Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s nominee for defense secretary, was unable to name a single country in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations during his confirmation hearing Tuesday—even naming Australia instead.

Senator Tammy Duckworth asked Hegseth to speak to the importance of the political and economic alliance, in an effort to make a point of how unqualified he was to lead the Pentagon and its massive workforce.

“You talked about the Indo-Pacific a little bit.… Can you name the importance of at least one of the nations in ASEAN, and what type of agreement we have with at least one of those nations? And how many nations are in ASEAN, by the way?

“I couldn’t tell you the exact amount of nations in that, but I know we have allies in South Korea, and Japan, and in AUKUS with Australia, [we] work on submarines with them …”

“Mr. Hegseth none of those countries are in ASEAN. None of those three countries that you’ve mentioned are in ASEAN,” Duckworth replied. “I suggest you do a little homework before you prepare for these types of negotiations.”

“This might seem like a small, embarrassing gotcha, but ASEAN is an acronym you encounter a lot if you do even very basic reading about the Pentagon’s strategy to counter China,” Yahoo’s Jordan Weissman wrote on X.

ASEAN consists of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. The United States regularly conducts joint military exercises with the member states.