Pete Hegseth is struggling: that much has been clear for a while.
When it comes to the Iran war and the updates he is tasked to provide, he’s most comfortable in front of a journalistic audience, where he can yell and berate people for “being negative” any time they ask anything that sounds too much like an actual question. But today, poor old Pete had to testify in Congress before the experts on the House Armed Services Committee. It’s a place where questions aren’t just allowed, but also follow-up questions.
And this is where he completely unraveled. Because follow-up questions really are Pete Hegseth’s kryptonite.
Take, for example, an early exchange between him and Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.). Now that the Strait of Hormuz is still closed (our blockade of their blockade), the economy is in freefall, and the nuclear arsenal of Iran still hasn’t been decimated, what’s the Pentagon’s strategy, Smith asked? What happens next?
Hegseth’s immediate response: “I take issue with the premise of the question.” He then attempted to launch into a rote response about “other administrations that cut bad deals,” but Smith interrupted, calmly: “OK. What’s the plan?”
Hegseth then talked about the courage and intellect of Donald Trump, and Smith asked over him: “What are we going to do?”
“You have to stare down this kind of enemy,” Hegseth tried, before immediately pivoting back to meaningless rhetoric. The back-and-forth continued for a while longer, with Smith reiterating his absurdly simple question and Hegseth absurdly refusing to answer it, before Smith eventually gave up and yielded.
In between this and another question, Hegseth made the absolutely incredible assertion that “the biggest adversary we face at this point are the reckless, feckless and defeatist words of congressional Democrats and some Republicans.” It was a misstep, and a costly one so early in the game.
Those very congressional members pressed him on it again and again over the next 40 minutes. By repetition alone, it became clear to everyone in the room exactly how foolish those words sounded — about as foolish as the deeply silly aside made by Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was tasked with referring to a valued member of the military as “an AmeriCAN, not an AmeriCAN’T.”
And then Rep. Smith returned, during another telling exchange provoked by a question about Russia’s war in Ukraine. The Trump administration predicted that Ukraine would have long lost the war by now, he said. That clearly didn’t come to pass. So what was missed?
“What we didn’t miss was that Biden —” began Hegseth, before Smith interrupted, “You’re not going to answer the question?” Hegseth carried on reiterating some irrelevant Biden administration rallyspeak that ended on: “You guys don’t talk about that!”
“I’m asking you from a strategic standpoint,” Smith said, calmly, after which Hegseth floundered and then eventually conceded, “I think Ukrainians have shown great courage.” Unimpressed, Smith yielded his time.
Hegseth is a man who perennially channels the energy and integrity of a protein powder commercial, but few Huel ads have played in the hallowed halls of Congress. At press briefings, the Secretary of Defense-or-War can retreat to his pre-prepared remarks about LETHALITY and WAR FIGHTERS and the COURAGE OF PRESIDENT TRUMP. But today, pressed calmly and continually by a bipartisan group on strategy and military expenditure, it became extremely obvious how out of his depth Hegseth is.
We provoke “unrelenting fear in our adversaries,” the former TV talking head insisted. “We fight to win in every scenario!” Our “war fighters” are “forging a lethal arsenal of freedom!”
The response was muted.
“Wish fulfillment is not a strategy,” said Smith, adding that “we have sidelined the entire world” and shoved aside traditional diplomacy “in favor of two real estate guys.” Both Hegseth and President Trump have shown “astounding incompetence,” caused “immense economic damage,” “misled the public,” and caused “political and economic disaster at every level,” said Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.).
And, in perhaps the biggest humiliation: “I’m a fan of Pulp Fiction, too,” said Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.). Later, when asking a question about vaccines, Moulton added: “This is a softball one for you. Don’t screw it up.”
Hegseth began to bare his teeth and shout. Asked about the length of the war, he pulled out manufactured outrage, talking about how his generation served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that was a quagmire, and “you stain the troops” by suggesting this war has been going on too long. “Who you cheering for?” he yelled, adding, “Your hatred for President Trump blinds you to the truth of the success of this mission!” In the quiet, unostentatious room, his words sounded flat, eerie, cult-like. They did not project the power he must’ve hoped that they would.
And then Representative Carbajal asked him how American taxpayers would be affected economically by the war in Iran, and Hegseth got into a full shouting match with him as he simply asked random questions back rather than answering the question.
“I get soundbites, but how about numbers?” Carbajal asked. Hegseth said something about the “horrible” management of California, the state that Carbajal represents.
“It used to be that that stuff worked,” said Carbajal, unimpressed. It doesn’t any more, he continued, because the Trump administration is bleeding out supporters after a cost-of-living crisis caused by the Iran war.
“I’m sad for all the people who voted for Trump. I’m sad because you betrayed them,” he concluded.
This is Pete Hegseth in his true form: slippery, defensive, wound-up. A handful of soundbites stacked up inside an ill-fitting suit jacket and passed off as a Secretary of Super Lethal War. Here is a man who cannot answer basic questions about what his decisions mean to the average American taxpayer; a man who is quick to call his fellow Americans adversaries and reluctant to talk specifics; a man who performs shockingly badly under pressure and becomes volatile in high-pressure situations. Just who you want in charge of the Pentagon.
And yes, it is a little satisfying to watch such a man unravel in the face of basic questioning. But it is, of course — when you zoom right out — deeply and unrelentingly scary.
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