From firing generals to limiting women in combat, Hegseth hints at possible Pentagon shakeup

WASHINGTON — “Going sideways” is how Fox News host and National Guard veteran Pete Hegseth, announced last night as President-elect Donald Trump’s choice for Secretary of Defense, recently dubbed the state of the Pentagon.

The pick of Hegseth, who lacks extensive experience in the defense or foreign policy sector, caught many off guard, prompting a slew of questions about how he might approach the job overseeing the military and its over $800 billion budget.

While a host of questions remain, Hegseth recently filmed an episode of the Shawn Ryan Show that dropped just five days ago. There, while promoting his new book, “The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free,” he offered a peek at possible priorities in the Pentagon’s top civilian post.

Here are five key takeaways, in the prospective Pentagon chief’s own words.

Firing Top Generals Over ‘Woke Shit’

One of Hegseth’s chief bones of contention, spread throughout the interview and seemingly the focus of his book, revolves around military “woke shit” like diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. One solution? A firing spree that starts with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force Gen. CQ Brown, who still has three years remaining in his term.

“First of all, you got to fire the chairman [of the] Joint Chiefs, and…obviously you’re going to bring in a new Secretary of Defense. But, any general that was involved – general, admiral, whatever –… in any of the DEI woke shit has got to go,” he said. “Either you’re in for warfighting, and that’s it, that’s the only litmus test we care about.”

“You gotta get rid of DEI and CRT [critical race theory] out of military academies,” Hegseth added. “You’re not training young officers to be baptized in this type of thinking.”

Notably, the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week that the Trump administration is considering creating a board that would fire a number of 3 and 4-star general officers viewed as too invested in DEI issues, while both Politico and the Washington Post have raised the possibility that Brown would be removed from his position as America’s top uniformed officer.

Women In Combat? It’s Complicated

When asked if he liked women in combat, Hegseth quickly said “No.” However, his position appeared to become more nuanced as the interview went on. Women pilots? They have his support. But women in more “labor intensive” jobs, they do not.

“I love women service members who contribute amazingly,” Hegseth said. “Because everything about men and women serving together makes the situation more complicated, and complication in combat means casualties are worse.

“Seals, Rangers, Green Berets, you know, MARSOC [Marine Forces Special Operations],infantry battalions, armor, artillery… I’m talking about something [where] strength is a differentiator,” he later added. “Pilots? Give me a female pilot all day long. I got no issues with that.” 

Women have only been allowed to serve in all military capacities since the start of 2016. However, they are required to pass the same physical requirement as their counterparts.

More broadly, Hegseth hit at the idea that the military has moved too far away from its traditional recruitment base.

“There aren’t enough lesbians in San Francisco to man the 82nd airborne,” he said. “And in trying to cater to that, they lost the boys from Tennessee and Kentucky and Oklahoma, the traditional dudes who did it because they wanted, they loved their country, or they wanted the adventure, or they, you know, wanted to try tough things, or they need an up and out of their community, whatever it is they’re like, if I want to do the woke crap, I could go to the local community college or local college.”

Bring Back The Confederate Names

In 2023, the Pentagon renamed nine bases that had been honoring Confederate generals. On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to switch all the names back. and Hegseth is seemingly onboard with that plan, calling is a mistake of former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley.

“Suddenly, after George Floyd…after defund the police, it became faddish to insinuate that the military ranks are infected with racists, that it’s all these white nationalists under the radar, the tattoos just waiting to pop up, and ultimately, on the recruiting side, what you’ve done is you Bud Lighted yourself.”

Switching the names back may not be that easy, however, as Congress may way in.

When To Use The Military

For the past six years, Hegseth said, he has been a “recovering” neoconservative who now looks down on the “foolishness” of US military interventions around the globe. In almost every case, he asserted, they have “created something worse.”

In retrospect, he added, that laundry list includes two spots he served in — Iraq and Afghanistan. And while Hegseth didn’t use the podcast to broadcast just how he would reshape military operations around the globe, it won’t be advising on counterinsurgency operations. 

“The hubris of the Pentagon is that they want to now tell other countries how to do counterinsurgency based on what we did in Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said. “Are you kidding me? So you really have learned nothing.”

And any notion of sending US troops to Ukraine, would be a hard pass for him.

“The trust there that our political leaders or our generals would have our best interest of mind, is totally broken. Totally broken,” Hegseth said. “I acknowledge that completely, and the last thing I want is my son deploying to the Donbas to defend eastern Ukraine.”

Ukraine And Putin

When discussing the war in Ukraine — which Hegseth described as “Putin’s give me my shit back war” — he expressed skepticism about the idea that supporting Kyiv is needed to keep Russia from moving into NATO territory.

“I’ve friends who would probably agree with us on most things. They’re like, well, if you don’t stop them in Ukraine, then he’s going to go all the way to Poland,” Hegseth said. “I don’t think he’s — I mean, maybe in a perfect world where he had unlimited capabilities and he could crown himself King of Europe, he would [invade elsewhere.] I think he probably knows enough to know that is probably not going much further in Ukraine. And I don’t think he’s a suicidal maniac who’s hell bent on bringing an Armageddon through nuclear warfare.”

“So if Ukraine could… defend themselves from that great but I don’t want American intervention driving deep into Europe and making [Putin] feel like he’s so much on his heels that then he does have to, because early on, he was talking about nukes.”

However, his views on Ukraine may be more nuanced than the interview shows. According to the Kyiv Post, Hegseth in the past has criticized the Biden administration for being slow to arm Ukraine, and in 2022 described Putin as a “war criminal.”