Retired Navy Captain Hung Cao, the Trump-backed Republican running against Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, went on a bizarre and disturbing rant Wednesday, blaming a drag queen for low military recruitment numbers and saying the U.S. military needs people “who are going to rip out their own guts, eat them and ask for seconds.”
During a televised debate, moderator and WRIC anchor Deanna Allbrittin asked Cao to explain a tweet where he claimed diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices—which he alleged were a “growing obsession” of the Biden administration—were to blame for eight-decade low military recruitment numbers.
“When you’re using a drag queen to recruit for the Navy that’s not the people we want,” replied Cao. “What we need is alpha males and alpha females who are going to rip out their own guts, eat them, and ask for seconds. Those are young men and women that are going to win wars.”
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NBC reached out to the campaign for comment after the debate, and received a statement from Cao saying: “I just said what everyone believes as fact.”
Cao appeared to be referring to a case last year when second-class petty officer Joshua Kelly, a drag queen performer, was selected as one of five ambassadors for the Navy's Digital Ambassador Pilot Program.
Over a dozen Republican senators threw a hissy fit when the pilot was announced, asking “Does the Navy endorse drag shows?” and criticizing Kelly’s use of TikTok, but it only comprised a minuscule fragment of Naval recruiting efforts.
GOP elected officials have also attacked LGBTQ events held at military bases—one of the senators who raised concerns about the ambassador pilot, Marco Rubio (R-FL), helped get a kids’ reading event with a drag performer at a U.S. airbase in Germany canceled in 2022.
Experts have attributed the decline in military recruitment numbers not to drag queens but to social and economic issues impacting adult males, including declining college enrollment and graduation rates, increased suicide and drug overdose deaths, and lower participation rates in the general workforce.
Cao, meanwhile, has earned criticism for holding almost no campaign events and remaining so obscure that no one’s bothered to make a Wikipedia page about him, The Washington Post noted. He consistently trails Kaine in polls.
Kaine, understandably, was slightly confused by Cao’s blood and guts answer.
“I didn’t really understand my opponent's argument,” said Kaine. “He went all around the block and I'm not sure what his point was about DEI.”
