Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth left his officials fuming after he summoned hundreds of the U.S. military’s top leaders to Virginia from across the globe for a bizarre rant.
In an era when top brass can dial in from around the world, Pentagon Pete ordered generals and admirals to converge in person at Quantico, Virginia.
The result was a 90-minute spectacle that many in uniform say was a political performance piece that should have been an email.
Current and former Pentagon officials told Politico that Hegseth—who prefers to go by the moniker “Secretary of War”—could’ve saved both time and money by sending his message by email.
Instead, he delivered remarks about “fat generals,” men with beards, and “dudes in dresses” to a room packed with senior officers.
About 800 generals and admirals were ordered to attend the Virginia event, which Hegseth staged alongside President Donald Trump. The meeting was billed as an attempt to rally the military’s leadership, but instead turned into a broadside against “woke” culture. Officials dismissed the effort as a wasteful stunt meant to push grooming standards that align with the MAGA agenda.
Even before the gathering, some military leaders raised alarms about the risks of concentrating so many senior figures in a single room.
“It‘s a waste of time for a lot of people who emphatically had better things they could and should be doing,” a former senior defense official told Politico. “It’s also an inexcusable strategic risk to concentrate so many leaders in the operational chain of command in the same publicly known time and place, to convey an inane message of little merit.”
One defense official said the event was “more like a press conference than briefing the generals.”
“Could have been an email,” the official added.
Another said the spectacle was a “total waste of money” and that it was “not quite a loyalty test, but … on the spectrum of loyalty to ideology.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the Pentagon for comment.
Over the course of 45 minutes, Hegseth railed against “woke” initiatives within the government.
“Foolish and reckless political leaders set the wrong compass heading, and we lost our way. We became the ‘Woke Department,’” Hegseth told the assembled officers. “Not anymore.”
“No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses. No more climate-change worship. No more division, distraction, or gender delusions. No more debris. As I’ve said before and will say again, we are done with that sh-t,” Hegseth said.
The defense secretary warned: “If the words I’m speaking today are making your hearts sink, then you should do the honorable thing and resign.”
Trump told the audience that anyone opposed to Hegseth’s message could leave, but warned, “There goes your rank, there goes your future.”
The remarks came as the Trump administration presses forward in its push to purge the government of what the president calls “woke” policies and programs.
Separately, the Pentagon’s inspector general is preparing to release findings from an investigation into Hegseth, who has faced scrutiny after sharing military attack plans on a Signal chat that included The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg.
