President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth addressed hundreds of the U.S. military’s top generals at a rare in-person meeting in northern Virginia on Tuesday.
Hegseth had ordered about 800 military officials with a rank of one-star general or rear admiral or higher to travel to the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Va., without specifying a reason.
Military experts said the gathering was highly unusual, given the logistical effort required to have top commanders travel from all parts of the world with only a few days’ notice, as well as the military’s ability to hold secure meetings remotely.
Here are some highlights from their speeches, which were livestreamed.
Hegseth pushes ‘warrior ethos’ to fix ‘decades of decay’
The defense secretary and former Fox News host kicked off with a speech extolling the “warrior ethos,” and railing against what he called a “woke” culture at the Pentagon.
“This speech is about fixing decades of decay,” Hegseth said. “We became the woke department. But not anymore.”
Hegseth said it was part of the Trump administration’s effort to strip away the “social justice, politically correct and toxic, ideological garbage that had infected our department.”
“No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses, no more climate change worship, no more division, distraction or gender delusion,” he said. “We are done with that s***.”
Hegseth also issued a blunt warning to those in attendance.
“If the words I’m speaking today are making your heart sink, you should do the honorable thing and resign,” Hegseth said.
Defense secretary announces new standards for physical appearance
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth addresses senior military officers at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Quantico, Va., on Tuesday. (Andrew Harnik/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
He announced 10 new directives, including updated standards for physical fitness and appearance.
The defense secretary said he no longer wants to see generals who are overweight.
“It’s completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon leading commands around the country and the world,” Hegseth said. “It’s a bad look.”
Hegseth stated that every member of the military, regardless of rank, will be required to take a physical fitness test and meet height and weight requirements twice a year.
Hegseth also ordered troops to shave their beards and cut their hair short.
“No more beardos,” he said. “The era of unacceptable appearance is over.”
Hegseth says he’s returning combat requirements to ‘the highest male standard’
Hegseth, who has criticized the military for allowing women to serve in combat roles, said he is returning “every requirement for every designated combat arms position” to “the highest male standard.”
Earlier this year, the U.S. Army unveiled a new physical fitness test (the Army Fitness Test) requiring female soldiers in combat roles to pass the same “sex-neutral” fitness test as their male counterparts. The previous test was scored on a curve based on gender and age.
“I don’t want my son serving alongside troops who are out of shape,” Hegseth said. “Or in a combat unit with females who can’t meet the same combat arms physical standards as men, or troops who are not fully proficient on their assigned weapons, platform, or task, or under a leader who was the first but not the best.
“When it comes to any job that requires physical power to perform in combat, those physical standards must be high and gender neutral,” he continued. “If women can make it, excellent. If not, it is what it is. If that means no women qualify for some combat jobs, so be it.”
Trump: ‘If you don’t like what I’m saying, you can leave the room’
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth greets President Trump as he arrives to speak to senior military leaders at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Quantico, Va., on Tuesday. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
The president followed Hegseth with a speech of his own.
“I’ve never walked into a room so silent before,” Trump said as he took the stage. “If you want to applaud, you applaud. If you don’t like what I’m saying, you can leave the room.”
In his remarks, which stretched over an hour, Trump vowed to make the military “stronger, tougher, faster, fiercer and more powerful than it has ever been” before moving on to an array of topics, including his decision to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, his pursuit of the Nobel Peace Prize, and his aesthetic assessment of U.S. warships.
Last month, Trump signed an executive order seeking to change the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War, part of an effort to project the U.S. military as stronger and more powerful.
Trump refers to nuclear as ‘the N-word’
While discussing U.S. nuclear capabilities, Trump said that he was reluctant to even use the term.
“We can’t let people throw around that word,” Trump said. “I call it the N-word. There are two N-words, and you can’t use either of them.”
He said he had sent two nuclear submarines to Russia after the U.S. was “a little bit threatened” by Moscow.
In August, Trump announced the deployment in response to what he called “highly provocative statements” from former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
President suggests using ‘dangerous cities’ as military training grounds
Military members look on before President Trump’s speech at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Quantico, Va., on Tuesday. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)
At one point, Trump said he suggested to Hegseth that the Defense Department use “dangerous cities” in the U.S. as “training grounds” for the military.
“I told Pete, we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military, National Guard, but military,” Trump said. “Because we’re going into Chicago very soon, that’s a big city with an incompetent governor.”
Trump told the military officials of his plans to send troops into other cities, including Portland, Ore., San Francisco and New York, where he said that “America is under invasion from within.”
Trump said Portland “looks like a war zone” reminiscent of World War II.
The White House amplified Trump’s rhetoric in a press release Tuesday, saying the president was mobilizing federal resources to Portland to “stop Antifa-led hellfire in its tracks.”
“The Radical Left’s reign of terror in Portland ends now,” the White House said.
Trump wants the military to take on domestic ‘enemies’
“We’ve brought back the fundamental principle that defending the homeland is the military’s first and most important priority. That’s what it is,” Trump said. “Only in recent decades that politicians somehow come to believe that our job is to police the far reaches of Kenya and Somalia, while America is under invasion from within.
“We’re under invasion from within,” the president continued. “No different than a foreign enemy, but more difficult in many ways because they don’t wear uniforms — at least when they’re wearing a uniform, you can take them out.”
“Our history is filled with military heroes who took on all enemies, foreign and domestic,” Trump added. “That’s what the oath says, foreign and domestic. Well, we also have domestic.”
Speaking to reporters at the White House earlier Tuesday, Trump said he was looking forward to addressing the gathering in Quantico.
“I’m going to be meeting with generals and with admirals and with leaders,” the president said. “And if I don’t like somebody, I’m going to fire them right on the spot.”
