Partway through Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s latest appearance on Capitol Hill, Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin asked whether he’d given military personnel deployed to Los Angeles orders to “shoot at unarmed protesters.” The beleaguered Pentagon chief responded by expressing confusion as to why the Michigan senator was even asking the question.

For most observers, the answer was obvious: One of Hegseth’s recent predecessors, Mark Esper, has repeatedly claimed that Donald Trump pushed to shoot protesters in the legs in 2020, and Slotkin wanted to know whether the current secretary would embrace similar principles.

She added that she gives Esper a “lot of credit” for ignoring the president’s wishes, telling Hegseth, “He had more guts and b—s than you.”

It was that kind of hearing for the former Fox News host, who struggled once again with questions he appeared unwilling or unable to answer. Do military personnel have the ability to arrest and detain protesters? Hegseth wouldn’t say. Did he coordinate decisions with a right-wing social personality? Hegseth wouldn’t say. If the president wanted to deploy Marines to Chicago and New York City over the objections of state and local officials, would he carry out the order? Hegseth wouldn’t say.

It reached a point where Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen of Nevada found it necessary to tell the Cabinet secretary that he is “not a serious person,” which seemed more than fair under the circumstances.

But perhaps most important was Hegseth’s testimony about honoring court rulings. The New York Times summarized:

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suggested to a Senate committee that he might ignore court orders regarding the domestic use of troops, if ordered to do so by President Trump. ‘I don’t believe district courts should be setting national security policy,’ Mr. Hegseth said as Democrats questioned him about deployments of military personnel to Los Angeles amid protests over immigration raids. Pressed further, he said he would honor a Supreme Court ruling.

This actually came up twice over the course of the proceedings. After Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii asked if Hegseth would follow a court order, he said, after dismissing the relevance of lower courts, “If it goes to the Supreme Court, we’ll see.”

In other words, maybe he’d defy our constitutional system of government; maybe he wouldn’t. The Pentagon chief wasn’t prepared to commit either way.

Soon after, Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts pursued a similar line of inquiry, and Hegseth again suggested he might be inclined to ignore lower courts, although this time he said he’d “abide” by Supreme Court decisions.

All of this came a week after Hegseth also refused to answer questions directly about his willingness to follow the judiciary’s rulings.

In case this isn’t obvious, let’s make a few things clear. First, federal court rulings are not optional. The military cannot decide to ignore judicial directives at will, even if the decisions come from lower courts.

Second, district and appellate courts don’t “set” national security policy, but in this country, there’s a long history of jurists weighing in on the legality of national security policies. Indeed, it’s part of the courts’ job.

And third, in context, the Democratic senators were asking about domestic troop deployments, which should have nothing to do with national security policy.

There were already widespread concerns about the Trump administration and its embrace of an authoritarian-style vision. Hegseth’s testimony went a long way toward making those concerns worse.