Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) took a shot at Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Saturday ahead of President Donald Trump’s military parade.
Raskin appeared on MSNBC’s “The Weekend” to weigh in on an answer Hegseth gave to Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) at a hearing Thursday. The secretary of defense was asked if he would “respect any Supreme Court decision” that prevented the Marines from being deployed at protests on U.S. soil.
“What I can say is we should not have local judges determining foreign policy or national security policy for the country,” Hegseth said.
“The Weekend” host Elise Jordan asked Raskin whether Hegseth’s answer indicated that the U.S. is in a “constitutional crisis.”
“Well, we clearly have too many DUI hires in the Trump administration, starting with Secretary Hegseth,” replied Raskin, nodding to reports of the defense secretary’s excessive drinking.
Raskin continued, “We have a supreme Constitution, we don’t have a supreme leader. We have no dictators here, we have no kings, we have no monarchs.”
The representative went on to say the job of the president is to ensure the country’s laws are “faithfully” executed.
“Let the message go out through the Trump administration, your job is to faithfully execute the laws that have been adopted by the people in the House and the Senate and signed into law by the president,” Raskin continued.
The Maryland Democrat’s comments came ahead of Trump’s military parade and amid nationwide “No Kings” protests on Saturday. The president previously threatened that protestors at the parade would be met with “very heavy force.”
Raskin addressed that comment, along with other recent attacks on dissent from the Trump administration, including Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) being handcuffed at Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s press conference and Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.)
“Having the first amendment, the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, the right to petition government for redress of grievances, the right of the people to freely assemble is the very opposite of having a king, because kings brook no dissent,” Raskin said. “They don’t tolerate people’s free speech.”
