Last week Pete Hegseth, the world's least qualified person ever to be the Secretary of Defense received scrutiny from military members for requesting $137,000 in taxpayer funding for repairs -- including nearly $50,000 for an "emergency" paint job. While it is not unprecedented for a defense secretary to live in military housing, it is far more common for them to find private housing. This expensive request to fix up Hegseth's military house comes as rank-and-file service members continue to struggle with crumbling, mold filled, unsafe living conditions and as the Trump administration has been looking to slash government spending elsewhere.
Hegseth also has canceled anything deemed DEI saying that "diversity is our strength" is the "dumbest phrase in military history". Members of the US military thankfully beg to differ, saying that diversity has only helped bring in better candidates.
Other than his white supremacist tattoos and alcoholic background, one of the major roadblocks to his nomination was his lack of qualifications and experience. His first address to the world only confirmed this. On Thursday, Hegseth was forced to walk back comments he made just a day before that indicated Ukraine would need to make some specific, major concessions in a peace deal with Russia. Those concessions included that it would not be able to recoup all the territory Russia has claimed in recent years and that it would not be joining NATO (a long-standing Ukrainian goal).
The comments alarmed many, including some fellow Republicans, who viewed them as giving up to Russia before negotiations even began, as well as rewarding Russia for its horrific invasion.
He called Ukraine’s goal of returning to its pre-2014 borders an “unrealistic objective.” He also said it was not realistic for Ukraine to join NATO. “Instead,” he said, “any security guarantee must be backed by capable European and non-European troops.”
(tl;dr: Ukraine joining NATO would mean NATO countries, including the United States, would have to treat an attack on it as an attack on them all. Hegseth thinks this responsibility should fall to European countries ONLY.)
Oh, and unrelated, he just invited far-right activist Jack Posobiec (the Pizzagate guy) on an overseas trip on the Pentagon's dime. So that's cool.
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