Omar slams Republican ‘hypocrites’ after military clashes with Tucker Carlson

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) took aim at Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and other Republicans after Cruz penned a letter to the Pentagon chief complaining about comments military leaders made knocking Fox News’s Tucker Carlson.

Carlson has been under fire for bashing the steps the armed forces have taken in recent years to become more gender-inclusive.

“Republicans going after the military because of misogyny and a dangerously radical Fox News pundit is just wild and revealing. Like I said before, these hypocrites do ultimately tell on themselves,” Omar wrote in a tweet late Sunday. 

Republicans going after the military because of misogyny and a dangerously radical Fox News pundit is just wild and revealing.

Like I said before, these hypocrites do ultimately tell on themselves. https://t.co/jT5t28pAC4

— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) March 15, 2021

The tweet came in a response to another posted by Cruz hours before detailing a letter he sent to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. The letter called for a meeting with the Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. David H. Berger, in response to what he referred to as “systematic, public attacks” by the Pentagon against Carlson that he said “in substance, tone, and political resonance are inexplicably inappropriate.”

Cruz was referring to comments some senior military leaders made last weekk voicing support for female service members. President Biden, on International Women’s Day last week, pointed to efforts to make the armed forces more inclusive to women, efforts Carlson attacked.

Those included maternity flight suits in the Air Force and changes to grooming standards that allowed for more hairstyles for women, such as cornrows and twists, among others. 

“So we’ve got new hairstyles and maternity flight suits. Pregnant women are going to fight our wars. It’s a mockery of the U.S. military,” Carlson said in television remarks the following day. 

“While China’s military becomes more masculine as it has assembled the world’s largest navy, our military needs to become, as Joe Biden says, more feminine, whatever feminine means anymore,” he also said, even though the efforts he targeted were initiated under the previous administration.

Carlson drew immediate backlash following his comments, including heat from military leaders like Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael Grinston, who called the host’s comments “divisive” and said they “don’t reflect our values.”

“Women lead our most lethal units with character,” Grinston also said. “They will dominate ANY future battlefield we’re called to fight on.”

Marine Corps Master Gunnery Sgt. Scott Stalker, who is the command senior enlisted leader of U.S. Space Command, among other leaders, also rejected Carlson’s comments, saying the news host’s remarks were “based on zero days of service in the armed forces.” 

In his letter to Austin on Sunday, Cruz referred to the critical comments by military leaders as behavior that “is completely unacceptable in the United States of America.” 

“Multiple military leaders have tweeted video of themselves, while in uniform, as they attack Carlson, including the Command Senior Enlisted Leader of U.S. Space Command, the Sgt. Major of the Army, the Commanding General of the U.S. Army Maneuver Center of Excellence, and the commanding officer of the II Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) Information Group (IG),” he wrote.

“Throughout this campaign, military leaders have suggested and insinuated that it is out of bounds for civilians to criticize the military unless they’ve served,” he said.

“This spectacle risks politicizing the military after several centuries of efforts to keep military officials out of domestic affairs, undermining civil-military relations by having the military take a side in a contentious cultural dispute, and the perception that military leaders are happily weaponizing the institution against political critics of the sitting administration,” he continued.

In addition to requesting an in-person meeting with Berger to discuss the issues, Cruz also asked for a plan to address similar behavior from service members.

“I also request an official response from the department and implementation of a policy that insulates other units from being similarly mobilized against the speech of American citizens or in the service of left wing political causes,” he said.