This Man is a Buffoon

Pete Hegseth is unfit to serve as Secretary of Defense. He is a clown, a security risk, a buffoon and a living symbol of everything rotten in the bones of Trump's attempted administration. His recklessness and ideological zealotry have put lives at risk, insulted veterans, erased history, undermined basic principles of military integrity, and - most recently - handed classified military intelligence to a journalist.

In March 2025, Hegseth - along with other top Trump officials - added The Atlantic's editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, to an encrypted Signal group chat where they were openly coordinating a military strike on Yemen. Not only were they discussing timing, weapons packages, and intelligence assessments, but they were doing it on an unsecured app, over personal devices, with no apparent awareness that a Masthead journalist was reading it all in real-time. When Goldberg left the chat, no one followed up. No alarms were raised. No immediate investigation. Because these people are too stupid, arrogant, or insulated to understand what they did.

The United States military is the most powerful force on the planet, and it has a man-child in charge of it, treating wartime decision-making like frat-house group texts. Hegseth knew the stakes—he explicitly wrote about the risks of OPSEC breaches in his own messages. He claimed, "We are clean on OPSEC," while a journalist practically sat in the room looking over his shoulder. The Secretary of Defense confirmed a live-fire mission and passed on the targeting timeline through an app known to be banned for classified discussions. This is malpractice, bordering on criminal negligence. It could cost lives. It should cost careers.

This is what you get when you install an ideological extremist with a YouTube-brained understanding of war and governance into one of the most powerful offices in the world. Hegseth is a veteran only of Fox News panels. He is not a war hero or strategic thinker. He's a PR construct—a walking propaganda cutout who thinks chest-pounding nationalism is a substitute for coherent military policy.

This is the same Pete Hegseth whose greatest hits include settling a sexual assault claim for $50,000, showing up to work reportedly drunk, and using his social media platform to mock a sitting judge who blocked the administration's unconstitutional ban on transgender troops - giving that same judge more evidence to use against the administration in the process. The same man who has dismissed legitimate scrutiny of his far-right tattoos as "anti-Christian bigotry"—as if anyone should accept a high-level Pentagon official proudly displaying the documented symbols of modern "crusader" cults and white supremacists.

Hegseth's first priorities as Defense Secretary weren't preparing the armed forces for cyberwarfare, bolstering readiness, or addressing the growing threat of AI in battlefield decision-making. No, his first order of business was to erase Black, Indigenous, and minority history from Pentagon websites. Under his orders, the Department of Defense stripped references to the Tuskegee Airmen and Navajo Code Talkers, effectively attempting to whitewash the very legacy he pretends to defend. It's nothing short of desecration. These men served this country with distinction while being denied their basic rights at home. And Hegseth would rather delete their names than confront the contradictions of American history.

Hegseth deployed inspection teams to military bases nationwide to enforce compliance with the regime's DEI purge. These were ideological purity tests in all but name—Soviet-style internal policing masquerading as patriotism. His "Restoring America's Warfighting Force" initiative is a euphemism for forced conformity and political litmus tests. Any trace of diversity, equity, or inclusion—even as historical acknowledgment—is treated like a virus to be hunted down and purged.

Hegseth has publicly argued that women in combat roles are a "complication" and do not improve military effectiveness. It's hard to know where to begin with a statement so misogynistic and flat-out wrong. Women have served, bled, and died in every American war. They've flown combat missions, commanded units, and led troops under fire. What Hegseth is saying—what he really believes—is that these women are inherently lesser, that their service is a liability, that their presence is a threat to the imagined, fan-fictional military order he fetishizes.

Hegseth was confirmed by the slimmest of margins, 51–50, only because JD Vance cast a tie-breaking vote. This is a man so compromised that half the Senate, including some Republicans, clearly wanted no part of him. He didn't earn that seat; he stumbled into it through Trumpian loyalty and ideological foolery.

Every time this man speaks, he undermines the institutions he was appointed to lead. Whenever he tweets, he broadcasts contempt for judicial independence, veterans, and the rule of law. When he opens his mouth about war or policy, he reminds America and its allies that his allegiance is not to strategy or safety—it's to spectacle.

Pete Hegseth is unfit. He is dangerous. He is reckless. He is symptomatic of the Trump administration—a complete collapse of seriousness, replaced by far-right cosplay and a small-minded, small-man obsession with optics over outcomes. There is no "adult in the room" anymore. Just a bunch of incompetent, self-righteous fanatics with nukes.

He should never have been confirmed. He should be removed from office immediately. This is not business as usual. This is the politicization and infantilization of the military at a level unseen in modern American history.

If this debacle has made one thing clear, Pete Hegseth is no defender of the republic. He is its saboteur, wrapped in a flag he does not respect, shotgunning a beer and tapping out war plans to journalists on his phone.