin. In 2021, a wolf hunt in Wisconsin was criticized after hunters exceeded the state-set quota. 

On the other end of the food chain, research also shows strain among the deer population. In 2024, the DNR completed a study of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), a fatal degenerative neurological condition in deer. It collected data from 1,200 adult deer, fawns, coyotes, and bobcats, focusing on three northern Wisconsin counties where CWD originally surfaced in 2002. Dubbed “unprecedented” for its size, the study found that the chances of survival for female deer dropped from 83% to 41%, and from 69% to 17% for males, when taking CWD infection into account. The study found that Wisconsin’s deer population is expected to decline when CWD prevalence among females passes 29%. Deer hunting contributes upwards of $1 billion to Wisconsin’s economy. 

A bigger picture

Researchers, biologists, and conservationists stress that the impact of losing species is far greater than just recreation and food for humans. “I think our society is too fixated on having these things kind of like in a controlled setting, because that’s just the way humans are,” Badje told Wisconsin Examiner. He values “seeing these things out in the wild,” he said.  “And that’s honestly why I do the work that I do, because I want other people to experience those things out in nature as well.”

There are strategies people can employ to slow the decline. Not using pesticides that wipe out pollinators like bees, and changing agricultural practices could go a long way, experts say. Growing native plants, and encouraging people to keep wildflowers in their lawns — which are often ecological deserts — could also help. 

Boyle stressed the importance of robust, permanent funding for conservation and surveying. “We rely on grants and donations, mostly federal grants and donations,” he told Wisconsin Examiner. There’s also the license plate and hunting revenues, and the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin also helps. In addition, Boyle highlighted the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act, a federal proposal that would invest up to $1.4 billion annually for “proactive, on-the ground, collaborative efforts to help species at risk by restoring habitat, controlling invasive species, reconnecting migration routes, addressing emerging diseases, and more,” according to the National Wildlife Federation. It failed to pass in 2023, but has been reintroduced. 

Such a move could prove revolutionary for conservation work and persevering biodiversity, advocates say. The act’s future, however, is even more murky with the election of President Donald Trump, and a Republican majority in the House and Senate. Trump has promised to roll back climate policy and has called for more domestic fossil fuel production. Although a recent attempt by the Trump administration to freeze federal grants and programs was halted by a federal judge, the fate of federal environmental workers — such as those in America’s Yellowstone National Park — remains uncertain. During Trump’s last term from 2017-2021, he removed a variety of environmental protections. One example was removing the gray wolf from the endangered species list, which then led to the controversial Wisconsin hunt. 

The faster species vanish, the more we all lose together. “That’s the other scary thing right now about the biodiversity crisis is that we’re losing species that we know nothing about,” said Boyle. “We could have lost, like, the cure for cancer in some native plant in South America, and we’ll never even know it, you know?” 

 Why should we care about losing a butterfly here, or a legless lizard there?  “It’s a very, very clear sign that there are things wrong in the environment,” said Boyle. 

Young believes that the work will take lifetimes. “It’s going to take, not just the next generation,” he told Wisconsin Examiner. “We can’t just look at the kids and say, ‘well they’re going to have to fix all this.’” Instead, every generation has had its work to do, “and for generations to come, this will be part of that work.”

President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, speaks during a Senate Armed Services confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill on Jan. 14, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Senators jockeyed to magnify contrasting aspects of Pete Hegseth’s life at his confirmation hearing Tuesday on whether the veteran, Fox News personality and accused perpetrator of sexual misconduct is qualified to lead the nation’s military and its nearly $900 billion budget.

Lawmakers on the Senate Committee on Armed Services questioned the nominee for secretary of defense for just over four hours, the first of many hearings to come for President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks. Trump takes office in six days.

Senators on the Republican-led committee praised Hegseth for his “warrior ethos.” The veteran-turned-cable-news-host authored several books that have, among other talking points, compared modern patriotism to the crusades and critiqued Pentagon leadership, including his 2024 book “War on the Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of Men Who Keep Us Free.”

Committee Chair Roger Wicker described Hegseth as an “unconventional” choice and someone who will “bring a swift end to corrosive distractions such as DEI,” shorthand for diversity, equity and inclusion.

“Mr. Hegseth will bring energy and fresh ideas to shake up the bureaucracy. He will focus relentlessly on the war fighter and the military’s core missions, deterring wars and winning the ones we must fight,” the Mississippi Republican said.

But the committee’s ranking member, Jack Reed, slammed Hegseth’s nomination, telling him “the totality of your own writings and alleged conduct would disqualify any service member from holding any leadership position in the military, much less being confirmed as the secretary of defense.”

“Mr. Hegseth, I hope you will explain why you believe such diversity is making the military weak, and how you propose to undo that without undermining military leadership and harming readiness, recruitment and retention,” said the Rhode Island Democrat, who also questioned Hegseth’s recent assertion in his book against the Geneva Conventions.

Dust on his boots

Seated before the committee in a blue jacket, red striped tie and American flag pocket square, Hegseth pledged to be a “change agent” and agreed with Trump that “it’s time to give someone with dust on his boots the helm.”

“Like many of my generation, I’ve been there. I’ve led troops in combat. I’ve been on patrol for days. I’ve pulled the trigger down range, heard bullets whiz by, flex-cuffed insurgents, called in close air support, led medevacs, dodged IEDs, pulled out dead bodies and knelt before a battlefield cross,” Hegseth said.

Hegseth was interrupted by shouting audience members three times in the first several minutes of his opening remarks.

In the weeks since Trump nominated Hegseth, accusations of sexual assault, harassment, alcohol abuse and financial mismanagement at veterans’ nonprofits have surfaced against the 44-year-old who served in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Hegseth told Wicker he chalked up the allegations to a “coordinated smear campaign” from “anonymous sources.”

“I’m not a perfect person, as has been acknowledged, saved by the grace of God, by Jesus and Jenny,” he said, referring to his third wife, television producer Jennifer Hegseth, who was seated behind him.

At numerous points in the hearing Wicker entered into the record letters attesting to Hegseth’s character, including from former colleagues at Vets for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America, two veterans service organizations he led following his time as an Army infantry officer.

Women in combat roles?

Throughout the course of the hearing several female committee members, among them veterans who served in noncombat, combat and intelligence roles, pressed Hegseth on his years-long record of disparaging women in the military.

As recently as Nov. 7, he told podcast host Shawn Ryan that “I’m straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles.”

Sen. Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican who served in the Army National Guard for over two decades, point-blank asked Hegseth to declare on the record that women should remain in combat roles, given that they meet “very, very high standards.”

“My answer is yes, exactly the way that you caveated it,” Hegseth said.

In an impassioned critique, Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth, a combat veteran from Illinois, said, “How can we ask these warriors to train and perform the absolute highest standards when you are asking us to lower the standards to make you the secretary of defense simply because you are buddies with our president-elect?”

Duckworth lost both her legs and partial use of her right arm when a rocket-propelled grenade downed her Black Hawk helicopter north of Baghdad.

Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine, said Hegseth seems to have “converted over the last several weeks.”

“You wrote in your book just last year, this is the book ‘War on Warriors,’ ‘But if we’re going to send our boys to fight, and it should be boys, we need to unleash them to win.’ … Which is it? Is it? Is it only boys can fight? I mean, you’ve, you’ve testified here today that you believe in women in combat.”

Managing an organization

Democratic senators also questioned Hegseth’s ability to manage an organization’s finances.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, of Connecticut, held up tax records from Hegseth’s tenure at the Concerned Veterans of America that he said showed budget shortfalls and up to $75,000 in debt from credit card transactions.

“That isn’t the kind of fiscal management we want at the Department of Defense,” Blumenthal said.

“I don’t believe that you can tell this committee or the people of America that you are qualified to lead them, I would support you as the spokesperson for the Pentagon, I don’t dispute your communication skills,” Blumenthal said.

Hegseth told the committee that one of his top priorities would be to obtain a clean audit of Pentagon spending.

Money from television and book sales

Hegseth’s own financial disclosure shows that he’s made just north of $4.6 million as a Fox News host since 2022.

Hegseth, who lives in Tennessee, reported a $348,000 advance for his “War on Warriors” book and a range of anywhere from $100,001 to $1 million in royalties. The disclosure form only requires ranges, not specific dollar amounts.

He also reported just under $1 million in income for speeches he’s given over the last two years.

Additionally, Hegseth reported royalties in the range of $100,001 to $1 million for his 2022 book “Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation.” The book, co-written with David Goodwin, champions a “classical” Christian education system and claims to reveal the “untold story of the Progressive plan to neutralize the basis of our Republic,” according to a synopsis featured on the book’s official website.

In June 2022, while hosting “Fox and Friends Weekend,” Hegseth scrawled“Return to Sender” on his Harvard graduate degree diploma – striking the word “Harvard” and replacing it with “Critical Theory” – and told viewers he didn’t want it anymore.

In 2020, Hegseth delivered remarks at the Conservative Political Action Conference, rallying for a “battle for the soul of America” and promoting his book titled “American Crusade.”

He drew a through line from the 11th-century military campaigns when, he said, “Europe was effectively under threat from Islamic hordes,” to the American Revolution, and all the way to 2016 when “a country rose up and said ‘We’re going to make America great again.’”

“We live in a similar moment,” Hegseth told the CPAC crowd.

In 2016, while promoting his book “In the Arena” to an audience at the conservative Heritage Foundation, Hegseth railed against many cultural topics while juxtaposing them with the famed Teddy Roosevelt arena speech in Paris on which his book centered.

“We teach our kids to be wimps. We turn our men into women and women into men,” he said.

On the topic of immigration in Europe, Hegseth said, “When you forget who you are and you don’t demand, at some level, allegiance and assimilation from populations that separate themselves and then have 10 kids while you’re having one, that’s how the most popular name in London becomes Mohammed for newborn boys.”

Hegseth began as a Fox News contributor in 2014.

In July 2010, Hegseth testified against the Supreme Court nomination of Elena Kagan over her “unbecoming” treatment of military recruiters at Harvard in 2004.

Hegseth joined the Army ROTC during his undergraduate education at Princeton University in the early 2000s. 

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, seen at an April 2022 White House event celebrating her Senate confirmation, was President Joe Biden’s sole U.S. Supreme Court nominee. The 235 federal judges confirmed during Biden’s presidency set records for racial and gender diversity. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden’s number of lifetime appointments to the federal bench surpassed the first Trump administration’s Friday and set records as the most diverse selection of judges by any president in U.S. history, according to federal judiciary observers.

The U.S. Senate, late in its final session of the year, confirmed what are expected to be the final two of Biden’s nominations, bringing his total number of judicial confirmations to 235, just one more than President-elect Donald Trump’s first-term total.

Senators voted along party lines to confirm Benjamin J. Cheeks to be U.S. district judge for the Southern District of California, in a vote of 49-47, and Serena Raquel Murillo to be U.S. district Judge for the Central District of California, in the same vote breakdown.

Cheeks marks the 63rd Senate-confirmed Black judge appointed by Biden, and Murillo the 150th woman.

Four senators did not vote, including Vice President-elect J.D. Vance of Ohio, Trump’s secretary of State nominee, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, newly sworn Sen. Adam Schiff of California, and the outgoing Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

Senate control will be in Republican hands after the new Congress is sworn in Jan. 3, almost certainly shutting the door on any Biden nominations before Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration.

Among Biden’s appointments, 187 were seated on district courts, 45 on federal appeals courts, and one, Ketanji Brown Jackson, on the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as two to the Court of International Trade.

Biden issued a statement Friday night marking the “major milestone.”

“When I ran for President, I promised to build a bench that looks like America and reflects the promise of our nation. And I’m proud I kept my commitment to bolstering confidence in judicial decision-making and outcomes,” Biden said.

“I am proud of the legacy I will leave with our nation’s judges,” Biden said, closing out his statement.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer touted the “historic” accomplishment on the Senate floor following the vote.

“We’ve confirmed more judges than under the Trump administration, more judges than any administration in this century, more judges than any administration going back decades. One out of every four active judges on the bench has been appointed by this majority,” Schumer said.

He and members of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary delivered a press conference immediately after.

Historic racial and gender diversity

Observers who monitor the demographics and professional backgrounds represented on the federal bench celebrated the “remarkable and historic progress” made under Biden, according to a Friday memo from The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

Biden set records for appointing the most women and more Black, Native American, Latino and Latina, Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander judges than during any other presidency of any length, according to the organization’s analysis.

The Senate confirmed 15 Black judges to the federal appeals courts during Biden’s term, 13 of them women. Only eight Black women had ever served at this level of the federal judiciary, according to the analysis.

On the district court level, Biden appointed the first lifetime judges of color to four districts that had only ever been represented by white judges. They include districts in Louisiana, New York, Rhode Island and Virginia.

Biden also appointed, and the Senate confirmed, 12 openly LGBTQ judges, three of them women; the first four Muslim judges ever to reach the federal bench; and two judges currently living with disabilities.

“Our federal court system has historically failed to live up to its promise of equal justice under the law,” the Leadership Conference’s Friday memo stated. “For far too long, our judges have disproportionately been white, cisgender, heterosexual men who have possessed very narrow legal experiences as corporate attorneys or government prosecutors. Judges decide cases that impact all of our rights and freedoms, and it is vital that our judges come from more varied backgrounds both personally and professionally.”

Nearly 100 of Biden’s appointments previously worked as civil rights lawyers or public defenders, according to the leadership conference, including Jackson who was the first former public defender elevated to the Supreme Court.

Biden’s confirmed judges stood in contrast to Trump’s picks who, the American Constitution Society noted, lacked gender and racial diversity.

According to data published by the Pew Research Center at the close of Trump’s first term, the now president-elect was more likely than previous Republican presidents to nominate women but still lagged behind recent Democratic administrations.

Pew also found that Trump had appointed fewer non-white federal judges than other recent presidents.

Blocked nominee faults Islamophobia

But not everyone praised the Senate’s advice-and-consent role in evaluating federal nominees. Adeel Mangi, the first Muslim American to be nominated for the appeals court level, criticized Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee for asking Islamophobic questions.

In a letter to Biden, published by the New York Times and other outlets, Mangi slammed the process as “fundamentally broken” and questioned the reasoning behind three Democratic senators who joined Republicans in opposing him.

“This is no longer a system for evaluating fitness for judicial office. It is now a channel for the raising of money based on performative McCarthyism before video cameras, and for the dissemination of dark-money-funded attacks that especially target minorities,” wrote Mangi, of New Jersey, whom Biden nominated for a position on the Philadelphia-based Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

Other blocked nominations included Julia M. Lipez of Maine, nominated for the First Circuit, Karla M. Campbell of Tennessee for the Sixth Circuit, and Ryan Young Park of North Carolina for the Fourth Circuit.