(The Center Square) – Illinois lawmakers disagree over the qualifications of President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth.

Illinois U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, a veteran, said on CBS that Hegseth was “completely wrong” in believing that women should not serve in the military in combat roles.

“Remember that the Pentagon is three million soldiers, women and civilians. This is a budget of over $900 billion. He’s never run anything that big,” said Duckworth, D-Schaumburg. “And frankly, women make our armed forces more effective. For example, in my unit, I was often the only female in an all-male unit, and my gender was not an issue. I just adapted and we continued to complete the mission.

State Rep. David Friess, a veteran, said if he had to guess, Duckworth was offended by Hegseth’s comments he made on the Shawn Ryan podcast.

“If you’re a woman, you might be offended when you think women are looked down upon and I don’t think that was Pete’s motivation. I think he was just talking about physical realities that men are only strong for women,” Friess said. R-Red Bud. “What I say and what I think Pete says about being, for example, a Navy Seal, regardless of the physical requirements, should be the same for men and women.”

On the podcast, Hegseth said he didn’t like women in combat.

“I love the women in the military who have made incredible contributions, because everything about men and women serving together makes the situation more complicated and complications in combat lead to even worse casualties,” Hegseth said. “When you analyze what they did in the studies to open the door for women in combat, they just ignored it. Special Ops has held up pretty well (as far as women in combat are concerned). If they lowered the standards for becoming a Navy Seal just to let women in…that would change the capabilities of Navy Seals.

Earlier this month, Trump chose Hegseth, a former Fox News host and Army veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hegseth has been criticized for his stance on women in combat roles, as well as his level of experience.

Duckworth, who was deployed to Iraq in 2004 as a Blackhawk helicopter pilot and was seriously injured when her helicopter was hit by an RPG, said Hegseth was a “pretty low man in the military” and that he “had never held a command post”.

“Having served in combat yourself, what do you think of the idea that women make combat harder?” asked a CBS host.

“He was a platoon leader, I think, once or twice, but he never even commanded a company. This is a man who is completely unqualified for this position,” Duckworth said.

Hegseth volunteered to serve in Baghdad and Samarra, Iraq, where he served first as an infantry platoon leader and then as a civil-military operations officer. Friess, who served in Desert Storm, said Hegseth was uniquely qualified and he would love to see him serve in the role.

“There are only a limited number of positions in each unit, so he very well could have gotten the next promotion if he had stayed longer, but if there was someone there who had more time than him and they were both equally qualified, so this person with more time is going to get that promotion over him (Hegseth),” Friess said.

Friess said the military “kills people” and “blows things up” and that’s all that should be considered when a man or woman enters the service. Friess suggested that Duckworth likely opposes Hegseth’s position that skin color and gender are irrelevant when recruiting new military personnel or promoting them.