Grooming standards, “toxic leadership,” and culture wars were the themes Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth chose for his unprecedented short-notice gathering of more than 800 military leaders and their senior enlisted advisors from commands around the world to a Marine base in Virginia Tuesday morning.
Shortly before Hegseth spoke, President Donald Trump told reporters the generals and admirals had come to hear “how well we’re doing militarily.” But Hegseth spent most of his time repeating many of the gripes heard during Trump’s presidential campaign.
“No more dudes in dresses. No more climate change worship,” Hegseth said in his Tuesday address. “We are done with that shit,” he insisted. “For too long we’ve promoted too many uniformed leaders for the wrong reasons—based on their race, gender quotas, based on historic so-called ‘firsts,’” said Hegseth, who has fired black and women leaders while offering no evidence that they were inappropriately appointed or had performed poorly.
Here are a few other lines from Hegseth’s speech to the highest-ranking members of the U.S. military:
- On names: “Welcome to the War Department. Because the era of the Department of Defense is over.”
- On accountability: “We are overhauling an inspector general process that has been weaponized, putting complainers and poor performers in the driver seat. We are doing the same with the equal opportunity policies. No more frivolous complaints, no more anonymous complaints,” he said, which would seem to protect domestic abusers in the Pentagon’s ranks.
- More on accountability: “You should not pay for an earnest mistake for your entire career. That’s why today, at my direction, we’re making changes to the retention of adverse information on personnel records.” He also said he’s ordered a review of “the department’s definitions of so-called toxic leadership, bullying and hazing to empower leaders to enforce standards without fear of retribution or second guessing.”
- On fitness: “I don’t want my son serving alongside troops who are out of shape or in combat units with females who can’t meet the same combat arms physical standards as men.”
- More on fitness: “Frankly, it’s tiring to look out at combat formations and see fat troops. Likewise, it’s completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals.”
- On beards: “The era of unprofessional appearance is over. No more beardos…if you don’t meet the male-level physical standards for combat positions, cannot pass a PT test or don’t want to shave and look professional, it’s time for a new position.”
- On drill sergeants: “We’re empowering drill sergeants to instill healthy fear in new recruits, ensuring that future warfighters are forged…they can put hands on recruits.”
- On ethics in conflict: “We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt, and kill the enemies of our country. No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement.”
- On Hegseth’s view of the military: “You kill people and break things for a living. You are not politically correct.”
President Trump took the podium after Hegseth, and told the crowd, “I’ve never walked into a room so silent before. Just have a good time. And if you want to applaud, you applaud.”
He added: “If you don’t like what I’m saying, you can leave the room. Of course, there goes your rank. There goes your future. But you just feel nice and loose,” the president told his captive audience.
Trump then launched into a speech that wandered among some of his favorite recent topics, including his desire for the Nobel Peace Prize; the Gulf of Mexico; how Democrats are “a lot of bad people”; how “everyone loves my signature”; how he thinks he’s ended eight wars; his desire to make Canada the 51st state; how he believes the U.S. Navy uses “ugly ships” and “I think we should maybe start thinking about battleships”; that he thinks the U.S. is being invaded “from within”; his stated belief that Washington, D.C., is more dangerous than Afghanistan; how he’s ordered U.S. troops to occupy American cities and how that’s “gonna be a major part for some people in this room”; and relatedly, how he thinks “we should use some of these dangerous [U.S.] cities as training grounds for our military.”
One lingering question: Was this in-person meeting necessary? After all, “The military is well-equipped to hold meetings online in a secure fashion,” former Justice Department attorney for the Northern District of Alabama. Joyce Vance wrote Monday evening.
Reaction from Capitol Hill:
- “He billed the taxpayers millions to fly every general to Washington to hear this weirdo drivel,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., writing on social media Tuesday. (One recent estimate put the costs somewhere between three and six million dollars.) Also, “He’s telling us what he’s doing. Using the military to suppress protest,” Murphy added.
- “We need a Defense Secretary focused on fighting real wars instead of culture wars,” said Delaware Democratic Sen. Chris Coons.
- “America’s military leadership has more important things to do than listen to lectures on character from an unqualified drunk who assaults women,” said Virginia Democratic Rep. Don Beyer. “Any soldier who was as careless as Hegseth was with war plans would be fired if not prosecuted. And everyone in that room knows it.”
Commentary from a retired Air Force one-star: “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s short-notice, no-explanation summoning of more than 800 general and flag officers from command positions around the world demonstrates a lack of respect for their time and their jobs. It suggests a concomitant lack of respect for their advice”—and that endangers “the civilian-military dialogue, the military itself, and the country.” Read Paula Thornhill’s argument, here.
One last note: Trump and Hegseth’s forthcoming national defense strategy has raised “serious concerns” among top Pentagon officers, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Dan Caine, the Washington Post reported Monday evening.
In particular, Trump and Hegseth’s focus “on perceived threats to the homeland, narrowing U.S. competition with China, and downplaying America’s role in Europe and Africa” have fostered a “growing sense of frustration with a plan they consider myopic and potentially irrelevant, given the president’s highly personal and sometimes contradictory approach to foreign policy,” four Post reporters write. Read more (gift link), here.
Additional reading:
- “AUKUS survives Pentagon review, with US submarine sales to proceed,” Nikkei Asia reported Tuesday;
- “Marines say they hit recruiting goals and point to ‘unapologetic’ standards,” the Associated Press reported Monday;
- “US revokes visa for Colombia’s president after he urges American soldiers to disobey Trump,” AP reported Saturday
- Commentary: “Military AI needs guardrails not to slow it down, but to keep it useful,” Mieke Eoyang wrote Monday for Defense One;
- And ICYMI, “George Hardy, last of the Tuskegee Airmen’s World War II combat pilots, dies at 100,” NBC News reported Friday.
Welcome to this Tuesday edition of The D Brief, a newsletter dedicated to developments affecting the future of U.S. national security, brought to you by Ben Watson and Bradley Peniston. It’s more important than ever to stay informed, so thank you for reading. Share your tips and feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1954, the USS Nautilus submarine was commissioned as the world’s first nuclear-powered vessel.
Shutdown watch
Read the Defense Department’s shutdown guidance, here. TLDR: Just over 400,000 of DOD’s 741,477 civilian employees will be kept on the job, either because they are “[n]ecessary to protect life and property” or because their salaries are not funded through regular appropriations acts.
Noted: DOD officials had been unable to provide the current number of DOD civilians when asked about it last week; they declined to provide details about Hegseth’s ongoing efforts to cut the workforce.
Latest: “All signs point to the government shutting down at midnight Tuesday night,” Politico posted at 8 a.m. on Tuesday. “Just when Monday’s meeting between President Donald Trump and congressional leaders brought a glimmer of a potential offramp—the president expressed openness to extending Obamacare credits, Democrats’ asking price—it was back to the status quo hours later.
“Trump posted a deepfake video Monday night of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer talking about why voters hate Democrats and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries in a sombrero and mustache, which Jeffries called bigoted. Now, just 16 hours until the deadline, there’s no reason to expect a breakthrough. And leaders haven’t set a follow-up meeting on the impasse.” Read on, here.
Charted: Congress’ struggle to fund the government, in concise yet detailed graphs and text, from the New York Times, here.
Related reading: “Shutdown could erode cyber defenses by sidelining critical staff, experts warn,” Nextgov reported Monday.
Workforce cuts to take effect today: “This week marks the largest single-year exodus of federal US employees in almost 80 years,” Reuters writes. That’s because the delayed resignations of more than 100,000 federal workers, part of the Trump administration’s effort to shrink the federal workforce, take effect tonight.
DOD workers account for the lion’s share of workers taking buyouts or early retirement: more than 61,000, officials told Defense One’s Meghann Myers last week.
Historian’s take: “This year’s cuts to the government workforce will mean the loss of at least 275,000 workers, the largest decline in civilian federal employment in a single year since World War II,” Boston College’s Heather Cox Richardson wrote Monday.
Related reading:
Troops in U.S. streets
As armed, masked agents patrol downtown Chicago, Illinois governor says National Guard troops could be next. AP: “Trump has waffled on sending the military, but Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker said Monday it appeared the federal government would deploy 100 troops. Pritzker said the Illinois National Guard received word that the Department of Homeland Security sent a memo to the Defense Department requesting troops to protect ICE personnel and facilities.”
AP’s article also offers “a snapshot of where things stand with federal law enforcement activity in Chicago, Portland, Memphis and New Orleans.” Read more, here.
Louisiana’s Gov. Jeff Landry: “Tonight, we’re sending the Department of War a request to send the National Guard, asking them to deploy the National Guard here in Louisiana into our cities like New Orleans and Baton Rouge and others,” the Republican governor said Monday night on Fox TV.
Reminder: Landry does not need authorization to activate his own National Guard. He’s in charge of the force.
In Oregon: A judge set a Friday hearing for the state’s argument to block Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops, the Oregon Capital Chronicle reported Monday. In the meantime, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., “who has led the push to force the Treasury to turn over Epstein-related Treasury records of at least $1.5 billion in suspicious transactions to Senate investigators—posted a video of the ICE facility Trump claims is under siege. There were no people there at all,” Richardson wrote.
Background:
Around the world
Trump secured Netanyahu’s agreement to a Gaza plan that would make the U.S. president the temporary chairman of a board in charge of the redevelopment of the seaside Palestinian territory, the New York Times reported off the leaders’ Monday meeting.
However, it’s far from clear that Hamas will agree to the plan, although Trump said he would back further Israeli war in Gaza if the group declines. More, here.
The far-right digital network Black Sun Rising Militia planned to paralyze Europe in a coordinated attack on synagogues, mosques and several Swedish media houses last year, reports SVT Nyheter, the news arm of Swedish public television, after the conviction in Brazil of the network’s leader, a 35-year-old American who had been recruiting people in the Nordic countries on social media. A bit more, here.
Lastly today: “FBI boss Kash Patel gave New Zealand officials 3D-printed guns illegal to possess under local laws,” AP reported on Tuesday, during his July visit to the country. More on that situation, and the diplomatic discomfort caused by Patel’s remarks on China, here.
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