Raddatz Shows Concern For Fat Generals But Not GOP Assassination Targets: All The Questions From ABC’s This Week
First, Raddatz minimizes Hegseth’s expertise, then then she suggests he is a lightweight compared to the people he was addressing.First, Raddatz minimizes Hegseth’s expertise, then then she suggests he is a lightweight compared to the people he was addressing.Hegseth restores warrior ethos after years of woke Pentagon rot
When Secretary of War Pete Hegseth first announced the unorthodox step that he would gather all generals and admirals at Marine Base Quantico on short notice, many speculated that this could be a sign that we might be heading toward another war. Hegseth did declare war, but not in the way many pundits expected. He’s going to war against declining standards in the military.
In every respect, this was a historic speech. The convening itself was historic, but more significantly, Hegseth’s speech carried the weight of history. Hegseth’s purpose was to align all of the flag officers around one mission, as he put it, "The only mission of the newly restored War Department is this: warfighting.”
For too long, side quests have taken the military’s focus off lethality. Military standards were changed to accomplish partisan distractions.
By contrast, Hegseth’s predecessor, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III, oriented the military around climate change, social justice, and other side quests. For example, in 2021, Austin declared, “We face all kinds of threats, but few of them truly deserve to be called existential. The climate crisis does."
War on wokeness
The Pentagon’s mission under the Biden administration was to fight a war on the weather, even going so far as to prioritize climate plans over the duty to build warships. These side quests weakened our military and our nation.
Even worse, Austin’s leadership ushered in an era of politically motivated promotions that prioritized sex and skin color characteristics over merit. To this end, retired Air Force Gen. C.Q. Brown, who served as the 21st chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Biden administration’s final years, famously wrote a memo mandating racial and sex quotas. This firmly committed our military away from promotions based on wars won and lives saved toward a process infused with the radical agenda of the left.
Warrior ethos restored
This was the context of Hegseth’s speech. Within the Pentagon, competing priorities eclipsed the primal imperative of being prepared to kill the enemy before they kill us. The woke agenda pushed by the radical left caused a slow rot that shifted focus from warfighting to social engineering, greatly frustrating many senior military officials.
Hegseth vowed to excise this type of decay inflicted by “foolish and reckless politicians.” He outlined several concrete steps to do just that, including restored grooming standards, stricter enforcement of physical training requirements, leadership and accountability reforms, and changes to training to focus on core warfighting elements.
But if the meeting was only about outlining these seemingly mundane reforms, why gather these high-ranking generals and admirals in one place? Couldn’t the content of his speech have been sent in an email? No, it could not. This was far more important than updating senior leaders on reforms; this was a cultural moment for military leadership. The era of hiding behind systemic racism and sexism to undermine the mission of the military while projecting woke platitudes as a defense of those actions is officially over.
Hegseth understood the mission, which was tough talk to tough people to prepare them for tough times. Some will whine that it’s uncouth for a secretary of sar to say, “No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses. ... We are done with that s**t.”
The whiners need to realize that many warfighters have prayed that someone would say this to their senior leaders. Hegseth did exactly that. This can’t be captured by a mere email.
Symbolically and practically, it’s meaningful that the secretary of war said this directly to their faces, immediately reinforced by a speech from the commander in chief. Saying this face-to-face is not hostile; it’s a sign of respect among tough people.
Hegseth’s admonitions, from calling out fat generals to reminding them that personnel is policy, are best summed up in this statement: “It's like the broken windows theory of policing. It's like when you let the small stuff go, the big stuff eventually goes. So you have to address the small stuff.” This principle should be understood by our military leadership, but it became a vestigial sentiment that was no longer actively practiced.
Aligned for lethality
For too long, side quests have taken the military’s focus off lethality. Military standards were changed to accomplish partisan distractions. Whether it was diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives or the climate agenda, the leaders in the Quantico audience accomplished these side missions ruthlessly and effectively — to the detriment of their primary purpose.
RELATED: Pete Hegseth just ended the era of woke brass in the military
Going forward, this speech empowered the military to fight against the entropy of distractions and declining standards. Whether they wear five stars or one, all of our star-ranked officers have been aligned to a new standard: lethality. This means effectively and ruthlessly accomplishing the only mission that matters: warfighting.
History, which favors winners, will view this as the moment the U.S. military was made great again. This will be remembered as the day the Trump administration aligned the stars, one in which our senior military officials were liberated to align their leadership with basic common sense.
Tim Kaine trying to weasel a ban on Hegseth changing base names into the military budget
Democrat Senator Tim Kaine (Va.) has weaseled an amendment into the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2026 that would handcuff Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth when it comes to the naming of certain military bases and other Pentagon assets.
Erasure
The Department of Defense took part in the iconoclastic Biden-era sweep of American history that saw graves dug up, statues toppled, animals renamed, busts melted down, and church windows removed.
Pursuant to the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2021 — which survived a Dec. 23, 2020, veto by President Donald Trump — former Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin established a commission to identify, for the purpose of removal, "names, symbols, displays, monuments, and paraphernalia to assets of the Department of Defense that commemorate the Confederate States of America or any person who served voluntarily with the Confederate States of America."
Austin ultimately embraced all of the commission's recommendations.
As a result, nine Army installations took on new names: Fort Bragg in North Carolina became Fort Liberty; Fort Benning in Georgia became Fort Moore; Fort Gordon in Georgia became Fort Eisenhower; Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia became Fort Walker; Fort Hood in Texas became Fort Cavazos; Fort Lee in Virginia became Fort Gregg-Adams; Fort Pickett in Virginia became Fort Barfoot; Fort Polk in Louisiana became Fort Johnson; and Fort Rucker in Alabama became Fort Novosel.
Restoration
These changes delighted Democrats and other leftists.
Democratic Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner (Va.), both on the Senate Armed Services Committee, were among those who celebrated the condemnation of memory, claiming in a joint statement that the name changes were "proof that progress is possible."
Ahead of the 2024 presidential election, Trump signaled a desire to reverse the changes.
Months after Hegseth restored the names of Forts Bragg and Benning, the commander in chief told a North Carolina crowd that the other seven Army installations were similarly getting their proper names back.
Among the Democrats prickled by this twist of fate was Kaine, who told reporters in June that Trump lacked the authority to make the name changes, stating, "The president can't change the law on a whim, and his court jester Pete Hegseth can't do it either."
Prohibition
The U.S. Senate plans to vote this month on its version of the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act.
'We learn from our triumphs and our pains, which makes our country stronger.'
The bill currently contains an amendment, section 349, which would require Hegseth to use the names of Pentagon assets in the Commonwealth of Virginia, including military bases, that were adopted by the Biden-era naming commission.
This amendment, which Kaine's office confirmed to Blaze News was the Virginia Democrat's handiwork, bars Hegseth from overriding the Virginia-specific naming recommendations of the commission.
If the NDAA 2026 is passed as is, Forts A.P. Hill, Lee, and Pickett will become Forts Walker, Gregg-Adams, and Barfoot, just as the Biden-era revisionists intended.
When pressed on whether there was a conversation about limiting this prohibition to Virginia, the office of one Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee told Blaze News, "NDAA deliberations are held at a classified level, so we cannot comment on the process involved in the inclusion of this provision."
Blaze News reached out to several Republicans on the committee to ask whether they would fight the amendment but has so far received no confirmations.
Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson said in a statement to Blaze News, "Past administrations have tried to rename bases that should [never have] been changed in the first place. Here at the Pentagon, we honor our American history and traditions; we don't erase it."
"We learn from our triumphs and our pains, which makes our country stronger," added Wilson.
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!Congress must kill DEI before it kills our military readiness
In June, with four months left in fiscal year 2025, the Army announced that it had surpassed its goal of enlisting 61,000 recruits. Female recruitment surged in particular across every branch, a shift many credit to President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s return to a “warfighter” ethos.
Yet Republicans in Congress still haven’t done their part to cement this new direction in law.
Congressional Republicans must seek a permanent end to the regime that has so disastrously compromised the military’s lethality.
The misguided and weak leadership of the previous administration allowed the ideology of diversity, equity, and inclusion to run rampant at the Pentagon, strangling recruiting efforts and sidelining the military’s true mission.
Under Joe Biden, the Army fell nearly 30,000 recruits short. Misguided priorities drained confidence in the service and hollowed out the ranks. If the “Trump bump” holds, it could reverse those losses and begin restoring the military’s strength and credibility after years of neglect and ideological tinkering.
Lingering progressive activism
Racial and gender identity politics defined the Biden administration so deeply that simple executive orders cannot uproot them — especially in the military. Former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s 2022-26 Strategic Management Plan spelled it out, imposing race-based quotas on every service member and civilian across the force.
The Trump administration must insist that Congress make it impossible to return to this decades-long embrace of race and gender essentialism. Such action is necessary for Secretary Hegseth to continue sharpening the edge of American military power with confidence.
Congress has started moving in the right direction. The Senate Armed Services Committee recently advanced the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act with two measures aimed at curbing DEI. Section 547 blocks race and identity from influencing service academy admissions. Section 920 repeals several provisions that embedded DEI in the Defense Department.
These changes, though welcome, fall short. Congress must go farther if it wants real impact. Identity politics must be banned not just in admissions, but throughout the military. And for Section 920 to matter, DEI cannot simply be buried — its presence should disqualify applicants from future government service.
Ending DEI-based admissions
Another urgent target for repeal is the 2021 DEI selection board mandate, which forces military boards to “represent the diverse population of the armed force concerned.” That order undermines their core mission: choosing the most capable leaders to win wars.
Early signals from the House and Senate Armed Services Committees show they recognize the problem, but they have yet to commit to locking in Trump-era reforms. America’s depleted readiness should be evidence enough. Lawmakers must act decisively — restore the military’s lethality and bury DEI for good.
RELATED: How DEI took a sledgehammer to the US military’s war ethos
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) has pushed consistently to root DEI out of the military. But he works with razor-thin majorities in both chambers, where entrenched Armed Services Committee staff — Republicans in name only — resist meaningful reform.
Trump’s political resurgence leaves no excuse. Republicans in Congress must break this pattern and confront the bureaucrats blocking change.
Republicans have their chance
Lawmakers now face their moment. The current Senate and House drafts of the NDAA fall short. Republicans must seize this chance to codify President Trump and Secretary Hegseth’s reforms and restore warfighting as the military’s sole organizing principle.
To end the tyranny of DEI and race quotas, Congress cannot stop at praising executive action. It must legislate a permanent end to the ideology that has gutted readiness and crippled lethality.
China’s back door into our military? US recruiters use CCP-controlled messaging app to target Chinese nationals
Several U.S. military recruiting offices are communicating through a Chinese Communist Party-monitored messaging application as they seek to target Chinese nationals interested in enlisting, fueling concerns about potential national security risks.
CCP's grip on recruiting
After looking into a Department of Justice affidavit filed in June, Blaze News has discovered that some recruiters have been using WeChat. The court document claimed that the U.S. Navy Recruiting Station Alhambra in San Gabriel, California, had a bulletin board displaying recent recruits, the majority of whom identified their "hometown" as "China."
'China is our nation's greatest hegemonic adversary.'
The DOJ's criminal complaint was filed against two Chinese nationals who have been accused of taking photographs of the bulletin board and sending them to an officer with the CCP's Ministry of State Security.
The foreign adversary hometown designations spark serious concerns that individuals with divided loyalties and even potential CCP operatives have infiltrated the U.S. military.
While U.S. citizenship is required for officer and security clearance positions, noncitizens who are lawful permanent residents can enlist in the military. LPRs are generally eligible to naturalize after five years of continuous U.S. residence, and service members may qualify for expedited naturalization.
As of February 2024, roughly 40,000 foreign nationals were serving in the U.S. military. According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services' reporting, China ranks among the top 10 countries of birth for U.S. service members who have become naturalized citizens through the military. Just over 2,000 Chinese nationals were approved for military naturalizations from fiscal years 2020 through 2024.
RELATED: Patel’s FBI arrests alleged Chinese spies targeting US Navy
Experts sound alarm
Dr. Lawrence Sellin, a retired U.S. Army Reserve colonel and biological and chemical warfare defense expert, told Blaze News, "Infiltration of the U.S. military is a major goal of the Chinese Communist Party."
"It is accomplished via Chinese immigrants to the United States who become permanent residents or U.S. citizens but remain loyal to the CCP, either directly by the Chinese immigrants themselves or their pro-CCP children," he explained. "In fact, pro-CCP Chinese-American organizations are promoting such recruitment, facilitating CCP infiltration of the U.S. military."
Gordon Chang, a Gatestone Institute senior fellow, similarly warned that China has "weaponized its nationals."
He said in a comment to Blaze News, "China's National Intelligence Law of 2017 requires Chinese nationals and entities to spy if relevant authorities make demands."
"Moreover, in the Communist Party's top-down system, no person can disobey an order from the Party. Additionally, the regime coerces all ethnic Chinese, regardless of nationality, to do its bidding by threatening harm to loved ones and relatives in China," Chang stated. "Therefore, ethnic Chinese pose a special risk of espionage and sabotage to the U.S. military. Except under special circumstances, the U.S. military should not accept recruits who are Chinese nationals."
Lily Tang Williams, a Republican congressional candidate in New Hampshire and a survivor of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution, also argued against allowing foreign nationals from adversarial countries, including China, to enlist in the U.S. military.
Tang Williams told Blaze News, "China is our nation's greatest hegemonic adversary. They have made it very clear that they are seeking to usurp the United States' position in the world by taking advantage of our open society and using their nationals and businesses to spread their influence, doing military and economic espionage. The 'China Dream' is Xi Jinping's 'Soft Power Invasion' slogan to enable China overtaking the U.S. as the dominant number one global power by 2049."
More evidence of CCP reach
The troubling information that emerged from the DOJ affidavit led to further concerning revelations.
Journalist Jennifer Zeng uncovered another alarming detail about the Navy recruiting office in San Gabriel. She discovered that a suspected Chinese influencer had filmed a tour of the facility, which was later posted online as an apparent advertisement aimed at Chinese nationals.
The original video, posted to YouTube with nearly 25,000 views, is entirely in Chinese. The video shooter, "Rocky," joins EN2 Qlang Wang on his commute to work. He then interviews several suspected Chinese nationals as they go through the recruiting process at the office.
One recruit tells Rocky that he is 37 years old, has been residing in the U.S. for six years, and that he wants to join the Navy because it is "a chance for new opportunities [and] life experience," according to Zeng's translation of the video. Two additional recruits similarly attribute their decision to join the U.S. military to its opportunities.
The recruitment video concludes by listing WeChat as the first way to contact Zhong Yang, a presumed recruiter at the office. Initially, the video's YouTube description also highlighted WeChat as the main contact option, but that information was later removed, according to Zeng.
A Navy spokesperson confirmed to Blaze News that Wang and Yang are in the Navy, though declined to comment further.
‘Given that the CCP views the US as its No. 1 enemy and has actively infiltrated and spied on the US military, it's hard to believe that the US Navy would tolerate such a massive national security risk.’
Zeng wrote in a post on X, "EVERY recruiter here is Chinese, as well as all the people coming to enlist. The working language here is also Chinese."
Following her discovery of the Chinese-language tour video, Zeng posted her own videos from outside the U.S. Navy Recruiting Alhambra office and the neighboring Marine Corps Recruiting Station that showed bulletins taped to the windows.
The flyers were written in Chinese, featuring the U.S. Marine Corps seal, contact information for "Sgt Liu," and a QR code linking to Liu's WeChat.
"Joining the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve does not force you to become a citizen; you can maintain your permanent green card status," one of the flyers read, according to Zeng's translation. "Fast track to citizenship is also an option."
A spokesperson with the Marine Corps told Blaze News that the flyers had been removed.
"In December 2024, materials featuring a QR code linking to a personal WeChat account were displayed at a Marine Corps facility in San Gabriel, California. WeChat is not an authorized platform for official use, and the materials were promptly removed following review," the spokesperson stated.
When asked about the screening processes for U.S. citizens versus green card holders, particularly those from adversarial nations, the Marines said, "All applicants, whether naturalized or birthright U.S. citizens, undergo the same screening process. Additional vetting is conducted for individuals with ties to countries designated as potential security concerns."
RELATED: University of Michigan now under fire after Chinese scholars allegedly smuggle bio-weapon
Zeng told Blaze News that she was "truly shocked" that military recruiters were using WeChat for recruiting purposes.
"Virtually all Chinese dissidents — and many ordinary Chinese people — know that WeChat is 100% owned and monitored by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). There are numerous documented cases of the CCP using WeChat to surveil and persecute Chinese citizens," Zeng said.
"Given that the CCP views the U.S. as its No. 1 enemy and has actively infiltrated and spied on the U.S. military, it's hard to believe that the U.S. Navy would tolerate such a massive national security risk," she continued. "I sincerely hope the growing number of cases involving CCP agents stealing U.S. military secrets will serve as a wake-up call — and that the U.S. military and Navy will address this issue urgently."
Zeng explained that after she posted her findings on social media, some of her followers informed her that another recruiting office in New York was similarly advertising with flyers written in Chinese.
Blaze News confirmed those claims.
A U.S. Army Recruiting Office in Flushing, New York, advertised reaching out via WeChat to contact the office's recruiter in two posts on Google Maps.
Additionally, another U.S. Army Recruiting Office in Rowland Heights, California, similarly posted on Google Maps in Chinese, listing the recruiter's contact information, including a WeChat account.
USCIS spokesman Matthew J. Tragesser told Blaze News, “USCIS’s first priority is rooting out malicious actors who seek to take advantage of our lawful immigration system, whether for their own enrichment or to attack and undermine our nation. Our agency was born out of the horror of Sept. 11, 2001, and every American counts on us to detect and stop threats to our country. Individuals from high-risk countries, or countries with known anti-American governments, may face enhanced measures to protect American interests.”
“USCIS screens all applicants for immigration benefits — regardless of military status. USCIS maintains the integrity in the U.S. immigration system through enhanced screening and vetting to deter, detect, and disrupt immigration fraud and threats to our national security and public safety,” Tragesser added.
When reached for comment, the White House directed Blaze News to the Department of Defense, stating that the department was looking into the allegations regarding WeChat. The DOD, in turn, referred the matter to the individual branches involved. Neither the U.S. Army nor any of the recruiters listed in the advertisements responded to a request for comment.
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Army Secretary Orders Removal Of Biden Censorship Czar From West Point
On Wednesday, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll ordered West Point to terminate the employment of President Biden’s recently hired censorship czar. The revelation came following a now unavailable Tuesday announcement from the academy that Jen Easterly, the former director of the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), would be serving as the new Robert F. McDermott […]Trump Needs A Massive Drone Fleet To Defend U.S. Interests And Deter Its Enemies
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It is too bad the protesters can’t stop fighting Trump long enough to appreciate the Army that preserves their freedom to protest.Today's top stories
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