00:00:19

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth began the day with what he called PT at the Pentagon on the warpath before gutting one in five of America’s most experienced generals and admirals across the services. The media calls that a purge. I call it accountability and long overdue.

00:00:41

Hegseth has previously pushed out nearly 20 senior officers, plus the secretaries of the Army and Navy, and blocked several women and minorities from being promoted. Former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall served under President Biden. He said it will take a generation to recover from Hegseth moves. We don’t have an excess of generals sitting around with nothing to do, and we don’t have overly-inflated positions. So what he’s doing is a political stunt, frankly, that is going to have very negative impact.

00:01:11

Hegseth boasted about ridding the Pentagon of what he called “woke culture.” No more diversity quotas, no more gender pronouns, no more identity months, only the warrior ethos.

00:01:24

Hegseth’s reshaping of the military has come at a time when the country is at war with Iran, planning to bulk up its presence in Europe and carrying out missions in the Caribbean. Kendall said the challenges the US military faces right now require more than physical fitness and a warrior ethos. We’re in an intellectual contest just as much as we are in a physical contest with our adversaries. And we need to emphasize that part of what the military does just as much as the physical fitness side. This comes on a day the US military announced the completion of a long-planned pullout of troops from Iraq, more than 20 years after the invasion of Iraq, and ending a 12-year military campaign against ISIS. But Iranian-backed militias in Iraq are already celebrating what they see as a victory. Tony? Charlie, thank you.