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Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News bobblehead with documented alcohol problems, summoned the military’s top 800 generals, admirals and flag officers to Quantico, Virginia this week to degrade them with a message that could have been delivered via Zoom.
Pacing back and forth in front of a backdrop from “Patton,” Hegseth delivered what’s been called “an unhinged address filled with confusing contradictions, wild-eyed cheerleading, and politically charged rhetoric.” Hegseth seemed oblivious to the fact that he was lecturing brass with far more military expertise and experience than his own.
Hegseth’s speech was a tired attack on ‘woke.’ He told the officers, “No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses. No more climate-change worship. No more division, distraction, or gender delusions... As I’ve said before and will say again, we are done with that shit.” He then suggested hazing and mild harassment are now ok, assuring brass that they shouldn’t be overly concerned with legalities.He offered up new directives “designed to take the monkey off your back and put you, the leadership, back in the driver’s seat.”
He defined, for the 4-star generals, what it means to be in the US military: “We don’t fight with stupid rules of engagement. We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt, and kill the enemies of our country.”
The enemies of our country, they would next learn from Trump, are Americans.
Trump delivered proof of his own insanity
After Hegseth’s immature rant about beards, killer ethos and real men ended, Trump stepped into the spotlight like it was a MAGA rally and delivered rambling comments.
Meandering from topic to topic for over an hour, Trump mused on his fondness for the television show ‘Victory at Sea,’ asserted his claim to a Nobel Peace Prize, criticized how former Presidents Obama and Biden walk down stairs, described how he walks down stairs, insulted ‘radical Democrats,’ declared his love for tariffs, attacked Biden or his autopen 11 times, mentioned making Canada the 51st state, and described the kind of paper he likes to use when signing promotions.
Trump told the officers that he’d ended more than six wars, even though many people in the room personally witness those ‘resolved’ conflicts as they still rage on. He also repeatedly mentioned nuclear weapons. “I rebuilt our nuclear… I call it the N-word. There are two N-words, and you can’t use either of them.”
Several officials called Trump’s speech truly disturbing and unwell, “even for Trump.”
Trump repurposes generals to fight “the enemy within”
After bragging earlier in the day that he would fire “any officer” he “doesn’t like” “on the spot,” Trump told assembled brass that they were crucial in his fight against the “enemy from within.” Distilled, Trump said they would soon be fighting Americans.
Hyping the pitch, Trump told them, we’re “under invasion from within. No different than a foreign enemy, but more difficult in many ways because they don’t wear uniforms.” He then added ominously that “our inner cities” were becoming “a big part of war now,” and that “we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military.”
Using American cities as “training grounds” for Hegseth’s extra-legal “lethality” operations meant to “kill people and break things” is batshit Reichstag Fire lunacy.
If we had a functioning government, Trump’s speech would already have triggered his 25th Amendment removal for mental infirmity, and his declaration(s) of war against American cities would be adjudicated as “levying war” against the US, otherwise known as treason.
The Generals sat silently
CNN reports that Trump was thirsty for a reaction, but the brass sat quietly.
Trump’s frustration was clear, given that he had so successfully whipped up lower-ranking troops at Fort Bragg earlier in the year. In June, he got young enlistees to boo shamefully as he attacked President Biden; this week, in front of a mature, professional audience, he got crickets.
At one point, Trump implored the audience to applaud him, saying, “I’ve never walked into a room so silent before. If you want to applaud, you applaud.” He then attempted a joke, saying hey, “If you don’t like what I’m saying, you can leave the room. Of course, there goes your rank. There goes your future.”
Hilarity did not ensue.
Instead of clapping wildly—or even at all—the Generals served up discipline, delivering the silent message that they took an oath to the Constitution, not to Trump.
What the hell did we just witness?
Attendees were aghast at the whole affair. The Intercept reports multiple officials who called Trump’s speech “embarrassing” and criticized Hegseth for gathering top commanders from around the world for a rant that was just like “his social media posts.”
One officer called Hegseth’s address ‘garbage.’ Another said: “We are diminished as a nation by both Hegseth and Trump.” Another called it disqualifying and that, “It shocks the conscience to hear Hegseth— he is no warrior — endorse bullying and hazing of service members. How dare this former National Guard major lecture our military leaders on lethality…”
Patriots worried about the Constitution should take heart. The disastrous spectacle delivered a silver lining that may well save the republic.
Generals now know what they must do
The silver lining is that every high-ranking officer stationed everywhere in the world now knows, without a doubt, two crucial facts they may only have suspected before Quantico:
1. Hegseth plans to bend the rules to deliver maximum “lethality,” regardless of domestic and international law; and
2. Trump is mentally unfit to serve as Commander in Chief.
Knowledge of those two facts will inform their future decisions on how to respond to illegal orders. Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, they are required to disobey illegal orders, including those that violate US law as well as the Constitution. Having heard Hegseth’s criminal intent, and having experienced Trump’s insanity in person, the officers’ resolve to disobey any and all illegal orders heading their way will only strengthen.
Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.
Superb Sabrina! Three generations of my family wore the uniform, from Belleau Wood to Vietnam, and they didn’t bleed so a draft-dodging huckster and a Fox News flunky could call American citizens the enemy. Hegseth’s “killer ethos” rant was a clown act, and Trump’s deranged talk of turning U.S. cities into “training grounds” was treason in everything but name. The silence of the generals was the only honorable thing in that room, a reminder that their oath is to the Constitution, not to a man. If you're right—that this spectacle steels their resolve to disobey illegal orders—then maybe the republic still has a fighting chance.
I hope the Generals and Admirals “deliver.”
Excellent article.