US Army Vet on Pete Hegseth Military Address: 'Best Speech Since Patton – Fat Admirals Sink Ships!'

Now, the Trump administration is moving to revamp the military. Earlier on this week, the U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gathered the top U.S. commanders at a Marine Corps base in Virginia, outlining new directives including, in his own words, tougher gender-neutral fitness standards, an end to woke culture, and zero tolerance towards fat troops.

Let's take a listen.

Frankly, it's tiring to look out at combat formations or really any formation and see fat troops. Likewise, it's completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon and leading commands around the country and the world. It's a bad look. It is bad and it's not who we are. So whether you're an airborne ranger or a chair-borne ranger, a brand-new private or a four-star general, you need to meet

the height and weight standards and pass your PT test. Pete Hegseth speaking there, well he also argues that many officers have been promoted on the grounds of their race, gender or what he calls historic firsts. Well, he insists that the era of political correctness must come to an end.

This administration has done a great deal from day one to remove the social justice, politically correct, and toxic ideological garbage that had infected our department, to rip out the politics. to And we'll say again, we are done with that.

Well, joining me now to discuss all of this, Malcolm Nance, a former US intelligence officer. I'm also joined by Jack Posobiec, who's a US veteran, Republican political operator, operative and author of Citizens for Trump. Thank you both very much indeed for taking the time to speak to us. Jack, let me start by asking you. We just heard some clips of the US Defence Secretary

Pete Hegseth there talking to hundreds of generals and admirals in Virginia on Tuesday. He said the military had lost its way. It needs a shake up. Amongst other things, he said it's too woke and too fat. Has he got a point?

Look, I think this was the best speech the US military has heard since General Patton. I mean, standards need to be uniform across the force. And whether that be a person of any background, regardless of what position you're in, you need to meet the standard. That is what military excellence is all about. This is not a partisan issue.

Everyone should be held to the same standards. And that kind of excellence can be returned through the national security gains for the American people. not A fat general can't march and a fat admiral is going to sink the ship. Okay, plenty to get us started with.

Malcolm, feel free to respond to that. I just want to ask you as well how these comments by Pete Hegseth have gone down. I mean, he was after all talking to the top brass, wasn't he?

Yeah, he was talking to the top brass and right next to every admiral or general, there was a person like me. I was senior enlisted, a senior chief petty officer. That is one step below sergeant major. And they had all the sergeant majors of every command there. We are the people who have to understand and respond to those standards. Let me put something very clear. All right, I spent 20 years in the Navy, my family put 152 years in the armed forces of the United States collectively. That was one of the most ridiculous speeches ever done. It was not equal to Patton, it was not equal to General

Schwarzkopf's character and competence, it wasn't even equal to the rank of major that he had. He was lecturing people that had the combined experience of 64,000 years in the armed forces. That was 1,600 people with 20 years experience. Setting a standard is one thing, but to have a guy who never met the standard himself, well then all he's going to do is degrade the force.

Okay, Jack, lots for you to react to there. I mean, has Malcolm got a point? These were generals and admirals being addressed by a man of 45 who made it to the rank of major. Did he strike the wrong tone?

Well, I was listening to Malcolm's retort there, and I couldn't find him actually make any substantive disagreements with the speech. He made a lot of personal attacks. But at the end of the day, it was all about applying standards. And that's right. Those standards should be applied to the war secretary as well, as well as his command,

as well as his staff. If he's going to be setting standards, he absolutely should follow them. And I'd more than... You see him do that, by the way, all the time he goes out, he does the PT with his troops. He's there all the time with people when he goes and visits. Anytime he conducts a visit, he's out there doing the PT. So when it comes to holding yourself to the standard, I think he's done that. I think he's been doing that. If he didn't do that for one day, I'd certainly be the day. This is about applying uniform standards. And we all know, we all know, you can just look at a picture of General

Milley and say, you know something, we've gotten away from our standards. I also like the fact now Malcolm and I, we both were both sporting beards right now. But this is something that's gotten a little bit a little bit out of hand in the military where people are getting beards all the time grooming standards have gone down. And I liked what he said, I appreciate what he said about that, that it starts with the little things.

It starts with the little standards, physical fitness, grooming. If I was in uniform, I'd have to shave the beard. That's just what it is. My hair, probably, I'd say Malcolm and I's hairs are about uniform standard right now.

But again, this is part and parcel of being in the military, holding yourself to the standards. So when Malcolm said he agreed with that, I would say I agree with him.

Okay, Malcolm, I mean, lots to talk about here. I mean, this issue of weight and fitness, very much the headlines from all of this. So let's stay with sort of the weight and fitness dimension. I mean, he said it's unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon. Let me put it to you, Malcolm, shouldn't those people be setting an example?

Well, sure, they should be setting an example. But I just want to call attention to some things that perhaps the Secretary of Defense, right, by legislation, he is the Secretary of Defense, seems to miss. One, he has never been pregnant. And we have a force in which we have women who are skilled professionals who carry out their operations, who during pregnancy may gain

a little weight. We have people who are on profiles because of medical disabilities. We have soldiers who are going through cancer treatment. That can add up to 30 pounds to you. General Milley, who was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, if you look at his chest and his shoulders, he ran some of the largest special operations units in American history. He met the physical standard at that time. We have generals right now who can go out and PT with the best of them. But you know what that's not doing?

It is making China laugh at us while they outpace us in ship building, while Pete Hegseth goes out and does PT for an hour in the morning, poorly, I might add, and tries to worry about what we look like. We are not here. The US Armed Forces has never been in armed forces

of marching and look. It has always been a force of professionalism and lethality. And what he's playing is a Fox News host game when at a time we need to make sure that our force is actually professional. And what he wants to do is he wants to cut this out,

I don't know, take us back to a world before 1948 where there are no blacks, there are no women and there are no Asians and make our force not leaner, stupider, younger, in a world where a guy who's 25, sorry, 45, 50 kilograms can wipe out a special forces platoon with a PlayStation drone handle.

Okay, Jack, I mean, feel free to comment on anything that Malcolm's just said there. And I also wanna ask you, are there really so very many overweight officers out there? I mean, apart from General Milley, I mean, no one seems to have come up with any other specific examples here.

Well, I could find plenty of examples. There's entire Facebook pages that are dedicated to this sort of thing and whole TikTok video. When I was in, it was more Facebook, but nowadays TikTok, you can find it all over the place, video after video of this, which I'm really confused why we even allow TikTok,

by the way, used in so many military installations. Malcolm mentioned China, and I think that's a great example. I also agree that China is our biggest near-peer competitor when it comes to that, and having both served in the Navy, we really look to the issues that Seventh Fleet is having, the mishaps that we've been having in Seventh Fleet. This starts at the lower levels.

It starts at the deck plate level. If you're taking care of yourself, if you're not taking care of yourself, how can you take care of your ship? If you're not taking care of your ship, how can you defend against China? Look, China maintains rigorous fitness standards. I've served, I've focused on China. That was my main focus when I was in there.

And they maintain those standards like clockwork. And if anyone has a problem, they will get booted down. All we're doing is saying we're going to get back to the fighting stance that America was in. Look, go back to World War II. Go back and look at those guys when they were signing up, when they were going on the Navy ships over to fight

the last Asian power that we fought in the Pacific, which of course was Japan. You don't see too many fat guys when you're looking at the storm in the beaches of Iwo Jima and Guam and some of the other island hopping, Saipan and others.

So I think it really actually is all about taking care of ourselves and maintaining those standards from the deck plate level on up so that we're making sure that we're paying attention to detail and we're using that attention to detail not just on ourselves but in our work and others. It's about creating that culture of excellence. And by the way, that includes anyone who is welcome to join in that culture of excellence, regardless of background, all you got to do is meet the standard.

Okay, what's the counter argument here, Malcolm? I mean, it is about the little things, isn't it? It's a bit like the broken window theory, that if you overlook the little things, everything gets a bit sloppy. And that goes against sort of military discipline and military training in most countries, doesn't it?

No. Sure. That's a standard. And we have all met the standards of uniform and discipline. That's why we're in the armed forces. That's why we can do what we can do.

But if you look back at his argument about World War II, the median age of survival was 65 years old. The average person there had a body fat of like 9% or 10% because they had just come out of the Great Depression. You can't put the standards of 2025 to a standard from 85 years ago and expect

these things to change. We have soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines who come from a world where they have less education. They come from a world where they have a fatter diet because of the way that Americans eat. It's different in Europe as well.

But I have had fat, when I was in the Ukrainian army, I had fat 60 year old Ukrainians, right? Win the Hero of Ukraine Award. We had drone operators who were 19 years old with 5% body fat, right? Racking up kills by the hundreds.

This is a different world. And for the fact that Pete Hedgeseth, a man who never met the standard, right? This guy shouldn't be in the job. He's not qualified. He was picked out of a TV show lineup

because he looks like he's the kind of guy. He's talking about, you know, removing, you know, listening to the wisdom of E6s, as opposed to the E7s, 8s and 9s, my rank area, where we are the solid body of all knowledge in the armed forces, and ignoring the, you know, 32,000 collective years of generals, this guy should never has been chosen for the job. And the fact that he chose to focus on this,

disobeying the laws of war, relaxing the rules of engagement so that we can go out and kill, for a president that has said that they are going to start withdrawing from Asia and the Pacific and focusing on bringing the armed forces to American cities, this shows you this White House,

this Secretary of Defense is lost. He doesn't even know what the job is. Okay, Jack, how do you

respond to that? And also picking up on this next sort of chapter of the discussion, which is the rules of engagement that Pete Hicks talked about and making soldiers more lethal. I think he used the word increasing their lethality. What are your thoughts on that?

I couldn't agree more. Increasing lethality is the entire primary purpose of having a standing army. You can go all the way back to the days of the initial debates about this with Washington and Jefferson and Hamilton and sort of the questions about whether or not we should have a standing army. And that, of course, is the purpose, the defense of the homeland, the primary purpose of that. And yes, of course, you will need a military that is able to carry out that mission, both with the technological ability

and on the ground ability. If you're sending in, you know, a QRF, you're sending in a SOF unit, you want to make sure those guys are the best of the best and that their support staff from the logistics to supplies, to medical, to all the intelligence all the way down, are also the best of the best. And that certainly starts with holding a standard. And so, this is something where I'm afraid I just can't, I can't let it go. We need to maintain the standards. The standards have gotten lax. We've seen mishaps in Seventh Fleet in the Asia Pacific region, and we've seen mishaps in other places. Certainly the biggest, of course, being the disastrous withdrawal of Afghanistan, which did take place under General Milley.

And I think it's a cop-out to say that there's no connection here between the lax standards and these unfortunate military scandals, failures, and mishaps that we've seen in the prior administration. It's just as simple as that. And now, so you mentioned sort of changing the subject back sort of changing, you know, change the subject back towards rules of engagement. Look, it's very simple. The rules of engagement in the United States military in defense

of the homeland, it's written right into the Constitution.

Okay, but just staying with you, Jack, what's your understanding? I mean, is that maximum lethality more of a kind of kill now, ask later approach?

Is that what it is? Well, I'd like to define the parameters of what exactly we're talking about. Certainly, the military has a range of options that are available and certainly different missions depend on different things.

OK, but what I was talking about is when when Hegseth said, no more politically correct overbearing rules of engagement, just common sense, maximum lethality. I mean, Malcolm, what's your interpretation of that?

Let me tell you something. and because of their drones and the skill of the Ukrainian army as they've developed over three years. The United States Armed Forces is the single most lethal force on this planet. And it's not because of PT standards. It's because the three things that Pete Hegseth seems to hate, the diversity of the force and its thought, the equality of those soldiers

and knowing that each of them meets those standards and will be judged by those standards and will be respected for what they bring to the force, right? The inclusion of all thoughts, minds, ranks, and positions into the fighting force

and bringing that to the battlefront. That is where America's lethality has been traditionally since the founding of this nation. Okay and just lastly I mean let me turn to you Jack. I mean one thing we heard Pete Hegg say there in Virginia was soldiers, officers who disagree with what he said there should quote do the honorable thing and resign. I mean what's been the reaction? Do we expect a backlash here and a spate of resignations?

No, I don't think you'll see resignations. I mean, when someone's been in that long, they're really focused on their pension, they're focused on their career afterwards, so their prospects regarding the Rolodex, defense contractors, these types of things, the types of positions that they'll get. But at the end of the day, here's what it all comes down to. When you have a standard of lethality, that should be first and foremost. I want my military to be the most fearsome, terrifying fighting machine on the face of the planet.

And you know why? The more terrifying my military is, the more terrifying and scared the rest of the world is of my military, the less chance that anyone is going to pick up a gun or a boat or a missile and military to terrify the rest of the world from even thinking about messing with the United States of America.

Okay, Jack Pasobic, thank you very much indeed for your time. Thanks to our other guest as well, Malcolm Nance. Thanks to our other guest as well, Malcolm Nance. Thank you both very much indeed.