Surely Pete Hegseth Has Non-Racist, Non-Sexist Reasons For Blocking Promotions Of Only Women, Black Men
Or not. Probably not.
According to a report from The New York Times (gift link), Secretary of WAR Pete Hegseth has blocked the promotion of two Black men and two women (of undisclosed race, though we assume they’re white as it would likely have been mentioned if they were not) to one star generals, a thing it does not appear he is actually allowed to do.
Hegseth was originally presented with the list of about three dozen officers selected for promotion by Army leaders back in November of 2024, and has spent the last year or so attempting to pressure said leaders to remove those particular officers (plus one other who literally resigned in hopes of pushing Hegseth to give up and approve the list), to no avail. Army Secretary Daniel P. Driscoll says he repeatedly refused to remove the selected officers, as he believed they deserved the promotion.
Generally speaking, all Hegseth is allowed to do is approve or reject the whole list and is not supposed to be allowed to remove particular individuals from it, to avoid making it “political,” but he’s decided to do so anyway.
Because hey, it’s the Trump administration, they do what they want.
We know that one of the officers, a Black armor officer, was axed because, swear to God he had “written a paper nearly 15 years earlier that analyzed why African American officers historically have opted for support jobs over frontline, combat positions.” You know, because that’s DEI, somehow. Another officer, a female logistics officer, was reportedly cut because “she served in Afghanistan during the bloody 2021 withdrawal,” even though those she served with said she still did her job well despite all of the chaos. The other two … no one knows. But we surely could guess.
Hegseth’s whole thing has been that “DEI” results in women and people of color who are insufficiently qualified being promoted or hired over white men, who of course are all fabulously competent and qualified. If people look at pictures and still see a number of people of color and women, they might start to think that’s not true. I mean, if they were actually smart, they’d realize that part of the reason those programs exist is specifically because qualified women and people of color were being overlooked in favor of less qualified white men, but they’re not.
The Times also cited another instance in which Hegseth’s chief of staff, Ricky Buria, got into it with Driscoll over another promotion.
Via New York Times:
Mr. Buria chastised the Army secretary for selecting Maj. Gen. Antoinette R. Gant, a combat engineer who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, to take command of the Military District of Washington, said three current and former defense and administration officials familiar with the exchange. The command provides security and performs ceremonial duties in the nation’s capital, and its commander often appears alongside the president at Arlington National Cemetery.
Mr. Buria told Mr. Driscoll that President Trump would not want to stand next to a Black female officer at military events, the officials said.
Mr. Driscoll was shocked. “The president is not a racist or sexist,” he told Mr. Buria, according to the officials. Mr. Driscoll then raised the issue with a senior White House official who agreed with his assessment of Mr. Trump.
Mr. Hegseth’s office retreated. General Gant began serving in the position last summer and was promoted to two-star rank earlier this month.
Buria denies that this ever happened, though it would certainly be a strange thing for three different officers to make up. What’s a little harder to believe is that two separate people would suggest that Trump was neither sexist nor racist, as he very obviously is, though perhaps not in the same calculating way as some of his cronies.
It also absolutely squares with Hegseth’s general nonsense that he wouldn’t want the president to be seen with a Black female officer standing next to him, because, again, he very much wants to present a facade of white male superiority.
It does seem like it should be a pretty big deal for the Secretary of the Army to go on record more or less saying that Hegseth and his staff are blatantly sexist and racist, but Hegseth clearly believes that’s just part of his charm, and given his career on Fox News, it would be a little tough for him to claim otherwise.
Driscoll, by the way, is also a white man and a Republican, so one would have to imagine that Hegseth has taken things pretty far for it to get to this point. Of course, Hegseth did just publicly pray for “overwhelming violence” against his enemies, so he may want to watch his back.
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
Ever had a job you loved, but the bosses shit on you until you quit? That’s what he’s doing here.
His mom tried to warn us.