Hung Cao, the Republican Senate nominee in Virginia, disparaged drag queens and people who are tolerant of them by implying Wednesday that they are not tough enough to serve in the military.

Cao made the remarks in a televised debate against Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine when one of the moderators asked him about his previous comments tying what he called the White House’s “growing obsession” with diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, to military recruitment issues. Cao, a Navy veteran, was asked to explain how he believes DEI could affect military recruitment.

“When you’re using a, you know, drag queen to recruit for the Navy, that’s not the people we want,” Cao said after he was pressed about the issue following his initial response. “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.”

During the Biden administration, the Navy reportedly had a Digital Ambassador Pilot Program for recruitment that included a petty officer second class who also performed in drag, prompting Republican pushback. The program ended in April 2023 and was not continued, the undersecretary of the Navy wrote in a letter to Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., who had objected to the program.

Reached for comment about the debate remarks, Cao’s campaign responded with a statement from him saying, “I just said what everyone believes as fact.”

He then reiterated his response from the debate and added that men and women who “rip out their own guts” are the ones who “are going to win wars. Not drag queens.”

Cao has posted a clip of the exchange to his X account, threading a link for supporters to donate to his campaign.

According to his campaign website, Cao is a retired Navy captain who served with special operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia. He also had noncombat assignments in collaboration with the Navy, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI.

He made the Wednesday during a discussion of the military’s history of failure to meet its recruitment goals in recent years.

Kaine responded said that he “didn’t understand my opponent’s argument.”

Kaine, who was former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s running mate in 2016, said the military needed to reach out to new constituencies and convince people about the benefits of military service.

“‘DEI’ is a red herring,” he said.

Former President Donald Trump endorsed Cao in the Senate GOP primary; Cao later spoke at the Republican National Convention.

The Cook Political Report, which examines the competitiveness of congressional seats and the presidential race, characterizes the Virginia Senate seat as “solid” Democrat.