Today in Politics, Bulletin 219. 9/30/25

… Pete Hegseth gave his big speech today on the “Warrior Ethos” to hundreds of the most senior military commanders who were summoned to Quantico, VA from all over the world to hear it in person. Trump then spoke afterwards about sending troops to battle American citizens in US cities.

… Minutes before he took the stage, Hegseth posted this on social media: “Today, we end the War on Warriors.”

… He then came out and gave a speech that was received by those in attendance with stone cold silence. Hegseth kept pausing on what he thought would be his big applause lines, but he got no reaction at all from anyone in the audience.

• “It is tiring to look out and see fat troops, likewise unexpected to see fat generals leading command, it is a bad look. Bad and not who we are.”

… Gavin Newsom then posted a photo with this caption: “I guess the Commander in Chief needs to go!”

• “Today, at my direction, the era of unprofessional appearance is over. No more beardos. If you don’t meet the male-level physical standards for combat positions, cannot pass a PT test, or don’t want to shave and look professional, it’s time for a new position.”

• “We will unleash overwhelming and punishing violence on the enemy. We also don’t fight with stupid rules of engagement. We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt, and kill the enemies of our country. No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement.”

… What he is saying here is that all the rules developed by the US military over many decades to minimize collateral damage to prevent civilian casualties during air strikes and in combat zones are out the window, and our troops will be able to do whatever they want. Lt. William Calley of the infamous My Lai Massacre in Vietnam would’ve loved serving under Hegseth.

• “I’m issuing new policies to overhaul the IG, EO, and MEO processes. I call it the ‘No more walking on eggshells policy’. No more frivolous and anonymous complaints - no more smearing reputations.”

… So whistleblowers and people who want to report abusive, illegal, or fraudulent practices must out themselves to their superiors to make a complaint or report an issue, then likely face retribution after doing so.

• “You should not pay for an earnest mistake for your entire career. That’s why today, at my direction, we’re making changes to the retention of adverse information on personnel records.”

… So if you got in trouble for misconduct and that is in your service record you will be able to get that expunged so it doesn’t get counted against you in the future. The military is supposed to have the highest standards for their leadership - not people getting free passes.

• “You might say we’re ending the War on Warriors. I heard someone wrote a book about that.”

… Hegseth wrote a book called War on Warriors. So in addition to wasting many millions of dollars to fly all these generals to VA, when they got there Hegseth is trying to sell them his book.

• “Today, at my direction, each service will ensure that every requirement for every combat MOS, for every designated combat arms position, returns to the highest male standard only.”

• “When it comes to any job that requires physical power to perform in combat, those standards must be high and gender neutral. If women can make it, excellent. If not, it is what it is. If that means no women for some combat jobs, so be it.”

• “I don’t want me son serving alongside troops who are out of shape or in combat units with females who can’t meet the same combat arms physical standards as men.”

… Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) initially said she was inclined to vote against Hegseth’s nomination because of his documented statements about women in the military. But she said she changed her mind, which saved his nomination, because Hegseth assured her that he would treat women fairly. Hegseth is now Ernst’s permanent legacy in the Senate as she heads into retirement.

• “We’re empowering drill sergeants to instill healthy fear in new recruits ensuring future war fighters are forged. Yes, they can shark attack and toss bunks, swear and yes they can put their hands on recruits.”

… The US military has banned drill instructors “putting their hands on recruits” since 1980. They also banned cursing by drill instructors decades ago because recruit training had gotten to the point where it was an endless stream of f-bombs and they decided that there are many other colorful words you can use to get your point across.

• “No more beards, long hair, superficial individual expression. We don’t have a military full of Nordic pagans.”

… I’m pretty sure when he says “superficial individual expression” he means anything a service member might say, do, or wear on or off-duty that suggests they might be gay will be off limits. We are going back to the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ days.

• “An entire generation of admirals and generals were told to parrot the insane fallacy our diversity is our strength. We know unity is our strength. They had to put out DEI and LBGTQ+ statements and were told females and males are the same thing or males who think they are females totally normal. They were told we need a green fleet and electric tanks.”

• “If the words I’m speaking today are making your heart sink then you should do the honorable thing and resign. I suspect, I know the overwhelming majority of you feel the opposite.”

… Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ): “Spending millions of dollars to fly generals/admirals from around the world to listen to Hegseth’s narcissistic rant the day before service members could get their paychecks withheld is the opposite of leadership.”

… The professionalism that our most senior military commanders exhibited with their silence today to all of this nonsense from both Trump and Hegseth, despite repeated attempts by them to beg the generals to please clap was encouraging. It should be an example to all troops when Trump and Hegseth try to bait them to engage in partisan politics.

… Daily Mail: “Pete Hegseth allegedly fears for his safety in the wake of Charlie Kirk‘s assassination. Two Pentagon insiders say their boss has in the last few weeks been erupting in tirades, raging at staffers and obsessing about matters related to his security: ‘There’s a manic quality about him. Or let me rephrase, an even more manic quality, which is really saying something,’ one told us, describing Hegseth as visibly distracted, fidgeting and even standing up and pacing during meetings.”

… “Dude is crawling out of his skin,”’ said the other.

Typically these Bulletins contain lots of different bits and pieces of info about many different topics in political news. But today was dominated by the Trump/Hegseth speeches to the general and the government shutdown, so the vast majority of this one will be focused on those two things.

I also hope you don’t mind that I couldn’t help mixing in my commentary on these points.

… Trump on the tarmac heading to VA for his speech to the generals: “I’ll be meeting with generals and with admirals and with leaders and if I don’t like somebody, I’ll fire them right on the spot.”

… Although Trump rambled on and on about a number of partisan political grievances that were completely inappropriate for a military audience (including that the 2020 election was supposedly stolen), most of his speech focused on preparing military leadership to accept the use of combat troops in US cities against US citizens.

• “We’re under invasion from within. No different than a foreign enemy but more difficult in many ways because they don’t wear uniforms.”

• “Last month, I signed an executive order to provide training for a quick reaction force that can help quell civil disturbances. This is gonna be a big thing for the people in this room, because it’s the enemy from within and we have to handle it before it gets out of control.”

• “SF and Chicago, NY, LA - we’ll straighten them out one-by-one. It will be a major part for some of the people in this room. It’s a war too. It’s a war from within.”

• “Our inner cities, which we’ll be talking about because it’s a big part of war now, a big part of war.”

• “Our history is filled with military heroes who took on all enemies foreign and domestic. That’s what the oath says - foreign and domestic. Well, we also have domestic.”

… Gavin Newsom: “This speech should terrify anyone who cares about our country. Declaring war on our nation’s cities and using our troops as political pawns is what dictators do. This man cares about nothing but his own ego and power.”

• “Portland, Oregon, where it looks like a war zone. I get a call from the liberal governor, ‘Sir, please don’t come in, we don’t need you.’ I said, unless they’re playing false tapes, this looks like World War 2.”

… Trump here making decisions on whether to send troops into an American city based on selectively edited videos played on Fox.

… Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry on Fox: “We’re sending the Department of War a request to send the National Guard, asking them to deploy the National Guard here in Louisiana into our cities like New Orleans and Baton Rogue and others.”

… So what he’s saying is that he’s completely incompetent and incapable of governing his own state so he wants Orange Daddy to send troops.

• “You know what the people in those cities say? They love the military. I’ve never seen somebody say they don’t unless they are paid off. A lot of these insurrectionists are paid - whether it’s Soros or other people.”

• “They did not treat you with respect. They’re Democrats. They never do.”

… Completely inappropriate partisan political comments by Trump to an audience of military officers.

• “They are vicious people that we have to fight. Just like you have to fight vicious people. Mine are a different kind of vicious. But they spread all these horrible - they made up statements and said what I said about everything - even about the military. We need an honest press. We have a corrupt press.”

… Trump said that the military has to fight the press because they reported on his “suckers and losers” comments that Gen. John Kelly went on record to verify.

• “It is just like in Venezuela, you’ve seen the boats going. We can’t find anymore boats. We take them out and we’ve taken out four. And it is on air, everybody gets to see it. They don’t even want to go fishing now.”

• “Will I get the Nobel Prize? Absolutely not. They’ll give it to some guy that didn’t do a damn thing. It would be a big insult to country, I will tell you that. I don’t want it, I want the country to get it. We should get it.”

… He wants it more than just about anything. It drives him crazy that Obama got it and not him. He talks about it every day. His surrogates talk about it. His cabinet officials talk about it. Fox hosts talk about it. Republicans in congress talk about it. But, according to Trump, he really doesn’t want it for himself.

• “I think we should start thinking about battleship. It is something we’re considering, the concept of battleship. Six inch sides - solid steel. Not aluminum that melts if it looks at a missile coming at it. Starts melting. Bullets are a lot less expensive than missiles.”

• “I am a very aesthetic person. I don’t like some of the ships you are doing aesthetically. They say it is stealth. That’s not stealth. An ugly ship is not necessary in order to say you are stealth.”

… Sailors are big on not getting killed, and value that over Trump’s aesthetic tastes. Not that he cares.

• “Boeing said we would like to name it the F-47. That means 47, I’m 47. I’m 45, 46 and 47. I don’t want the credit for 46. I don’t want to have their open borders and people coming in from all over the world including jails and mental institutions. I don’t want that on my record but I like having it.”

… Of course Boeing wanted the big Air Force contract for the next generation of fighter jets, and their CEO knew the best way to do that was to name it the F-47 for Trump. And it worked. But Trump also had to slip in that he really won the 2020 election with the ‘46’ reference.

• “We have the strongest military in the world. We have great leadership. We got many of them out of here, too. We got many of you out of here. Because we weren’t satisfied. We know everything about everybody.”

… This was also one of the main points to summoning the generals to VA. Trump is letting them know that some have already been fired and this will be more to come because the admin is watching all of them closely and if they step out of line or refuse an unlawful or immoral order they will be gone next.

• “We’re the hottest country in the world right now. Nobody even close. Putin said that to me. We met in Alaska. I had a good meeting. Then he went back and started sending drones into Kyiv. I said I thought we had a good meeting. But it’s one of those things.”

… This is not a Trump rally. The people in that room despise Putin and know exactly who he is. Trump’s love affair with Vlad doesn’t play well with the generals.

Reminder that there is no Bulletin tomorrow because I have my podcast Uncovered where we do a deep dive into the Top 10 stories right now, then Ask the Editor where I answer 5 of your questions. Please submit a question in the comments below to this column or anything you want me to talk about in more detail.

If you missed yesterday’s Bulletin, you can find it here. As always, thank you to everyone for supporting my work!

… After that was over, Trump returned to the Oval Office for a press event with RFK Jr and Dr. Oz where Trump claimed again that he was lowering drug prices by 1,000%. He was asked about reports that Russ Vought is going to permanently terminate thousands of federal workers if there is a shutdown: “We may do a lot and that’s only