#Trump & #Hegseth #military address🤬🧵
#Defense Secy #PeteHegseth addressed the gathering of military leaders earlier.
He assailed what he called "decades of #decay" caused by policies promoting #diversity & #inclusion in the #USmilitary.
"Foolish & reckless political leaders set the wrong compass heading & we lost our way. We became the 'Woke Department,'" Hegseth said as he kicked off the event in Quantico, Virginia.
"But not anymore," he said.
Addressing the room full of the #US’ top #generals & #admirals, summoned from around the world w/o explanation last week, #Hegseth defended his #firings of #FlagOfficers, which include the top US general, a #Black man, & the #Navy's top admiral, a #woman.
He said the officers he relieved were part of a “broken culture”.
#Trump & #PeteHegseth #military address🤬🧵
#Hegseth promised sweeping changes to how #discrimination complaints are handled & how accusations of #wrongdoing [#WarCrimes, #rape, etc] are investigated at the #Pentagon, saying the current system has top brass walking on "egg shells."
"If the words I'm speaking today are making your hearts sink, then you should do the honorable thing & resign," Hegseth said.
"I know the overwhelming majority of you feel the opposite. These words make your hearts full."
#PeteHegseth slammed "#FatGenerals". He criticized the look of overweight troops, saying: "It's completely unacceptable to see fat generals & admirals in the halls of the #Pentagon."
He said ALL fitness tests would be set to #male benchmarks only [meaning #women will be required to pass those tests] & emphasized the importance of grooming standards.
"The era of unprofessional appearance is over. No more beardos," Hegseth told the audience, which sat in silence.
#Trump, as he departed for the event, told reporters that he would fire #military leaders on the spot if he did not like them.
Trump then opened with a joke as he took the stage, saying: "If you don't like what I'm saying, you can leave the room, of course, there goes your rank, there goes your future."
He then spoke of the #US the military prowess, in often wandering remarks praising US #nuclear #submarines, his creation of the #SpaceForce & military recruiting.
#Hegseth 🤬🧵
#Trump repeated his most recent favorite idiotic claim:
"I have settled so many wars since we're here. We're here almost 9 months."
On getting #Ukraine leader Volodymyr #Zelensky & #Russia President Vladimir #Putin together, he said: "But the only way we can do that is through strength. I mean, if we were weak, they wouldn't even take my phone call." [setting the bar pretty low there Donnie]
"'Will you get the Nobel Prize?' Absolutely not. They'll give it to some guy that didn't do a damn thing. They'll give it to a guy that wrote a book about the mind of Donald Trump & what it took to solve the wars, & he'll get the #NobelPrize," #Trump complained to the assembled #military leaders.
Trump has used a mix of threats, inducements & the power of his office to try to shape the behaviors of allies & foes.
He [nobody else] counts solving conflicts between Armenia & Azerbaijan, Cambodia & Thailand, India & Pakistan, & Serbia & Kosovo among his successes.
Many foreign leaders, including India's, dispute Trump’s claims, that US pressure led to the peace. Others, including Cambodia's, have said Trump's pressure was *helpful*.
And many conflicts remain unresolved, including between Russia & Ukraine, Israel & Hamas.
#Trump repeated the message that #Hegseth touted earlier—that the #military will no longer be "politically correct."
"Merit. Everything's based on *#merit* [loyalty to the Supreme Leader]. You're all based on merit. We're not going to have somebody taking your place for political reasons [🤣] because, they are politically correct & you're not," Trump said.
🤬🧵
"We take the people that are going to do the best job. And so it's very simple. And that's the way our country was built. We were built on merit," #Trump who was born a #white #male #millionaire told the #military leaders.
"We're bringing back a focus on fitness, ability, character [🤣] & strength & that's because the purpose of American military is not to protect anyone's feelings. It's to protect our republic."
[character: #Hegseth & Trump who are criminals & rapists👍]
🤬🧵
#Trump told the #military generals in the audience that the #US government has "brought back the fundamental principle that defending the #homeland is the military's first & most important priority."
"Only in recent decades did politicians somehow come to believe that our job is to police the far reaches of Kenya & Somalia, while America is under invasion from within," Trump said.
🤬🧵
#Trump repeatedly diverged from the purported topic of the future of the #US #military, focusing on several other issues he often highlighted in political rallies.
He spoke about the dangers of #protests against #ICE, & touched on his #NationalGuard dispatch to #WashingtonDC several times, claiming that crime has disappeared in Washington.
He called members of the #media "criminals", & lied about how much money his his #tariffs were raising.
🤬🧵
#Trump returned to his criticism of President Joe #Biden, saying Biden was constantly falling down the #stairs.
Trump said he is more careful.
"I walk very slowly. Nobody has to set a record. I just try not to fall because it doesn't work out well. A few of our presidents have fallen & it became a part of their legacy," said Trump, now 79, who was the oldest man to be elected president when he took office.
"I'm so disappointed in President #Putin," #Trump said.
"I said I thought he would get this thing over with. He should have had that war done in a week. And I said to him, you know, you don't look good. You're four years fighting a war that should have taken a week. Are you a paper tiger?"
"#Hegseth will soon be announcing major reforms to streamline #military acquisitions & expedite foreign military sales," Trump said.
🤬🧵
There doesn’t seem to be a clear point or purpose in Trump’s speech to the #military generals. He has talked about #tariffs, #Biden & the autopen #ConspiracyTheory, the southern #border, CNN, his personal feelings about #Putin & his thirst for a #NobelPeacePrize.
Trump said he told #Hegseth that “we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military,” referring to urban areas within the US. Then he talked about deploying the #NationalGuard to #Chicago & #Portland.
🧵
Already, the remarks by #Trump & #Hegseth are drawing criticism from former #military officials. “I couldn’t be prouder of our highest ranking leaders for maintaining an #apolitical face under immense pressure,” said retired Army Maj. General Paul D. Eaton.
He added, “#PeteHegseth spent millions to fly in all of our generals & admirals to rant about facial hair & brag about how many pull-ups he can do, & have Donald Trump sleepwalk through a list of partisan gripes.”
[that sums it up well]
🧵
The low light of Trump’s speech came when he complained he couldn’t use the “n-word” anymore.
#Trump was speaking to hundreds of #US generals & admirals when he got on the subject of #nuclear weapons. The word nuclear was not one to “throw around,” he said.
“We can’t let people throw around that word, I call it the n-word. There are 2 n-words, & you can’t use either of them.”
“You can’t use either of them,” he said again.
@Nonilex A. SOOOOOO glad I'm retired 🙄
B. Even more glad my son hasn't joined 🙄
#DrunkenPete playing his version of SECDEF is sad beyond words. #SmallDickEnergy #Lame #Clownshow
# BigDickEnergy
# MoreFromThom # NEWS
{ ¿| # RIGHT WING HATE RADIO
SECDEF Zoolander. What a fucking joke.
Add this alt
Photo of Pete Hegseth, with enraged face and chest-high clenched fists, overlaid with the words, "DUI hire".
It's too good to miss boosts for lack of an alt. 👍🏅
Alternative ALT-text: Pete Hegseth trying to bite a pizza that has fallen from his hands
@hstone519 @Nonilex
False. He's what happens when you get rid of DEI.
DEI reduces the amount of racist/sexist hiring decisions. Get rid of that, and the quality of your employees will necessarily go down.
the warrior ethos ain't what it used to be.
Will there be mass resignations after this Trump/Hegseths fiasco?
Asking for a worried world.
Which would be a global good.
It's more likely to remove moderate and diverse elements from the US military, and replace them with people like Hegseth and Trump who just want to kill non-whites.
That would track with what they've been doing in Trump's second term (removing non-white or non-male senior officers, removing online records of achievements by non-white or non-male members of the military).
@FediThing @rzeta0 @Nonilex @mkoek I feel like all the fatphobic nonsense is specifically to purge all of the "moderate" and "diverse" enemies, with the excuse that it's because they failed to meet fitness standards. And while this shouldn't hold up in court, this SCOTUS will make it hold up in court.
Senior staff in the military across the board are less likely to meet fatphobic fitness standards just because human beings age. So they can purge "enemies" and threaten the remaining.
Nonilex
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