WASHINGTON — Alaska U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski was the only Republican to vote no this week on President Trump’s nominee to be undersecretary of the Navy. Hung Cao was nonetheless confirmed Wednesday with 52 votes.
A Murkowski spokesman said the senator respects Cao’s military service but “has concerns about his past statements and conduct.”
Cao retired from the Navy as a captain and then ran twice for political office. His opposition to diversity in recruitment fits with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s war on wokeness. At a debate for U.S. Senate candidates in Virginia last year, Cao said the military needs to recruit what he called alpha-males and alpha-females who are going to “to rip out their own guts, eat them and ask for seconds.”
U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan voted to confirm Cao.
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