Hegseth nods to challenges at Pentagon in Army War College speech

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday alluded to ongoing controversies that have rocked his brief tenure at the Pentagon during a speech to the Army War College.

“When President Trump called me to take this job, he told me two things: The first was ‘Pete, you’re going to have to be tough as s---. Tough.’ Boy, he was not kidding on that one,” Hegseth told students and staff in Carlisle, Pa. 

“This job requires a steel spine, and that’s fine. We’re doing the work of the American people and the American warfighter. But second, the president said to me, ‘I want you to restore the warrior ethos of our military, full stop.’ And so that is exactly what I have set about to do.”

Hegseth took to the podium the day after he appeared on "Fox and Friends" to defend himself against revelations that he shared sensitive military plans with his wife and brother in a second Signal group chat. 

He said Wednesday the U.S. was entering a “golden age of America and a golden age of national defense,” while lambasting his usual targets such as "woke" ideology.

“Under the leadership of President Trump, the message to our adversaries in these first 100 days has been undeniably clear: America is back,” Hegseth said.

“At the Defense Department that means no more distractions. No more social engineering, no more climate change worship, no more electric tanks, no more gender confusion, no more pronouns, no more excuses, no more quotas, no more woke bulls--- that undermines commanders and command climates.”

He also said the U.S. military is “leaving wokeness and weakness behind” to focus on “lethality, meritocracy, accountability, standards and [readiness].”

Hegseth has been firmly in the center of a major Trump administration controversy after it was revealed last month that he had shared U.S. attack plans on Houthi rebels in Yemen with members of a nonsecure Signal group chat made up of top national security officials. The text group, created by national security adviser Mike Waltz, mistakenly included Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg.

At the time, the administration sought to downplay the incident and insisted no classified information was shared.

On Sunday, The New York Times reported the former Fox News host shared the same military plans with a second Signal group chat, this time using his personal phone to send the sensitive information to his wife, brother and personal lawyer, among others in his inner circle. 

Hegseth quickly sought to blame the media and recently sacked defense officials for the revelation and claimed he did not disclose classified information in either of the Signal chats, which are currently under review by the Pentagon’s inspector general. 

But he did not deny that he shared the operational information with family members and didn't explain why his wife, a former Fox producer who does not work for the Defense Department, was included in the texts.

Hegseth’s office is also experiencing turmoil after his chief of staff was reassigned, three officials were fired Friday over alleged media leaks, and a top spokesperson wrote of “chaos” in the building shortly after leaving the Pentagon.

On Wednesday Hegseth also addressed ongoing scrutiny of the Pentagon’s cuts to its civilian workforce, as part of efforts led by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency.  

“The media likes to call it chaos, we call it overdue,” he said. “It’s going better than we could have ever expected.”