Marine pilot Amy McGrath warns Pete Hegseth is creating a 'culture of fear

A former Marine fighter pilot and Democratic congressional candidate blasted Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Wednesday for fighting for ideals that are the exact opposite of the honor and courage soldiers are taught to display.

"Pete Hegseth is just about the opposite of everything I've ever learned about honor and courage and commitment in my military career," Amy McGrath told MS NOW's Nicolle Wallace on Wednesday. "I think that he can do real damage, and I think many people underestimated how much damage he could actually do. Just firing 20 percent of the general officer corps is going to create a huge ripple effect in the military. It's already created a culture of fear. It's going to have a generational impact on our military, just that alone."

McGrath added, "This speech today was just a distraction from the war that he started with Trump, a war that we don't have any allies or partners in, that the American people didn't want, don't like, don't understand."

The veteran concluded, "I think the good news out of all of this is, I listened to his speech, and there are a lot of things that he threw out there, the six main points or whatever. A lot of what he wants to do, he can't do without Congress. So hopefully we're able to flip the House and the Senate, maybe get rid of this very destructive Secretary of Defense, and start getting the Pentagon back on track again. But I don't think he can do a lot of these things long-term."

This is not McGrath's first criticism of Hegseth. Last year she told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that she was appalled by Hegseth's open hostility to women in the armed forces.

“Hegseth still has a lot to learn, unfortunately,” McGrath told Blitzer. “When I flew my combat missions, there was not a set male standard and a female standard for flying an aircraft onto the back of an aircraft carrier. You can either do it or you can't. Combat jobs have had one standard for a long time. And part of when we opened combat jobs to women, those of us that were in those jobs wanted one standard to be set. And it was — so I think it's kind of ridiculous.”

She continued, “But, honestly, that, in comparison to the rest of what we heard in the last hour, is really minor. That speech was bonkers by the president, and everybody sitting in that room knows that we don't have a coherent foreign policy or defense policy. And that, I think, is a bigger issue indeed.”

In March, New York Times reporters Greg Jaffe, Eric Schmitt, Helene Cooper and Adam Entous speculated that Hegseth has blocked promotions, despite that being extremely rare, because the targets tended to be black and/or female.

"Two of the officers targeted by Mr. Hegseth are Black and two are women on a promotion list that consists of about three dozen officers, most of whom are white men, senior military officials said," they wrote. "Mr. Hegseth had been pressing senior Army leaders, including Army Secretary Daniel P. Driscoll, for months to remove the officers' names, military officials said. But Mr. Driscoll, citing the officers’ decades-long records of exemplary service, had repeatedly refused."

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