With President Trump considering renewing strikes against Iran, Hegseth directed his toughest talk toward military leaders who backed diversity programs he said were sapping the Armed Forces of its strength.
Opening his remarks on a rainy day at the storied military academy overlooking the Hudson River, the secretary slammed the woke agenda.
“We saw woke and weak leaders trying to make West Point look like woke Princeton, which happens to be my long lost and lost alma mater,” he said.
“They tried to introduce diversity and inclusion studies. They hire professors who advocated for anti-American ideologies right here in these halls, but no more.”
Hegseth, who was admitted to the military academy but picked the Ivy League school where he joined the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps instead, said prior leaders “embraced the DEI craze” and endangered soldiers.
“Let me be perfectly clear, you are not an ‘army of one’, and you are certainly not an army of woke. You are an American army, an army of warriors,” he said.
Speaking at an institution that trained both Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee, Hegseth also took a shot at woke efforts to scrub military bases and monuments of confederates generals who led the rebellion against the Union.
“You’ve seen standards lowered, you’ve seen an obsession with race and gender, you’ve seen the watering down of discipline, codes weakened, and traditions tossed aside in the name of political correctness,” he fumed.
He invoked President Trump early in his speech while issuing a reprieve for all cadets who committed “minor infractions or violations.” He gave them “as President Trump might say, ‘A complete and total pardon,’” jokingly performing his best impression of the commander in chief.
When his speech concluded, the cadet president presented Hegseth with a sword.
