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Colin Jost gave a scathing impression of the scandal-entrenched Secretary of War Pete Hegseth during a Saturday Night Live Cold Open segment. The comedian, who rarely appears on the late-night show beyond Weekend Update, depicted a high-strung and aggressive Hegseth clumsily soft-pedaling his alleged war crimes against Venezuelan drug-smuggling boats. Jost's Hegseth strutted to the podium at a press conference as wrestling-intro music blared - before chugging an energy drink and slamming it on the ground. 'First things first, where's the fatties?' he intensely asked the room full of baffled reporters during Saturday night's episode - which was criticized by...

Pete Hegseth’s Saturday begins with personal training. The Secretary of War, @SecWar on your socials, is very fond of working out with the troops – something most defense secretaries have done without someone dutifully filming the experience for Instagram. Then he heads off to the Reagan National Defense Forum, the annual gathering of war hawks, policy nerds and defense contractors in Simi Valley, California. Hegseth, the veteran of the Global War on Terror, is there to fulfill his mission of denouncing the neocons. “Out with idealistic utopianism, in with hard-nosed realism,” he declares, insisting the United States will no longer...

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the recent video in which six Democratic lawmakers called on U.S. troops to disobey illegal orders from the Trump administration was a “politically-motivated influence operation” that injected doubt into the armed forces. “The despicable video urging @DeptofWar troops to ‘refuse illegal orders’ may seem harmless to civilians — but it carries a different weight inside the military. This was a politically-motivated influence operation,” Hegseth wrote Tuesday morning on the social platform X “It never named a specific ‘illegal order.’ It created ambiguity rather than clarity. It used carefully scripted, legal-sounding language. It subtly reframed military...

Says Pentagon ready to act in Nigeria, elsewhere if ordered by president to end persecutionDefense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Friday that the United States must defend persecuted Christians in Nigeria and other parts of the world facing harsh treatment for their beliefs. “President Trump has made clear that the United States will always defend the right of Christians to freely worship here at home and around the world,” Mr. Hegseth told The Washington Times. “As a Christian, this is also very important to me and my family.” Mr. Hegseth, a conservative Christian, said in a statement that the Defense Department,...

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and his team have been ordered to cease polygraphs to stop leaks to the corporate media after an adviser complained to the White House. The adviser in question, Patrick Weaver, complained to White House officials this spring that he was worried about being directed by Hegseth or another member of his team to submit to a polygraph test. Hegseth’s team started administering polygraph tests to people around the defense secretary in April. The White House then intervened to stop the practice via a phone call by an individual close to the administration. The Post refused to...

Another day, another leak. CNN and The Washington Post on Wednesday reported that sources say the Pentagon Inspector General has ‘evidence’ that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s Signal chat included classified information from Central Command. The Pentagon Inspector General expanded his investigation into Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of the double-encrypted app Signal in May. Steven Stebbins took over as Acting Inspector General after President Trump fired the previous IG and 17 other inspectors general. Stebbins was first appointed to his position in 2015. Pete Hegseth has been under heavy attack since before his confirmation hearing and the leaks keep coming....

For the first time since the U.S. created an international group to coordinate military aid to Ukraine three years ago, America’s Pentagon chief will not be in attendance when more than 50 other defense leaders meet Wednesday. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who returned from a national security conference in Singapore on Sunday, will not arrive in Brussels until Wednesday evening, after the Ukraine Defense Contact Group’s meeting is over. A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss scheduling details, confirmed that Hegseth also will not participate by video conference. It is the latest in a series of steps...

WASHINGTON — The drama surrounding Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon has a new lead player: a top aide known to his detractors as “Rasputin Ricky.” Ricky Buria, the defense secretary’s de facto chief of staff, is a rare Biden administration holdover and an internal critic of Vice President JD Vance’s “wackamamie crazy” and “isolationist” views — who has also slammed President Trump’s use of the military for immigration enforcement as “dumb.” Buria, 43, is also considered “incredibly intelligent and hardworking,” has fashioned himself as a China hawk and is seen by Hegseth as an effective administrator who keeps the office running smoothly...