Pete Hegseth has no idea what he is doing

Just past 8:00 this morning, the Secretary of Defense, who now insists on being called the Secretary of War, walked into the Pentagon Press Briefing Room dressed like a parody of American power. His navy-blue suit pulled tight across his chest, a striped flag tie knotted to perfection, a stars-and-stripes handkerchief stuffed into his breast pocket like he was the star of a reality TV show, not the man leading the most powerful military on earth. And what followed was one of the most disturbing, disgraceful statements to ever come from the head of the U.S. military in modern history.

With his hair slicked back across his head, he stepped up to the podium, adjusted the microphone, cleared his throat, and with a strange blend of nervousness and performance, scanned the room. And for the next thirty minutes, Pete Hegseth stumbled through his prepared remarks, trying to dress up bloodshed as patriotism, while the country, and the world, watched just how far our top military leadership has fallen under his command.

He gave a grand performance as he spoke about war, like it was a campaign rally. He bragged about raining “death and destruction from the sky all day long.” He declared the Iranian regime was “toast.” He smiled and said we were “punching them while they’re down,” and that’s “exactly how it should be.”

And then, in a moment that was as predictable as it was grotesque, he closed his formal opening statement with a Bible verse. Not one of peace or of mourning. Not even one of remembrance, despite having just stood, only hours earlier, at Dover Air Force Base for the dignified transfer of another American service member killed during this war. Instead, he weaponized Psalm 144: “Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle.” Then he added his own prayer, asking God for “total victory over those who seek to harm our military.”

This is the man now in charge of the most powerful military on earth. And what we saw today wasn’t leadership. It was cosplay. A costume audition for a role he will never be qualified to play.

And here’s what made the whole thing even more unsettling. Standing just a few feet from Hegseth at the same briefing was General Dan Caine, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And the contrast between the two of them was so stark it felt like watching two entirely different briefings happening side by side.

Now, let me be clear about who Dan Caine is. He is a Trump loyalist. He got this job because Trump handpicked him after Trump claimed at the 2024 Conservative Political Action Conference that Caine had once told him, “I love you, sir. I think you’re great, sir. I’ll kill for you, sir.” Trump also claimed Caine was wearing a MAGA hat when they first met. Caine has since disputed both of those stories under oath. But the point remains: he is here because Trump wanted him here. He is the first Chairman of the Joint Chiefs who never served at the rank of four-star general before being nominated. He is the first to be nominated while in retirement. He is the first to come from the Air National Guard. Trump had to waive the legal requirements to put him in this seat. And multiple Capitol Hill officials admitted at the time that when his name was announced, they had to Google him.

This is not a man I’m holding up as a hero. He has his own agenda. He has been quietly navigating Trump’s inner circle, working to stay in the president’s good graces while reportedly pulling his punches when speaking to Trump directly compared to what he says behind closed doors with military leaders. He helped assemble the largest collection of U.S. military hardware in the Middle East since the invasion of Iraq. He is complicit in what is happening.

But even with all of that, Dan Caine still managed to do something at that podium today that Pete Hegseth could not. He spoke like a person who understands the gravity of war. When he took the microphone, the first words out of his mouth were to honor the fallen and to share in the “profound grief” for the Americans who have been killed. He didn’t brag. He didn’t smile. He gave specific operational details, but he also praised and honored the service members who, not of their own choosing, are fighting and dying for their country. Pete Hegseth, for his part, called Caine’s remarks a “beautiful symphony of American Spirit” with a smirk on his face.

That is what a military professional sounds like. Even one with compromised loyalties, who many would say shouldn’t be in this position. Even a Trump appointee who got the job through flattery and legal waivers still managed to speak with more sobriety, precision, and respect for the lives at stake than the man who is technically his boss.

And that tells you everything you need to know about Pete Hegseth. When even the loyalists who got their jobs through the same broken system you did can at least approximate the weight of the moment, and they still outclass you, your failure isn’t just political It’s personal, moral, and dangerous.

What Pete Hegseth is doing echoes from the past, from the 1940s, when France had one of the largest armies in Europe, more than five million soldiers, and a military tradition stretching back centuries. But its leadership had been hollowed out by politics. Commanders were chosen for loyalty and connections, not capability. Professional officers who raised concerns were sidelined or ignored. When Germany advanced, the strategic failures cascaded from the top down, because the men making the decisions were never equipped to make them. France fell in six weeks. A nation with one of the most powerful militaries in the world collapsed because the wrong people were put in charge. That is what happens when leadership becomes performance, and loyalty replaces competence. And right now, we are watching that same pattern repeat itself inside the Pentagon.

Because behind the buzzwords and the Bible verses, there is a void where strategy should be. Reporters who have covered the Pentagon for years say they are getting almost no real information from this administration about the war. One described Hegseth’s briefings as “lots of chest-thumping, less concrete data.” In previous conflicts, the press would receive detailed briefings once or twice a day. Now, this administration drops random tweets and videos with no opportunity for follow-up. The Pentagon has replaced transparency with performance, and Hegseth is the lead actor in a production that is costing real lives.

And to understand just how dangerous this moment really is, we need to remember who Pete Hegseth really is. Because this wasn’t a bad day or an accidental fumble of words. This was the inevitable result of handing a military of this caliber to a man whose entire career has been a series of red flags.

Pete Hegseth did not rise through the ranks of military leadership. He did not spend decades studying strategy, building coalitions, or navigating the geopolitical chessboard that comes with commanding the armed forces of the United States. He served, yes. He deployed to Iraq. But then he became a Fox News host. That is the trajectory. From cable news to the Pentagon. From performing outrage on a morning show to commanding the armed forces of what many might have called the most powerful nation on earth. We have years of evidence, and none of it suggests this man belongs anywhere near power. According to the New Yorker, in 2015, while running Concerned Veterans for America, Pete Hegseth got drunk at a bar in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, at 2:30 in the morning and repeatedly shouted “Kill all Muslims” in what an employee complaint described as “a drunk and violent manner.” This is the behavior of a man now commanding the military, conducting operations across the Muslim world, reading war psalms from the Pentagon podium while our brave military are in harm’s way.

On the Shawn Ryan Show in November 2024, just weeks before being nominated, he said flatly that women should not serve in combat roles. That they “create drama” and cause “love triangles in the platoon.” Senator Tammy Duckworth, a combat veteran who lost both of her legs flying a Black Hawk helicopter in Iraq, fired back on CNN: “Where do you think I lost my legs? In a bar fight?” She called him dangerous, wholly unqualified, and out of touch with the nature of modern warfare. And Hegseth never apologized, because he meant every word.

In his own book, The War on Warriors, about his deployment to Iraq, he admitted telling soldiers under his command to ignore the legal advice of military lawyers about when they were allowed to kill. He wrote dismissively about those lawyers, calling them “jagoffs.” Senators raised the possibility during his confirmation that this constituted a war crime. Human Rights Watch has since formally warned that his language invites further violations. And this week, during an active war in which over 1,200 Iranians have been killed, he doubled down: “No stupid rules of engagement, no nation-building quagmire, no democracy-building exercise, no politically correct wars.”

And then came the Quantico speech in September 2025, when he stood in front of every general and admiral in the United States military, the people who have dedicated their entire careers to this institution, and told them: “No more identity months, DEI offices, or dudes in dresses. No more climate change worship. No more division, distraction, or gender delusions.” And then he looked out at the room and added, “If you don’t agree, resign.”

That’s who this man is. Not a leader or a strategist. Not someone who has earned the right to stand in the same room as the people he commands. A three-time married, 45-year-old former cable news host who has treated every position he’s ever held as a platform for performance, not service.

And I haven’t even gotten to the worst part yet. Politico reported that before this war even started, Pete Hegseth gutted the Pentagon office responsible for investigating civilian casualties. He slashed the staff of more than 200 by 90 percent. The office that was built to ensure accountability when bombs go wrong, like when strikes hit schools, and children die, was hollowed out before the first bomb was ever dropped on Iran. The timing is telling. He didn’t just fail to prevent civilian deaths. He removed the mechanism for investigating them. He cleared the room before the crime was committed.

And I think about our brave career military members a lot. The ones who have served for decades. Who grew up watching their parents deploy and come home changed. Who sat in living rooms as children on September 11th and watched the towers fall and felt something ignite inside them, a sense of duty that never left. Who came from families where service wasn’t just a career path, it was a calling passed down through generations. They missed the births of their children. They missed first steps and birthday parties and entire holiday seasons while their spouses held families together alone, explaining to small children why Mom or Dad wouldn’t be home for Christmas. They did it because they loved this country. Because when they raised their right hand and took that oath, they meant it.

And now they are watching Pete Hegseth read Bible verses into a camera while stumbling through buzzwords he barely understands. They are watching a man who got this job not because he earned it, but because he was loyal enough and loud enough and willing enough to say and do whatever the president wanted him to. They are watching him smile while he talks about death. They are watching him strut through the halls of the Pentagon in a costume while their brothers and sisters come home in caskets. And they know, every single one of them knows, that this man is not equipped to lead them through what is coming.

I worry about the service members deployed right now who see this briefing and wonder if their sacrifice even registers with the people making the decisions. And I worry about the next generation. The young people who are watching this mockery of our military, who might have once felt that same pull toward service, and decide they no longer want to serve. That is the cost of incompetence at this level. It doesn’t just embarrass us. It weakens us. It hollows out the very thing that generations of Americans sacrificed everything to build. And in the middle of a war, that weakness gets people killed.

And while Pete Hegseth was performing at the podium today, the damage of this administration’s incompetence was spreading far beyond that briefing room. Americans are being wounded and killed. According to the Pentagon, 140 service members have been injured in just ten days of fighting, eight of them severely. And this is a war with no defined end. Our allies are sounding alarms. The global economy continues to destabilize. And the President of the United States, the man who started all of this, made no public appearance today. He has gone back into hiding, behind a phone screen, while Pete Hegseth does the chest-thumping for him. The man who sent our troops to war won’t even show his face.

So what do we do? We increase our pressure on Congress, because they are the only institution with the constitutional power to stop this. These cabinet members were supposed to be the guardrails. That is the entire purpose of Senate confirmation: to ensure that the people placed in the most powerful positions in our government are qualified, competent, and capable of checking the worst impulses of any president. Instead, Donald Trump filled those seats with the least qualified people he could find, on purpose, because he doesn’t want guardrails. He wants loyalty. He wants people who won’t question him, won’t push back, and won’t say no. And that is exactly what he got. We need to remind our members of Congress, especially the Republicans and the Democrats who have not taken a hard line against it, that this matters to us today just as much as it will at the midterms. We need to tell them we want impeachment proceedings for cabinet members who are demonstrably dangerous and unqualified. We want real confirmation hearings when the next nominee comes forward, not grandstanding or soundbites, but substantive questioning that gets these people on the record. Because even if this Congress confirms whoever comes next, the record still matters. What they say under oath still matters. And what they commit to on camera still matters. Because there will be accountability. Maybe not today. But it’s coming.

Because of your support, especially those of you who are able to become paid subscribers, I’ve been able to do this full time, and keep everything outside the paywall for those who are on tighter budgets. Every single night, I sit down, I dig in, and I try to make sense of what’s happening to our country. And I want you to know, I’m growing through this too. I’m learning how power actually works in this country, and I’m learning just how deep the corruption goes. And together, we’re building something they cannot silence. We are building our own army, not of violence, not of fear, but of truth, compassion, acceptance, and love of country.

Because real patriotism doesn’t look like flags on lapels or slogans shouted in rage. It looks like people who still believe in each other. People who remember that this country was built by immigrants, shaped by difference, and made stronger because we don’t all look or worship or live the same. That’s the America I still believe in. And that’s the America we’re fighting for.

And even on a day like this one, when the man running the Pentagon disrespects the position he holds, I still find something to hold onto.

I hold onto the veterans who are speaking out. People like Janessa Goldbeck, a Marine Corps veteran and CEO of the Vet Voice Foundation, who was quoted in The Guardian calling Hegseth exactly what he is: “a very dangerous person” with “a cartoonish persona” who “sounds to me as a veteran and to many of my peers who served in combat like somebody who is completely inept.” I hold onto the reporters who are still showing up to that briefing room, still asking the questions he doesn’t want to answer, still refusing to let this administration control the narrative. I hold onto the military families who carry impossible weight every single day and still believe this country is worth the sacrifice. And I hold onto all of you, the ones reading this right now, the ones who refuse to look away, the ones who share these words because you know that silence is not an option.

The incompetence is real. The corruption surrounding this administration is staggering. But we are more stubborn than they are reckless. And every night that we keep calling it what it is, refusing to accept any of this as normal, refusing to look away, refusing to be intimidated, we prove that there are still limits to their power. And those limits are set by us.

Because every single day that passes is one day closer to the midterms. One day closer to the moment when the American people get to walk into a voting booth and tell every single one of these enablers exactly what we think of them. One day closer to taking back the power that was never theirs to keep. They know it. We know it. And that clock does not stop for anyone.

That is why I still have hope for America. And you should, too.

I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather

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This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.

Picture of the day: There was no time for a full walk today, so we just stopped for a few minutes. In between the clouds, we got a bit of a sunshine break. I wanted to share my picture of the day, but there were too many faces in it, and I try not to post people without permission. So instead, here's the same view from a week ago.