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A social media response from Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for defense secretary, explains precisely why the media is pushing back so hard on his pending appointment.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) posted on X about being informed by the father of a U.S. Air Force Academy cadet about the terms “birthing parent” and “non-birthing parent” being used in place of “mother” and “father,” asking followers for their thoughts.

Well, a confident Hegseth, who was deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay while in the Army National Guard, earning two Bronze Stars, offered a curt 3-word response on his thoughts, “Not for long.”

Just days before Trump named the Fox News contributor as his pick to head up the Pentagon, Hegseth appeared on the Shawn Ryan Podcast and spoke about wokeness in the military.

“You gotta get rid of DEI and CRT [critical race theory] out of military academies,” Hegseth said. “You’re not training young officers to be baptized in this type of thinking.”

“The dumbest phrase on planet Earth in the military is ‘our diversity is our strength,’” Hegseth insisted, adding that “any general that was involved – general, admiral, whatever – in any of the DEI woke sh*t has got to go.”

“Either you’re in for warfighting, and that’s it, that’s the only litmus test we care about,” said the man who would be tapped just a few days later for a position that would allow him to put his words into action.

Sen. Lee was pumped to see Hegseth’s response to his post, as seen here:

Here’s a quick sampling of other responses to the story, as seen on Elon Musk’s free speech platform, beginning with Musk himself:

Tom Tillison
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