A retired Army[1] officer and conservative commentator who could not be approved for a Pentagon job during the first Trump administration because of past Islamaphobic and conspiratorial statements has been confirmed by the Senate to be the Pentagon's personnel chief in the second Trump administration.
In a 52-46 party-line vote Tuesday afternoon, the Senate confirmed Anthony Tata to become the under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, the top official overseeing the health and well-being of the more than 3 million uniformed and civilian personnel working for the Defense Department.
Tata is a retired Army brigadier general whose post-military career includes serving as a school district administrator in Washington, D.C., and North Carolina and as North Carolina's secretary of transportation, a job he abruptly resigned from.
More recently, he has been a steady presence on Fox News as a political and military commentator.
Toward the end of the first Trump administration, in 2020, Tata was nominated to be under secretary of defense for policy, essentially the No. 3 position in the Pentagon. But his nomination was withdrawn after Republicans who led the Senate Armed Services Committee canceled his confirmation hearing amid mounting controversy over incendiary statements, including calling former President Barack Obama a "terrorist leader."
At his confirmation hearing in May[3] to become Pentagon personnel chief, Tata expressed regret for the comments that doomed his previous nomination and said they were "out of character."
But he also defended more recent comments that Democrats grilled him about. Those more recent statements include social media posts in which he said that all four-star officers appointed by former President Joe Biden should be fired and that the Posse Comitatus Act, the law that prohibits the military from conducting domestic law enforcement in most cases, should be "suspended."
Democrats argued that those statements, coupled with his past comments, are disqualifying.
"I respect and I appreciate his military service, but his record of public statements and behavior toward individuals with whom he disagrees politically is disqualifying for a position of this significance," Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said on the Senate floor Tuesday. "I am concerned Mr. Tata has a misguided and discriminatory view of the military and civilian workforces he would oversee."
At the hearing, Tata claimed that his reference to Posse Comitatus was meant to be a call for better border security and that he did "not know" whether the law should be suspended. Tata also maintained that his call to fire officers was about reinforcing the need to follow lawful orders regardless of politics and that he would not support a "blatant purge" of military officers.
While Republicans recoiled at Tata's comments the first time he was nominated, they dismissed his comments this time around.
"The thing I've learned about Tony is that he takes responsibility for his words and actions," Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said in May while introducing Tata at his confirmation hearing. "He learns from his past mistakes, which is a testament of a good leader."
