Today, Explained - Hegseth’s hectic military

Episode Date: October 2, 2025

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered top military officials to DC for a surprise lecture on the "warrior ethos." Chaos ensued. With Hegseth, it usually does. This episode was produced by Ariana Aspuru and Devan Schwartz, edited by Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Patrick Boyd and Adriene Lilly, and hosted by Noel King. Secretary Hegseth speaking to senior military leaders at Marine Corps Base Quantico. Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. New Vox members get $20 off their membership right now. Transcript at ⁠vox.com/today-explained-podcast.⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, you will know, summoned around 800 military brass to Quantico this week for a lecture about lethality, about wokeness, about warfighting, about shaving. We're going to cut our hair, shave our beards, and adhere to standards. A lot about shaving. No more beardos. The era of rampant and ridiculous shaving profiles is done. President Trump, meanwhile, continuing to live every week like it's Shark Week, talked about all of it. Be cool when you walk down, but don't, don't bop down the stairs. So one thing with Obama, I had zero respect for him as a president,

but he would bop down those stairs. I've never said, and threatened yet again to deploy the military to American cities. Months ago, a texting scandal threatened Pete Hegseth's future. In the aftermath, he's closer than ever to President Trump. That's ahead on Today Explained. Support for this show comes from OnePassword. If you're an IT or security pro, managing devices, identities, and applications can feel overwhelming and risky.

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This is today explained. Noel King here with Dan Lamoth, who covers the Pentagon and the military for the Washington Post, and who broke the story of this big meeting. Dan, what do you think we learned from Secretary Hegseth and President Trump's speeches? President Trump came in, didn't really speak from a plant, set of talking points. After all firemen are incredible.

They're up in one of these ladders. It goes way up to the sky. Actually, I love my signature. I really know. Everyone loves my signature. It was a meandering speech that he could have given any number of other places. Would you get the Nobel Prize? Absolutely not.

they'll give it to some guy that didn't do a damn thing. Tariff is my favorite word. I love the word tariff. You know, we're becoming riches, huh? He was sort of invited only after the Washington Post first reported this news last week that this order had been delivered for generals to show up. It kind of changed the conversation a bit. You know, once it's a presidential event, you know, the media pool grows, the attention grows.

You've never walked into a room so silent before. This is very, don't laugh. Don't laugh. Don't laugh. You know what? Just have a good time. And if you want to applaud. You're right that it was a little disorganized, a little rambling.

But at the end of the day, the headlines were, the president more or less said the military should be deployed in some U.S. cities. And this is going to be a major part for some of the people in this. room. That's a war, too. It's a war from within. That's a very big thing to say. What did you hear from Trump's comments on, you know, the radical left Democrats have destroyed San Francisco in Chicago, and we're going to straighten them out? There were new lines in there. And I told Pete, we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military,

national guard, but military, because we're going into Chicago very soon. That's a big city. That was striking. That's going to alarm a lot of people for all the obvious reasons. But this is a message roughly that he has delivered before. He has, as recently as a few days ago, talked about sending the military to Oregon, giving them the, quote, full force, you know, authority to do what they thought was fit. Truth Social. I am directing Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to provide all necessary troops to protect. war ravaged Portland and any of our ice facilities under siege from attack by Antifa or other domestic terrorists.

That is not kind of in fitting with longstanding norms. That's going to freak out a lot of people in those cities for obvious reasons. So the president's words may have seemed really striking to civilians, but I wonder if they were striking to your sources inside the military or if the response was, this is how President Trump has been talking for a while. I think it was the latter. I mean, I don't think they like it. I think a lot of people that want to see, particularly the active duty military, not involved in domestic missions unless absolutely required, you know, and there's a handful of cases in history, and it's supposed to be a rare thing. So to see him kind of push this in that direction yet again, yeah, they're gritting their teeth, a lot of them. And people are choosing their words carefully. I think the idea right now is it's an extraordinary. extremely sensitive time. It's a time when they're searching for leakers. There's anyone who has anything that counters the narrative is probably going to get screamed down. So I think we're in that moment to some degree. One of the things Secretary Heggseth said is, but if the words I'm speaking today are making your heart sink, then you should do the honorable thing and resign. We would thank you for your service.

And those are the sorts of messages, you know, my way or get out that I think is going to concern people who otherwise would be happy to serve with a lot of the change going on right now. All right. Let's talk about what Pete Higsef said. It was not a short speech. It was about what he thinks the military should be. What did you hear? I heard a theme and message that's very consistent with a book that he wrote prior to taking this position that he has touted. continued to tout. You might say we're ending the war on warriors. I heard someone wrote a book about that. That's him. That's his book.

Right. Pete Hegsef comes into this job with a very seemingly well-defined set of goals and principles. Some people like them. Some people don't. And he comes into this job with a kind of showbiz background. And not unlike the president is willing to kind of go there and dress it up and make things big

if he thinks the message is going to get to more people that way. It's a message of basically the military needs to get back to basics. The military needs to stop focusing on social experimentation. The military has done too much for basically politics, as he would define that. that's, you know, sort of the idea of being more inclusive. And we lost our way. We became the Woke Department.

And I think turning back the clock in some ways. But not anymore. He referenced a 1990 test. What were the military standards in 1990? And if they have changed, tell me why. Was it a necessary change based on the evolving landscape of combat? Or was the change due to? a softening, weakening, or gender-based pursuit of other priorities?

For one, the military has over time become more inclusive. And that's not just recent times. That's dating back to, right, post-World War II and even before. Like, this is not a new thing that the military, over time, shifts to become more inclusive. But I think what we're seeing now is a rollback of recent things. Things like the inclusion of transgender service members. No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses. Things like the inclusion of women in a lot of combat units that 10 years ago, 15 years ago,

they were not allowed to even participate in, even if they met a physical standard. If women can make it excellent. If not, it is what it is. If that means no women qualify for some combat jobs, so be it. we're waiting to see what the specifics end up being. Are these going to be standards that they meet? And if not, what happens to people who are already in these jobs? Do they do something else in the military?

Are they drummed out? I have no answers for that at the moment. In some ways, Secretary Hegseth talks a lot like the president. There was a golden age once upon a time. Now we are in a state of decay. and we've got to get back to the way it was. Yeah, no, I think in a lot of ways you're right. I think add into that, you know, him, you know, having some level of service, you know,

he had two deployments, one to Iraq, one to Afghanistan, and some time in the National Guard. He had a pretty rough deployment in terms of what happened to his unit. There was a big war crimes case in that unit. He saw his brigade commander who was an inspiring figure for a lot of people in that unit. unit and controversial figure for a lot of others get a career-ending letter of reprimand at the tail end of that investigation. That's the sort of thing that I think kind of plays a role in forming his worldview now. Prior to him taking this job, we saw him openly advocate for people who had been accused

of war crimes when he was on Fox News. He played an integral role in President Trump, pardoning a handful of people during the first Trump administration when he was still at Fox. So this is consistent with kind of his worldview and message for years now. Pete Hegseth is a really interesting character, right? He has been consistent in his messaging, as you've pointed out. He's also dealt with a lot of scandal, including Signalgate. But President Trump has stood by him throughout.

Is Hegseth doing this, this meeting, and his other reshaping of the military? Is he doing it for him? Is he doing it for Trump? What do you think is the key to Heggseth as Secretary of Defense? I think he comes in governing from a very specific worldview, a worldview that the military is stretched too thin, focused on the wrong things, and too warm and fuzzy for a lot of people.

I think that the fear that I hear from a lot of my sources is even a lot of the people who agree with that as an overall, all kind of thesis are worried about the specifics. They're worried about kind of a overcorrection here. The pendulum swinging too far in the other direction. And I think that is kind of where it's going to come down in coming weeks. I have conversations with folks who have, you know, pretty impressive backgrounds. People have served in very tough circumstances. They're pretty hard people. You know, just like physically hard, mentally hard. They are people who are ready for a lot and have dealt with a lot. On balance, some of those folks are open-minded to the idea that things maybe

need to be reined in a bit from the Biden years. But how you do that matters, too. And I think there is a great concern that they're going to go too far. Dan Lamoth of The Washington Post. Coming up, a reporter who, spent time with some of the men who were ousted during Signalgate on how the Secretary of Defense changed post-scandal. Support for today's show comes from Built Rewards. Built Rewards says nobody likes paying rent. But what about if you got rewards every time you paid your rent?

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your b2b audience today spend 250 dollars on your first campaign and get a free 250 dollar credit for the next one get started today at lincoln dot com slash campaign terms and conditions apply begins right now on today explained my name is carrie howley and i'm a feature writer at new york magazine and you wrote a great piece called what was the headlines great headline i believe it was called playing secretary yes pete hig said this playing secretary that was it you spent a lot of time talking to people who know the secretary of defense and you painted a picture of a guy who is chaotic is that fair i think that's an accurate description, yeah. Why is a guy who is chaotic in this job in the first place?

I think Pete Hagseth is in this job because he looks to Donald Trump like the kind of guy who should be in this job. I look at you, just incredible people. Central casting, I might add. Trump encountered Hagsteth in his previous life as a Fox and Friends weekend co-host. Pete, I'll start with you. What do you think? Well, the Boy Scouts has been cratering itself for quite some time. You see, this is an institution the left didn't control. They didn't want to improve it. They wanted to destroy it or dilute it into something that stood for nothing.

In which Hague Seth would sometimes talk about military matters. Our Abrams tanks that were sending to Ukraine are getting blown up at a record rate by Russian drones. Well, maybe the guys in the Pentagon don't really know what they're doing because they've been focused on other things. And I think, you know, it's pretty universally acknowledged. that Trump thought, that's the way a Secretary of Defense should look. And I think it was very, I know it was very surprising to people in Hegset's immediate orbit that he was chosen for this appointment. And I can only imagine it was also surprising to Pete Hegseff. There was still a chance that Pete Hegseh would do a very good job at this job. From what

you've seen covering him over the past couple of months, how unorthodox is he in terms of his leadership of the Department of Defense? I would say that he has fixations that are unusual for this position. This is a guy who came from television, and his preoccupation continues to be maybe crafting a visual moment, social media, the way the department looks to the broader public, the kind of branding for the Department of Defense, and he spends a lot of time crafting that image. When I can get down, do push-ups and deadlifts with the troops, and just hear from them, what's working, what isn't, how do you see your mission set? I love that.

He's someone who has a long history of issues with impulse control. So there are the very well-documented substance abuse issues. The New Yorker reported this week that is recently, as the spring of 2023, Heggseth, or. ordered three gin and tonics at a weekday breakfast meeting with an acquaintance in Manhattan. I'm a different man than I was years ago, and that's a redemption story. There are sexual assault allegations, there are affairs, there have been accusations of financial mismanagement. A variety of sources, including your own writings, implicate you with disregarding the laws of war, financial mismanagement. And I believe both organizations that he led prior to his job.

as the Secretary of Defense, where he leads, you know, one of the most complicated largest human organizations in the world. There have been kind of constant personnel issues, high profile resignations, leak investigations. This is a very leaky department. And what that tells you is that people are concerned, but don't feel that they can run those concerns up the ladder in an official capacity. And so we're talking through the press. There's, of course, Signalgate. The Atlantic Magazine's editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg says he was added to a group chat of top U.S. officials, including the Defense Secretary and National Security Advisor, who discussed specific information about airstrikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen hours before they were launched.

And, you know, this morning we decided to publish these texts so people can see for themselves what was going on in the signal chat. There was a second signal gate. U.S. defense secretary P. Tech said sure details of attacks on Houthi rebels in a news. the second signal Chad group. The signal group chat included his wife, brother, and personal attorney. Heg said that didn't do himself any favors by kind of failing to acknowledge that anything had gone wrong. And there was this kind of panicked aggression that I think emerged in further interviews.

This is why we're fighting the fake news media. This is why we're fighting slashing burn Democrats. This is where we're fighting hoaxers, hoaxers. This group, no, no, this group right here, full of hoaxers that peddle anonymous sources from leakers with axes to grind. And then you put it all together as if it's some news story. And what we know, you know exactly what it is. So I'm really proud of what we're doing for the president, fighting hard across the board. And I'm going to go roll some Easter eggs with my kids.

So there seemed to be like a problem even with crisis communications. Like it wasn't clear to this department how to handle the crisis itself. I mean, this was very stressful to Heggsett. It was like a real focus of the administration. Where are the leaks? We must find the leakers. And that created a situation where different political factions who are kind of jockeying within his office could try to portray people they didn't like as the leakers. So you had Pete Heggseth publicly blaming.

two close friends and a third top aide of leaking, of betraying him. I offered them to take a polygraph. I offered them to take my phone. I told them I did not leak anything. I did not leak anything. Classified or unclassified to the media. I've not had a single conversation with the media that wasn't on the record, sanctioned by public affairs. And then how do things change after the fallout from Signalgate?

What happens at the Defense Department then? So what sources told me was that in the early days of this administration, of this tenure, Hegeseth came in with kind of ambition. He was curious. He was interested. Even though he didn't have the deep experience of his predecessors, there was kind of an openness to learn. And then after Signalgate, the attitude was more one of paranoia, fear. I mean, the interviews he did regarding these leaks feel panicked. I'm here because President Trump asked me to bring warfighting back to the Pentagon every single day. That is our focus. And if people don't like it, they can come after me. No worries.

I'm standing right here. The warfighters are behind us. Our enemies know they're on notice. Our allies know we're behind them. And that in this dangerous world for the American people is what it's all about. Someone who kind of doesn't know who to trust or where you. to turn, someone who, you know, has trouble making decisions in stressful situations. His trusted circle became much smaller. So you saw kind of oddly his wife was frequently in the office,

giving orders to the public relations arm of the departments. His brother came on, his personal lawyer. And so instead of relying on like this kind of deep bench of people who have been there for a very a long time. He's, he's surrounding himself with more of his kind of personal entourage. It sounds like he may be, he may be looking for people who won't betray him. Yes. And the fear really, I would say it infected the way, the ambitions that everyone had for the department. So instead of trying to solve some of the problems that Hegg Seth mentioned during his confirmation, things he might have been ambitious about reforming or earlier, as someone described it to me, the department stopped being creative. And it started

being just a mechanism for implementing executive orders. In other words, he was just kind of waiting for Trump to tell him what to do. Hexath is not an ideological character. This is something that sources close to him emphasized. He used to have a more interventionist mindset. He wrote several books. He wrote several books. about how we should have been in Iraq longer. And as soon as he came into this administration, he started parroting some of these more isolationist points of view. He's someone who's willing to shift his ideology depending on who he might be talking to.

And I think that's particularly useful to someone who might want Hegsseth to follow questionable orders. This isn't somebody who's going to have a red line because he's not someone who has strong ideas about what the military ought to be doing. So if Hexat's square jaw is ultimately what got him this job, I think what's keeping him in the job is his demonstrated loyalty to the strongman at the top. I think he is here because Donald Trump trusts that when Donald Trump calls on Pete Hegset to do something questionable, he has a guy who's going to fly him. follow orders.

Carrie Howley is a features writer for New York Magazine. Ariana Aspuru and Devin Schwartz produced today's show. Amun El Sadi edited. Patrick Boyd and Adrian Lilly are our engineers and Laura Bullard checks the facts. The rest of our team, Avishae Artsy, Hadi-Mawagdi, Miles Bryan, Peter Balin-Rosen, Denise Gera, Danielle Hewitt, and Kelly Wessey. Our deputy EP is Jolie Myers, and our executive producer is Miranda Kennedy. Sean Ramos firm is our founding father.

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