The Hegseth Speech: A Brief and Possibly Unnecessary Reminder

The news is full of pearl-clutching garbage about mean Pete Hegseth being weird and mean to the military’s flag officers:

Social media is similarly full of just straight-up lies.

Oh no the Secretary of Defense War called all the flag officers into a meeting to tell them to hurt all the women and the black people!

All of that is complete nonsense, and there are two ways to test the framing. First, you can just watch the whole thing yourself.

Or, if you don’t have the time to do that, you can just watch ten representative minutes of what Hegseth said. In the video above, fast-forward to the 23-minute mark to hear Hegseth talk about a ruthless return to basic standards, including physical fitness standards. But he also says this, just past 32:30: “I want to be very clear about this. This is not about preventing women from serving. We very much value the impact of female troops. Our female officers and NCOs are the absolute best in the world.”

Compare that statement to what John Harwood told you about the speech.

Hegseth made a plain, clear, historically normal demand for high standards and leadership by example. Contrary to some of the headlines, he didn’t really announce “new standards.” He announced a return to normal standards, to a culture of good military order. If you doubt that, don’t turn to the news for explanation and interpretation, because you won’t get any. Just watch the thing itself, with your own eyes and ears.