WASHINGTON — A retired U.S. brigadier general who failed to get through the confirmation process in the first Trump administration got renewed scrutiny for his political and anti-Islamic social media posts during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Tuesday .
Anthony Tata, a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump, has been nominated to become the defense undersecretary for personnel. His nomination to be defense undersecretary for policy in 2020 was stalled when senators canceled the hearing after a furor over remarks he made about Islam and other inflammatory comments.
Tata was criticized for tweets in 2018 calling Islam the “most oppressive violent religion I know of,” and calling former President Barack Obama a “terrorist leader” and referring to him as Muslim. The tweets were later taken down.
“I don’t appreciate your partisan tweets, your partisan statements,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., during Tuesday’s hearing, referring to remarks Tata made on Fox News in 2020. “I don’t appreciate that because I’m a Democrat, you say that I would support Hamas or Hezbollah or Iran.”
Tata responded that, “Those were out of character comments. I regret making those comments. Five years ago, I submitted an apology letter to this committee about those comments. I have 45 years of solutions-oriented leadership.”
He said that if confirmed he’d focus on taking care of service members, their families and department civilians.
Tata also would be responsible for implementing and advising on planned cuts of thousands of civilian personnel and the recently ordered elimination of 10% to 20% of the general officer positions across the military.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., spoke on behalf of Tata at the start of the hearing, acknowledging there would be “some tough questions about Tony’s past comments.” But he said Tata learns from his mistakes, “which is a testament of a good leader.”
Democrats grilled Tata on whether he would support efforts by the Trump administration to purge military leaders it doesn’t like or that it doesn’t believe are loyal enough to the president.
“You called for a complete purge of Pentagon leadership, including firing all four-star general officers and senior career civilian employees,” said Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I. “This gives me concern that you have a misguided, biased view of the military and civilian workforce that you would oversee.”
Tata said those comments were in response to a published report that said senior generals and admirals were discussing “how to resist” Trump, adding that military leaders don’t get to choose which lawful orders they follow. Reed said the report specified that the military officers were discussing what to do if Trump issued “unlawful” orders, such as requiring troops to conduct law enforcement duties in a U.S. city.
If confirmed Tata also would be involved in Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s plans to slash diversity and equity programs, review military standards and ban transgender men and women from serving.
He was asked if he would remove military leaders he considers woke or politically misguided for carrying out lawful orders during a past administration. Tata said he sees no reason why that would impact a promotion, and instead would base decisions on merit.
Tata, who had been a Fox News commentator, withdrew his name from consideration for the undersecretary job in August 2020, during the final months of Trump’s presidency. He was then appointed by Trump to serve temporarily as the deputy undersecretary for defense policy, bypassing the hearing process.