The following is the transcript of an interview with Sen. Tammy Duckworth, Democrat of Illinois, that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on May 4, 2025.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And we're joined now by Illinois Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth. Good to have you here in person.
SEN. TAMMY DUCKWORTH: Thanks for having me.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So Senator, I know you did vote to confirm Secretary Rubio. Do you have confidence that he can juggle all four of the jobs that he now has for an indefinite period of time?
SEN. DUCKWORTH: No. There's- there's no way he can do that and do it- and do it well, especially since there's such incompetence over at DOD, with Pete Hegseth being Secretary of Defense, and just the- the hollowing out of the top leadership. There's no way he can carry all- that entire load on his own, and so I do think that they need to find a new Secretary of Defense, they need to find a new NSA- head of NSA, as quickly as possible.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But at this point, we heard from the Chief of Staff that she believes all the Cabinet secretaries will serve a full year. What makes you think that Secretary Hegseth could actually be dismissed?
SEN. DUCKWORTH: Well, I think he should be dismissed. Whether or not President Trump's going to dismiss him, is a whole different conversation. He should never have been nominated in the first place. He is the most untrained, inadequate, Secretary of Defense in our nation's history. And look at what he's done at the Pentagon. It's in turmoil. He lost his top staffers within a matter of days. He's now put classified information on an unclassified chain, and he's put on natures- our nation's national security at risk.
MARGARET BRENNAN: He says no war plans, wasn't classified, but it was sensitive information. That's part of this ongoing Inspector General probe, as I understand it, into his conduct. Do you have any timeline, any sense of how seriously that's being taken and when the results will be seen?
SEN. DUCKWORTH: We don't have a timeline. It is very serious. Let me make it clear what he did. He put into an unclassified Signal chain that the aircraft are going to be over a certain point in- in space, at a certain point in time. You know- that's classified information. Any basic person getting through military training knows that is classified information, and he did it on a separate chain with his wife and family members. This man is completely unqualified to be Secretary of Defense, and needs to be fired because he's putting our nation's military readiness at stake.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you, because you sit on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, along with Armed Services--
SEN. DUCKWORTH: Armed Services, yes.
MARGARET BRENNAN: --what you think is going to happen to Mike Waltz, who is now being pushed out of the NSA role and into this job as Ambassador to the United Nations. That's arguably a pretty important post. Senate Intel Vice Chairman Mark Warner says it's going to be a brutal hearing. What do you want to know from him, and are you open to confirming him into the job?
SEN. DUCKWORTH: Well, I'm not on the Intelligence Committee, but I would- I am on Foreign Relations.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Foreign Relations.
SEN. DUCKWORTH: I am foreign relations. It will be a brutal, brutal hearing. He's not qualified for the job, just by nature of the fact that he participated in this Signal chain. In fact, I think everybody on that Signal chain needs to be fired, because not a single one of them spoke up and said, hey, this is inappropriate. We should be in a secure channel. And they all had a secure channel–
MARGARET BRENNAN: Every single cabinet secretary seemed to be on that channel.
SEN. DUCKWORTH: Everything- that was on that- Yes, they needed to. They need to be fired, because not a single one of them spoke up and said, this is- this is not correct. And by the way, what's really interesting was that there was not a single uniform personnel on that Signal chain, which was very clear that it was purposefully done to keep the military personnel with the experience off of that Signal chat. Now, Mike Waltz is doing what we call, he is failing up, right? He is failing in his job and getting promoted to be ambassador. That's not what our nation needs at the United Nations. This is a very perilous time for our national security, with everything that's happening in Ukraine, with everything that is happening in Israel and all around the world, with China, our- our greatest, closest adversary, gaining in strength, and now we're going to put somebody who's completely incompetent over at the UN, who's going to have to be conducting these negotiations, talking with our allies, trying to get them on board with us, while we oppose our adversaries, and continuing to fail up is not what we need in the people who represent this country.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Mike Waltz served this country in uniform as a Green Beret. He was a lawmaker. You think he is incompetent and you're not open to voting for him at all?
SEN. DUCKWORTH: I'm not open to voting for him. No, because he- because he's already demonstrated he's incapable of doing the most basic thing, which is handling classified information.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you about funding for defense, because I know you said in particular, the Navy needs more money and more financial support right now, the Republican Chair of Appropriations and the Republican Chair of Armed Services both saw the White House's budget when it was released on Friday and said it freezes military spending at Biden-era levels, which they argue amounts to a reduction. Do you think that the two parties, if you both agree it is an imperative that the White House isn't taking seriously enough - Can you work together with your Republican allies to increase defense spending?
SEN. DUCKWORTH: Well one of the places where there has been bipartisanship has been the Armed Services Committee. That has been something that I've been very proud to be a part of. Now, whether or not my Republican colleagues continue to be co-conspirators and collaborators with this administration in basically gutting the United States government is- is up to them. You know, right now, their plans are going to require laying off hundreds- at least 100,000 civilian workers at the Pentagon. It's going to, in the words of Chairman Wicker, basically- I'm going to paraphrase him, cut defense capabilities to the bone. I think he is how he's put it. We need to make sure the Navy needs more ships. We need more merchant mariners need more boats, more ships. We need to make major investments in our sixth generation fighter fleet. We need to make major investments in training pilots. We are short pilots, and yet the cuts that they're proposing in order to fund a vanity project like the Golden Dome does not help make America more secure on a global scale, and it certainly doesn't keep us, you know, the leader of the free world.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You don't often hear Democrats argue to increase defense spending.
SEN. DUCKWORTH: I voted to increase defense spending, yeah.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You have- right, you are- you are in a spot there where you're finding some common ground with your Republican partners on Armed Services. I want to ask you about one of the programs that is at least nominally being eliminated. Secretary Hegseth posted on social media, he's ending the Women, Peace and Security program. President Trump signed this into law in 2017. Hegseth said it is a divisive social justice initiative from feminists, a distraction from war fighting. But when we checked how the now chairman of the Joint Chiefs described it, General Caine, he said he used the program in the field, after an assault, to send in female members to speak with women and children to better understand "human terrain." So if the military establishment says it's useful, and the Secretary of Defense says it's not, and it's a distraction, what happens? and can lawmakers like yourself actually rescue this program?
SEN. DUCKWORTH: We can, if Republicans will stop, you know, rolling over for this President. We can actually rescue this program. The program is critically important. It's supported by every combatant commander. It's a program that came about, by the way, Marco Rubio was one of the leaders--
MARGARET BRENNAN: -- Kristi Noem as a lawmaker, supported it --
SEN. DUCKWORTH: -- As a lawmaker, supported the program --
MARGARET BRENNAN: And President Trump signed it into law.
SEN. DUCKWORTH: And he signed it into law. This shows how incompetent Hegseth is. That in his slash and burn efforts at the Pentagon, he basically slashed and burned something without realizing that this was actually a Trump era law, and this was led by his colleagues, and now he can't back out of it. This came out of, really, some of the lessons we learned in Afghanistan when we had the Marine Corps Lionesses, which were teams of all women Marines, tough, tough fighters, who would go in and talk to the women in the villages and would get intelligence that no one else could --
MARGARET BRENNAN: -- because the women wouldn't talk to men.
SEN. DUCKWORTH: -- because women wouldn't talk to the men. And so this is, this is a vital program that keeps our military stronger and also makes it more lethal because we can find where our enemies are and go after them. And so to willingly go in and tie the hands of our troops, you know so that they can't do their jobs, is yet another example of a failure by the Secretary of Defense.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Hegseth said he'll implement the minimum required. What does that mean? Do you know?
SEN. DUCKWORTH: I don't know but he's the minimum of a Defense Secretary, so it's not surprising that he would go to the lowest levels.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you about what's happening within your party. Your fellow Midwesterner, Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin said Democrats are messaging in a way that doesn't resonate outside of blue coastal areas. She was focusing in on Bernie Sanders' use of the term oligarchy. She said use plain language, talk about kings that we oppose them. Do you agree with her that there is at minimum a messaging problem if there isn't something more within your party right now?
SEN. DUCKWORTH: Well I've long said that we should be listening to Midwest Democrats a lot more. Those of us from the center of the country, you know, represent states like Illinois, where 102 counties, 96 are red and six are blue. You know, you don't get elected in the Midwest without being able to talk to everyday voters in red counties about the issues that they worry about. To be able to talk about agricultural issues. You know, our farmers are just being battered by the Trump administration right now. The tariffs are hurting them with the products they're trying to sell, the input that they're trying to import in order to plant and grow their crops are being priced out of range. The steel that John Deere uses to make the tractors are also pricing those, that equipment out of range. I do think that, you know, the Democratic Party should be listening to the industrial Midwest more. I was so pleased we had the convention in Chicago and we were able to get that message out. Our own governor, JB Pritzker, is really out there talking a lot about issues that Democrats care deeply about, and Americans, not just Democrats, Americans care deeply about. You know, the your grocery store, prices at the grocery store, the price of the gas that goes in your tank. The fact that this administration is going to cut the LIHEAP Program, which is a program that funds low income housing and heating for rural communities is something that we should be talking more about. That's what people care about.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Your governor called for mass protests.
SEN. DUCKWORTH: Yes.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And he was out there arguing, as someone who is a billionaire, that, that people need to be out there more themselves and more vocal within the party. He talked about Democrats with a lack of guts and gumption. We're 18 months out from the midterms. Can Democrats get a strategy in place, and when?
SEN. DUCKWORTH: Definitely, definitely. And this is why you're seeing us, for example, I went into Iowa and met with the Iowa, with the Chamber of Commerce across the river from the Mississippi because they're not being adequately represented by their own representation. You're seeing Democrats go into Republican areas. Republicans are running away from town halls because the population is just so upset with them. They're going after veterans. They're cutting veterans' benefits. And you're seeing Democrats go and do town halls in Republican districts in the House and now also in the Senate. And we're traveling across the entire country talking to people about the issues that really they care most deeply about, which is their children's education, Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, all these programs are under the chopping block by this administration that is not keeping its promises to the American people. At the same time, they're simultaneously making America weaker on a global scale.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Are you going to be doing that yourself?
SEN. DUCKWORTH: I'm already doing it.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Out there campaigning for the party?
SEN. DUCKWORTH: I'm already – well no, I'm campaigning for the American people. I'm campaigning for my constituencies, the people who care deeply about national security but also want to make sure that they can afford a dozen eggs when they go grocery shopping for their families.
MARGARET BRENNAN Senator Duckworth, thank you for your time.
SEN. DUCKWORTH: Thank you.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And we'll be right back with a lot more Face the Nation. So stay with us.
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