Austin gave what is expected to be his final television interview as secretary to NBC News, which will air Wednesday. Hegseth, who recently left his position at Fox News, is a former infantry major in the Army National Guard and was awarded two Bronze Stars and a Combat Infantryman Badge.

“I have spent 41 years in uniform, three long tours in Iraq, one in Afghanistan, and everywhere I went on a battlefield, there were women in our formation,” Austin told the outlet. “I would tell you that, you know, our women are the finest troops in the world. Quite frankly, some of the finest in the world.”

Hegseth makes an argument against women in combat roles in his latest book, The War on Warriors. He explained on the Shawn Ryan Show podcast that the inclusion of women in combat “hasn’t made us more effective, hasn’t made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated.”

“They do impact readiness. They make us better. They make us stronger,” Austin said of female military members. “And again, what I’ve seen from our women is quite incredible, and I’m not — this is not hyperbole. This is fact.”

Meanwhile, women have increasingly joined the military at a slow rate. A Department of Defense report from 2023 reported that 17.5% of its force was female, which was slightly more than in 2021. At the same time, total service members decreased by 2.7%.