Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned women around the U.S. about what's to come after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth amplified a video about a Christian nationalist church that showed pastors saying that women shouldn't be allowed to vote.
The segment Hegseth aired was a nearly seven-minute CNN investigation into Doug Wilson, cofounder of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC).
The video included a pastor from Wilson’s church calling for the repeal of women’s constitutional right to vote, another suggesting that voting should be done by households, and a female congregant stating that she defers to her husband.
You can watch the video below.
Hegseth did not explicitly call for women to have their voting rights repealed but did include the following message:
“All of Christ for All of Life.”
You can see Hegseth's post below.
A Pentagon spokesperson later defended Hegseth, saying Hegseth is “a proud member" of a CREC affiliate and he “very much appreciates many of Mr. Wilson’s writings and teachings.”
In response, Clinton issued the following warning:
"You know how people called women hysterical for predicting the right wing would take down Roe v. Wade (which they've done) and then attack access to birth control (which they're doing)? Hear me when I say that women's very right to vote is next."
Many joined her in sounding the alarm, noting that the GOP has made it very clear what they will set out to do.
None of this is surprising coming from Hegseth.
Hegseth has previously asserted "we shouldn't have women in combat roles" and that "our institutions don't have to incentivize that in places where traditionally, not traditionally, over human history men in those positions are more capable."
Earlier this year, he claimed in a post on X that he'd ended the "woke" Women, Peace & Security (WPS) program because it was an initiative created by the Biden administration. He claimed the program was "pushed by feminists and left-wing activists," adding that it's ultimately "distracting from our core task: WAR-FIGHTING."
However, it was President Donald Trump—not former President Joe Biden—who signed the Women, Peace and Security Act into law in October 2017, following bipartisan support in Congress. In fact, then-Representative Kristi Noem, now Homeland Security Secretary, was one of its original authors, and current Secretary of State Marco Rubio co-sponsored the Senate version.