Department of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently highlighted efforts under his leadership to scale back diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) at the Pentagon. Hegseth maintained that DEI is “dead” at the agency and that they would be returning to meritocracy.
Hegseth made the remarks during an interview with Fox News host Jesse Watters, who asked the secretary, “What’s happening with Dei? How’s that going at the Defense Department?” Responding, Hegseth proclaimed, “Well, DEI is not going well at the Defense Department, because it’s dead.”
Hegseth vowed that merit will be restored at the DOD, in accordance with President Donald Trump’s broader agenda across the federal government. He continued, “We will, as the President said in his inaugural we will be merit-based and colorblind, and that is the case at the Defense Department.”
“DEI is going to be ripped out, root and branch, because we want everyone treated equally with high standards and held accountable with war, fighting, lethality and readiness front and center,” he added, emphasizing the chief mission of the DOD. “We don’t have time for emphasizing differences. Jesse.”
Hegseth proceeded to unapologetically destroy the notion that diversity in the military produced strength, maintaining unity is what should be sought after. “One of the dumbest phrases in military history, is, our diversity is our strength,” he said. “Our diversity is not our strength. Our unity and our shared purpose is our strength.”
The secretary concluded that DOD is well on its way to restoring meritocracy. “The Pentagon is excited to get back to that core mission. It’s happening rapidly the services are responding and those that don’t want to respond can work somewhere else,” he told Watters.
The American Tribune reported on other comments from Hegseth, highlighting how he is getting rid of DEI at the Pentagon after it was imposed by the Biden-Harris administration. Hegseth made the comments in a video statement debunking false media hoaxes propagated by the mainstream media.
"*" indicates required fields
Hegseth said he is working with DOGE to “define the redundancies and identify the last vestiges of Biden priorities, the DEI the woe, the climate change. Bs, that’s not core to our mission, and we’re going to get rid of it all with Doge. We’re focusing as much as we can on headquarters and fat and redundancies and top line stuff that allows us to reinvest elsewhere.”
Watch the interview between Watters and Hegseth below:
Later in his statement, he maintained that only the best and the brightest would be chosen to work at the department while poor performers would be cut. “Now bottom line is simply not in the public interest to retain individuals whose contributions are not mission critical and to restore accountability within the federal workforce, taxpayers deserve to have us take a really thorough look at our workforce top to bottom, and it will be top to bottom to see where we can find and eliminate redundancies,” he said.
The secretary continued, “We start with poor performers amongst our probationary employees, because that is common sense, and you want the best and brightest. So when you look at head count, we’re going to be thoughtful, but we’re also going to be aggressive, up and down the chain, to find the places where we can ensure the best and brightest are promoted based on merit.”
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.