New Anti-Hegseth Op Illustrates The Media’s Campaign To Protect The Pentagon Status Quo

The Federalist ^ | 04/22/2025 | Shawn Fleetwood

[DFG]

While millions of Americans were commemorating the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ this past weekend, a cabal of media propagandists and D.C. insiders was busy formulating a seemingly coordinated campaign to take down Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Within hours of one another, The New York Times and Politico dropped hit pieces on Sunday against the Pentagon chief. The pieces were apparently aimed at undermining his leadership of America’s military. While the former used anonymous sources to try and revive the media’s “Signalgate” dud, the latter ran an op-ed from a former Defense Department spokesman — who resigned last week after evidently failing to get the Pentagon job he wanted — alleging “total chaos” at the agency under Hegseth’s direction.

NPR decided to join the pile-on, publishing a piece on Monday containing allegations from an unnamed “U.S. official” that the White House “has begun the process of looking for a new leader at the Pentagon to replace Pete Hegseth.” The White House quickly shot down the claim.

The articles were published on the heels of a major shake-up at the Pentagon last week, which saw the dismissal of several high-level advisers over claims of unauthorized leaking. The officials have since denied the allegations.

While Democrats have predictably latched onto these new hatchet jobs to re-up their demands for Hegseth to lose his job, the media’s latest “bombshells” aren’t the earth-shattering scandals they wish they were. If anything, the use of anonymous sources and disgruntled former colleagues is straight out of the same playbook these “journalists” have been running to try and oust Hegseth since he was tapped to lead the Pentagon last year.

But as desperate as this latest anti-Hegseth campaign may seem, it’s critical to understand the motivations behind these new hit pieces and why these actors are so dead set on taking down President Trump’s defense secretary.

For one, consider the greater political conversation engulfing the media in the days leading up to Sunday’s “bombshells.”

Democrats and their buddies in the corporate press spent the entirety of last week fomenting outrage about the Trump administration’s deportation of a Salvadoran national with alleged ties to MS-13 back to El Salvador. Without a drop of shame, these propagandists characterized this alleged wife-beater as just a “Maryland man,” with Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., even going as far as to travel to El Salvador to meet the deported noncitizen.

For a party with record-low favorability ratings among the American people, running to the defense of an illegal alien credibly accused of being affiliated with a deadly gang isn’t exactly great optics. It’s clear Democrats needed a narrative change fast, and their media allies’ new anti-Hegseth blitz represented the perfect off-ramp.

Second, and more important, the D.C. establishment’s continued campaign to oust Hegseth comes from its fervent opposition to the much-needed change he’s bringing to the Pentagon.

For years, the Defense Department has operated within the best interests of the agency’s higher-ups and D.C.’s notorious defense-industrial complex. While high-ranking officials used their coveted positions of influence to advance neo-Marxist ideologies throughout the Pentagon and defense contractors got rich off of America’s military involvement in nonsensical overseas conflicts, rank-and-file service members’ needs were ignored, the country’s military infrastructure crumbled, and the priority of winning wars went out the window.

Unlike his predecessors, Hegseth is someone who comes from outside this incestuous system that’s responsible for the decay witnessed throughout America’s armed forces. Much like Trump, he’s a disruptor — and by every measure, he’s doing exactly what the president appointed him to do.

Since taking over the reins at the DOD, Hegseth has overseen a noticeable rise in military recruiting, eliminated divisive and destructive DEI ideology, restored standards to military service, scrapped the Pentagon’s immoral and illegal Biden-era abortion policy, ended racist affirmative action policies at U.S. military academies, directed military assets to protect America’s borders, carried out strikes on Houthi terrorists, and more.

One would also be hard pressed to find another defense secretary like Hegseth, who regularly works out alongside active-duty service members and listens to their concerns and thoughts on military policy. Contrast this behavior with that of Joe Biden’s noticeably overweight defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, who was seemingly too busy kicking out troops who were unvaccinated for Covid to care about their perspectives on issues facing the force.

Despite their collective shrieking, the loudest voices within the D.C. establishment aren’t concerned that Hegseth doesn’t have what it takes to lead the Pentagon. Rather, they’re afraid of the changes he is and will continue to implement that directly disrupt the status quo they’ve spent years protecting.

If Hegseth’s tenure as defense secretary thus far is what “total chaos” is supposed to look like, then by all means keep it coming.

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TOPICS: Politics
KEYWORDS:

[exPBRrat]

The MSM is the enemy of America.

[digger48]

The media want a head on the wall

They don’t care who or why

[jagusafr]

Charlie Mike, Secretary Hegseth.

[V_TWIN]

Lloyd Austin disappeared for days and nobody knew where he was and the lib media barely noticed.

[Carl Vehse]

New Anti-Hegseth Op Illustrates The Media’s Campaign To Protect The Pentagon Status Quo Give Aid And Comfort To The Domestic And Foreign Enemies Of The United States

There. Fixed it.

[1Old Pro]

The MSM is the enemy of America.

Correct

[Salman]

We need a complete purge of the military, not just the joint chiefs.

[bray]

The military has become the Communists’ Social experiment with Homosexual extremists in the lead.

[SharpRightTurn]

The NY Slimes and Pollutico. The usual misinformation/mal-information sources.

[silent majority rising]

They are tools of the CIA, as the DNC is also.

[Cincinnatus.45-70]

It also suggests, to me at least, that maybe the media is on the side of and possibly in the pay of China. If the mayor of Boston got $300,000 from a Chinese agent, as alleged, how much could various media organs be receiving?

[silent majority rising]

CIA infiltration by perpetrating a ‘Color Revolution’ on the US itself.

[KobraKai]

If Trump gives the left a scalp, his administration is forfeit.

[Empire_of_Liberty]

I believe that you are certainly correct about the force ultimately behind this.

The goal is to make America like China. The Left is hell-bent on installing unpopular government in America to please its foreign masters.

There is an urgency to this.

[AFB-XYZ]

It’s clearly a vendetta.

[Gnome1949]

The U.S. military has 44 four-star generals and admirals.

We only needed SEVEN to win World War II.

Most people have no idea how many people are in the entourages of these “perfumed princes.” They have aides, cooks, drivers and other staff NCO’s. They have government-provided mansions on military bases. They have cars and designated aircraft. They have personal, armed security details, Each “BIG SHOT” costs the U.S. taxpayer a HUGE amount of money.

Below that are about 900 other one, two and three-star generals and admirals, ALL costing Americans BILLIONS OF DOLLARS to provide BIG MILITARY BRASS with royal treatment.

There is no doubt this royalty costs more than the entire budget required to preserve the MONARCH of the British Empire.

The royal court of Versailles, under Louis XVI, was nothing compared to U.S. Defense Department royalty. The French people chopped off the head of Louis XVI, for his profligate spending, but he was an amateur compared to the vast Pentagon royalty.

The U.S. military has, therefore, the equivalent of at least 44 BEYONCE’ four-star entourages running around like 17th-Century royalty with their aides, attendants, courtiers, servants, guards and court jesters in tow.

[antidemoncrat]

Maybe if Pres. Trump picked Sam Binton or Rachael Levine to be the United States secretary of defense the Lame Street Media would be thrilled.

[Jumper]

Elite PANIC: Trump’s Revolution Breaks the Old World Order - The Monday Brief - April 21, 2025

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cC8veAr2oQ

While Donald Trump meticulously rebuilds the American economy and culture and ends the forever wars, the media, the judiciary, elements of the Pentagon, and the Federal Reserve remain in open revolt. They take measures to crash the economy, continue the Ukraine war and start a new one with Iran, build a militant British imperial agent in Canada to war against the United States, and generally sow the seeds of their own destruction. Trump’s approval, however, continues to advance because the population isn’t buying any of their nonsense. Now, we need to get the Congress to perform their intended role under the Constitution, that will kill the judicial insurrection.

[nopardons]

BTTT