Members of the military attend a meeting convened by U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, at Marine Corps Base Quantico, in Quantico, Virginia, U.S., September 30, 2025. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
During his Tuesday, September 30 speech before a gathering of U.S. military generals, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth railed against "woke" policies in the military and vowed to bring a "warrior ethos" back to the Pentagon. Similar culture-war themes came from President Donald Trump when he spoke after Hegseth at the event.
Hegseth's speech drew a lot of criticism from retired military veterans, who stressed that military preparedness isn't a matter of machismo. And the defense secretary's critics are also sounding the alarm about all the firings at the Pentagon.
In a biting opinion column published on October 6, MSNBC's Steve Benen warns that Hegseth's "purges" are "destabilizing" the U.S. Armed Forces.
The firing of former U.S. Navy Chief of Staff Jon Harrison, Benen laments, wasn't the first Pentagon firing under Hegseth's watch and won't be the last.
"Hegseth is not exactly open to engaging with military leaders whose views differ from his own," Benen warns. "On the contrary, he's proven himself eager to purge the (U.S.) Armed Forces of those he deems unworthy — a campaign that's still ongoing….. Harrison's ouster roughly coincided with two high-profile military retirements — Gen. Bryan Fenton, the head of U.S. Special Operations Command, and Gen. Thomas Bussiere, a top Air Force commander — though it's unclear if their departures had anything to do with Hegseth. There was no ambiguity, however, in late August when the defense secretary fired Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse, who served as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and Rear Admiral Milton Sands, a Navy SEAL officer who oversaw the Naval Special Warfare Command."
Benen continues, "Four days earlier, Gen. David Allvin, the chief of staff of the Air Force, was also shown the door. The broader purge also includes Air Force Gen. Timothy Haugh, who was both the head of U.S. Cyber Command and the director of the National Security Agency; Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Gen. James Slife, former vice chief of staff of the Air Force; Adm. Linda Fagan, the commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard; Adm. Lisa Franchetti; Lt. Gen. Jennifer Short; Lt. Gen. Joseph B. Berger III, the Army’s top military lawyer; Lt. Gen. Charles Plummer, the Air Force's top military lawyer; and Navy Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield, the only woman on NATO's military committee. Each of these instances is important in its own right, but let's not miss the forest for the trees: A scandal-plagued former Fox News host is destabilizing the U.S. military."
The MSNBC columnist and "Rachel Maddow Show" producer stresses that the "purge" at the Pentagon is "ongoing" and showing no sign of slowing down.
"Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, who served as a Marine officer in Iraq and who now serves on the House Armed Services Committee, spoke to Politico about Hegseth's purges, which the congressman described as politically motivated," Benen observes. "'That's a recipe not just for a politicized military, but an authoritarian military,' Moulton said. 'That’s the way militaries work in Russia and China and North Korea.'"
Benen adds, "The Massachusetts Democrat made those comments in May. The problem is worse now."
Steve Benen's full MSNBC column is available at this link.
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