By Daniel Dale, CNN
(CNN) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made a false claim about the military in his testimony to the House on Wednesday. Then he repeated the false claim in his testimony to the Senate on Thursday.
Democratic Rep. Jill Tokuda asked Hegseth at a Wednesday hearing of the House Armed Services Committee if he would comply with a hypothetical future order from President Donald Trump to deploy troops to polling places during this year’s midterm elections. Tokuda told him such a deployment would violate the federal law that prohibits sending federal troops to voting locations unless that is “necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States.”
After saying he rejects the notion that Trump would issue unlawful orders, Hegseth said moments later in the exchange: “I will note that in 2024, troops were depl… – that was Joe Biden by the way, Joe Biden – were deployed to polling locations in 15 states.” He repeated, “2024 – Joe Biden – troops deployed to polling locations in 15 states. Explain that one to me.”
There’s an easy explanation. Hegseth’s claim is not true.
All of the National Guard activations connected to the 2024 election were ordered by state governors, not by Biden. And all 11 of the states that responded to CNN’s requests for information last week said that none of their troops were deployed to polling locations.
Rather, the states said their Guard personnel worked behind the scenes at other locations – helping with election cybersecurity or serving as internal liaisons – or that their state Guard was not actually activated for the election after all.
Iowa was typical. “We help in a cybersecurity capacity with any major election. But we never leave our state emergency operations center,” Iowa National Guard spokesperson Jackie Schmillen said in an interview, adding that the state Guard personnel are “in a basement.” She emphasized, “We have never gone to a polling station as part of an election.”
Similarly, “The Arizona National Guard did not deploy National Guardsmen to polling locations in 2024,” state Guard spokesperson Erin Hannigan said in an email. Rather, she said, “Our Cyber Joint Task Force activated two personnel in a state active-duty standby role. In the event of a potential cyber incident, our Cyber Joint Task Force members were available to assist the Arizona Department of Homeland Security. No such request was made.”
Hegseth didn’t specify which states he was referring to; the Defense Department acknowledged that it had received CNN’s requests for comment on his claims but did not end up providing a response. So CNN reached out to the 15 states that an Election Day 2024 article in military publication Stars and Stripes said had activated Guard troops for that day, citing the Guard as the source of the information.
Four of the states (Alabama, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin) did not respond, but we could not find evidence those states sent troops to polling locations in 2024, either. Regardless, it’s clear from the 11 states that did respond – again, all of which said they deployed no troops to polling locations – that Hegseth’s claim that troops “were deployed to polling locations in 15 states” is incorrect.
Hegseth was challenged on his Wednesday claim by Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Thursday. But Hegseth reiterated during that exchange: “By the way, in 2024, under the Biden administration, 15 states did deplo