The Secret Message in Hegseth’s Unhinged Speech

The Rest Is Politics: US

The episode examines the controversial rhetoric and personnel shifts initiated by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, specifically focusing on

Key takeaways

• Pete Hegseth's speech at Quantico utilized inflammatory language targeting 'beardos' and 'weirdos' to signal a military purge.
• The Pentagon has seen the removal or blocking of over 80 generals and admirals, disproportionately affecting women and people of color.

Main topics

• Pete Hegseth's military purge
• Jack Smith Senate hearing controversy

Notable quotes

No beardos, no weirdos, no wimps are now allowed in the military.

Conclusion

The episode serves as a warning about the long-term damage to US insti

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:00) Pete Hegseth, he just gave one of the most unhinged speeches I've ever heard. No beardos, no weirdos, no wimps are now allowed in the military. His words, Katty. And Speaker 1 (0:12) he's on a purge of the military's top generals. No, not because they're weirdos, but for reasons far more sinister. Speaker 3 (0:18) Meanwhile, the Republicans are in full conspiracy mode, Katty, hurling wild accusations at special counsel Jack Smith. for doing his job investigating a corrupt authoritarian president. It was embarrassing, Caddy, but not as embarrassing as the state of the U.S. democracy. Speaker 2 (0:40) This episode is brought to you by Speaker 1 (0:42) eToro. A tariff, a spending plan, a regulatory change. It can all start just as the first line of a speech, but it sets in motion things that can reach far beyond Washington and unfold for years to come. That's Speaker 3 (0:56) right, Katty. Markets move on expectations, not just events. Investors are constantly weighing what a decision could mean for company sectors and the wider economy. Speaker 1 (1:08) So eToro is an investing platform where you can access a wide range of markets and explore how political and economic developments could affect them. You Speaker 3 (1:17) could also learn from the global community of investors and see how people around the world are interpreting the same news. As Speaker 1 (1:26) with all investing, your capital is at risk. See eToro.com forward slash TripUS for full terms. Speaker 1 (1:38) Welcome to The Rest Is Politics US with me, Katty Kay. And Speaker 3 (1:42) I'm Anthony Scaramucci. Katty, can't say, because of British censors, we actually can't tell you what the Secretary of Defense, this moron, said. So Speaker 1 (1:53) we had an editorial meeting on 9am Washington DC time, editorial meeting on The Rest Is Politics US, something that we don't usually do because we don't usually have meetings on this program. But anyway, we had to discuss, listeners. What we could say and what we could repeat of the American Secretary of Defense's speech that he has just given to rank and file members at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia, where he said things that were so offensive that we decided we could not even put them in the introduction. These are not our words. These are the words of the Secretary of Defense of the world's largest military. You have to listen to this. Big breath. Here's the clip of the Secretary of Defense. We Speaker 2 (2:40) are no longer the woke department or the weak department. Simple translation of that. No fatties, no trannies, no beardos, no weirdos, no wimps, no radicals. Just warriors. Speaker 1 (2:55) You know, sometimes you have to stop in this administration, Antony, and remind yourself what would be the outrage if the Secretary of Defense of Barack Obama, if the Secretary of Defense of Joe Biden, if the Secretary of Defense of George W. Bush had used... That kind of language in public in this incredibly bombastic way. Oh, and not to mention all the while there is an Iran war going on under his watch, which is not going well. But this is what he's choosing to focus on. Speaker 3 (3:27) Yeah, the commander in chief falling asleep in the middle of the day at most meetings. He's right there on a live camera dozing off. If that happened to Joe Biden, it would be a five alarm fire on Fox News. I'm not really sure why other media outlets, even left-leaning media outlets in the United States are not talking about that. In addition to all of that stuff that he said, which would eliminate people like J.D. Vance, because he's a beardo and a weirdo, and it would eliminate all of our founding fathers and obviously Abraham Lincoln, he went full-on religion. He's doing religion maxing at the Pentagon. Okay, and so just so people know, Pete Hegseth has announced a new office of religious affairs. He's been through several marriages. He's been accused of all different types of things with women. Incredible drinking, partying maniac. But now he's citing the Bible in a country that has a First Amendment, which expressly says that there's a separation between the church and state, but not for Pete Hegseth. Speaker 1 (4:35) There was a lot of God in this speech and a lot of how religion has been squeezed out of the military and that is somehow woke. Not to be religious is somehow woke or not to have enough religion is somehow woke. So he's setting up this department, like you say, where the chaplains will be elevated in status and will have a direct line to him. But what about all the members of the US military who are Jewish? Speaker 1 (4:59) Muslim or atheist, because he was talking very specifically, he was quoting, as you say, quotes from the Bible. He was talking very specifically about Christian chaplains in the context of elevating religion in the military. Speaker 3 (5:11) He's talking like a Christian crusader, like the tattoos that are on his chest that are related to the Christian crusades. He said in March, 82 % of the troops were religious. He's now saying here in September that it's 95%. Caddy, that's the greatest mass conversion. since Emperor Constantine, okay? I don't know what the guy's talking about, but I would tell you if we could grow our ammunition and our stockpiles that fast, we would have won the Iranian war, okay? So this guy is out of his mind and I'm going to call him out on it. But the last thing he said, which is to me, and by the way, I just want to tell everybody, and you know this guy, I'm a practicing guy, I go to church. I'm a practicing Catholic, but I keep my faith to myself. Okay, so it's not like you want to have your religion, God bless you. If you don't want to have a religion, God bless you, that's your right. But he says, and I quote in this speech, the real battle is spiritual, Caddy. Okay, you know, I guess the physical battle, the one that we're running out of ammunition on and the one where we got the Strait of Hormuz closed and the one where we've had all of our supply depots and our bases blown up in the Gulf. I guess that one is not going so well. But now we have a spiritual battle. And last but not least, he's fired 20 % of the generals. Okay. So I don't know. You tell me, Caddy. To your point, Barack Obama did that. Joe Biden, Bill Clinton, pick a person. that gave this type of radical speech and eliminated 20 % of the Pentagon's brass, how would that be going down? Speaker 1 (6:56) I think you're getting to the right thing here because the story is not really his offensive language, which is, I found it hard to listen to. But I was speaking to a colleague of mine who covers the Pentagon. Nancy Youssef, she's great at The Atlantic, this morning. And she was saying, look, the thing with what he's done in terms of the generals, it's not the purge of the weirdos and the beardos. It is the purge of the generals. It takes 20 years or more to become a general or an admiral. And he has fired or blocked 80 plus generals and admirals. almost half of them are women or people of color. Now, if you look at the proportion in the general's ranks, that is massively disproportionate, the number of people of color or women that he's fired from these very top ranks of the US military. So there seems to be some kind of a purge going on there. And Nancy was making the point to me that it took 20 years for General Colin Powell to become the leader of Central Command. It took another 20 years after that to get the next black leader of Central Command, Lloyd Austin. What you do when you purge people like that is you kill the pipeline. He is doing things now with all his crazy speeches and stuff that we get. That's the shiny object. But if you look behind the scenes, he is doing things now, Antony, that are going to hurt the US military because there is an awful lot of talent. in the people he's got rid of. You're going to hurt the US military for decades to come because it's going to take so long to get these people back into the pipeline. I think that's the real story here. It's not what he says up on a stage, browbeating or running around like doing push-ups and stuff that he can't even do, by the way. We've shown the videos. I've seen the videos being shown to generals of his pull-ups. He's doing them all wrong. He's doing what are called half push-ups. He's not even doing a proper push-up. I can't do a proper push-up, Anthony, so I shouldn't complain, but he is the Secretary of Defense. Speaker 3 (8:50) I am going to demonstrate how much I like and care for you, Katie. Let me explain to you why, because it's now time for role play. Oh, Speaker 1 (8:57) I Speaker 3 (8:57) like this Speaker 1 (8:58) moment. This is good. I like this. And Speaker 3 (8:59) I'm going to play Pete Hegseth. Oh, Speaker 1 (9:02) good. Okay, I'm Speaker 3 (9:03) going to play Pete Hegseth. Hold on. Let me get down. You're taking one for the team. No, look at me. I'm doing a half-hearted push-up here. Look at... Ho! Ho! Okay, I've done the pull-ups and the pull-ups, and I'm channeling Pete Hegseth, but Miss Kay. You are so misguided. Ms. K, we've wokefied our military. We have put in these weirdos and beardos and the other things that he said that we have to delete. And, you know, we let gays into the military. And so this has... weakened us and we need more testosterone in the military, Mr. K. And so that's why I changed the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War, because I'm sending a message to people that we're no longer woke. And if there are some black and brown people that happened to get there through DEI, they didn't get there on their own. Okay, by the way, I can't even say that out loud because let me just step out because those black and brown people had a way harder time ascending to that level. As you know, as a woman in journalism, you know what I'm saying. But let me get back into my role. But Ms. K, don't you understand what I'm talking about? I'm tough. And the president with his Liberace oval office and his orange makeup, he's Speaker 1 (10:25) a Speaker 3 (10:25) tough guy. Mrs. Katty Kay. So go ahead, tell me, go ahead, respond to that. Speaker 1 (10:30) You're right. I mean, the populists love the language. There is a part of MAGA that loves the language. There's the old fight against wokeism. We've heard it constantly in the campaigns. But here's my question