The Secretary of Defense who screens the military for testosterone got asked hard questions yesterday and fell apart in front of the cameras.
Pressed by Sen. Gary Peters on why the Iran war has no winning strategy five months in, Hegseth snapped: "You have Trump Derangement Syndrome!"
Pressed by Sen. Jack Reed on the closed Strait of Hormuz, he reached back years: "We had U.S. boats that surrendered to Iranian ships under the Biden administration."
Reed's reply: "We are talking [about] a war you started."
Peters put the rest on the record — "You, sir, are the failure. Not the men and women who are on that front line."
Here's who those men and women could have been led by. This month, per the New York Times, Hegseth blocked seven senior Navy officers from two-star admiral positions — five of them women or people of color — after the Navy's own promotion board selected them.
Among the names he cut: Rear Adm. Amy Bauernschmidt, the first woman ever to command a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.
In March he did the same to two Black and two female Army officers, striking their names himself after Army leadership refused for months to do it for him.
In September he told the assembled generals why: too many leaders promoted "based on gender quotas, based on historic so-called firsts."
The Pentagon says promotions "are given to those who have earned them."
Bauernschmidt earned a carrier. Hegseth earned a Fox News contract.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, asked about the blocked promotions, said what the record already shows: "He's an unqualified man in his role, so of course he's threatened by women who are twice as good as he is."
Of course.
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