Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News host, gave a disastrous speech to the nation’s top military generals, who were called off their assignments from around the world to hear him speak in Quantico, Virginia.
“Should our enemies choose foolishly to challenge us, they will be crushed by the violence, precision, and ferocity of the War Department,” Hegseth said. “To our enemies, FAFO.” Hegseth spelled out the abbreviation, which means “f–k around and find out,” then paused for an applause that never came.
“To our enemies: FAFO”
— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) September 30, 2025
(holds for applause that doesn’t come)
Cringey awkward moment as Hegseth summons all 🇺🇸 generals to hear him do a one-man show about how strong we are pic.twitter.com/PJZGUuYUA9
The Washington Post reports that the Joint Chiefs Chair Gen.Dan Caine is leading the charge against Hegseth’s new strategy to reorder the Pentagon’s priorities:
The debate over the National Defense Strategy — the Pentagon’s primary guide for how it prioritizes resources and positions U.S. forces around the world — is the latest challenge for top military officials navigating the Trump administration’s unorthodox approach to the armed forces… [Caine] gave Hegseth very frank feedback. I don’t know if Hegseth even understands the magnitude of the NDS, which is why I think Caine tried so hard.
Retired Brig. Gen. Steve Anderson slammed Hegseth’s speech to the generals on CNN:
I think that there’s probably a lot of general officers sitting there right now muttering to themselves, “I traveled 8,000 miles to hear this?” I mean, this is essentially a canned speech that really could have been delivered by anybody in almost any time. But I think that there are some clues that he’s leaving about refocusing on homeland security and taking away perhaps some of our forward presence in the strength of our alliances overseas. And that really concerns me…
If you talk about accountability, responsibility, [Hegseth] needs to start with himself. He should have resigned after the Signalgate disaster. We shared our classified secrets on an insecure line. Every single person in that room knows that they would have been fired had they done the same thing. So, I mean, this is really a sad moment in our history.
(Sources: CNN, Twitter/X, The Washington Post)