On Sunday night's episode of his HBO show, John Oliver turned his focus to Pete Hegseth, characterizing the defense secretary's actions as "taking a wrecking ball" to the US military. Oliver described Hegseth as "the guy you constantly see trying to show off by publicly exercising with troops and recruits, and to go by fitness experts on the internet, not doing a great job of it."
Hegseth's 'State of the Force' Address
Hegseth has proposed multiple changes to the US military, and in late September delivered the annual "State of the Force" address in Virginia outlining plans for "no more PowerPoint trainings or drag queen shows." He also stated there would be "no more gender pronouns."
"We are no longer the woke department or the weak department," Hegseth said, before stumbling over his words as he added: "Translation of that: no fatties, no weirdos, no wimps, no radicals, just warriors."
Oliver mocked the delivery, saying, "If you're going to go on stage and spew hate, at least don't flub the delivery like a middle schooler about to lose his first rap battle." He added, "That is just pathetic. It sounds less like an inspiring piece of oratory and more like he's reading from a book called Dr Seuss for Concussed Bigots."
Controversies and Ties
Hegseth has faced unflattering headlines since being sworn in as secretary of war in January 2025. Last year, the Pentagon launched an investigation after a journalist was mistakenly added to a Signal group chat discussing military operations.
The recent war in Iran has been highly unpopular with Americans and, as Oliver put it, has "achieved none of this administration's original goals. Not only has there been no regime change, the strait of Hormuz is now under Iranian control and there seems to be no way out of this conflict."
In a March press conference, Hegseth called out what he described as "fake headlines" about the Iran war and suggested that a "patriotic press" would reframe the conflict to be more flattering of America.
Oliver also revisited Hegseth's past, noting that while at Princeton, Hegseth wrote an essay attacking the school's "gratuitous glorification of diversity." While working for veterans advocacy organizations, he faced accusations of financial mismanagement, sexual impropriety and being intoxicated at work, which Hegseth has denied.
During his time at Fox News, Hegseth repeatedly defended Donald Trump. In 2020, he responded to Trump's threats to destroy Iranian cultural sites by saying: "I don't care about Iranian cultural sites … if they could, they would destroy every one of our cultural sites and build a mosque on top of it."
Oliver quipped, "For what it's worth, I doubt that Hegseth and I could agree on what America's most important cultural sites are. He's probably thinking about a bunch of Confederate statues and the first place his great-great-grandfather ever fucked a gun."
Book and Ties to Nationalist Groups
In 2024, Hegseth published a book titled The War on Warriors, in which he compared DEI to "a cultural Marxist revolution ripping through the Pentagon." He also has a tattoo reading "Deus Vult," a popular white nationalist slogan, and ties to Christian nationalist groups including the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches.
The group's leader believes homosexuality should be a crime and women should not have the right to vote, and has called the immigration of Muslim and Hindu people to the US "parasitic."
When Hegseth was floated as a potential secretary of war by Trump, one defense lobbyist reportedly reacted by saying: "Who the fuck is this guy?" Oliver noted, "Unfortunately, the answer to that question is now: he's the guy who just spent the last two years taking a wrecking ball to the US military."
Oliver said Hegseth seems "utterly obsessed with the racial and gender makeup of the military." Earlier this month, Hegseth instituted a complete ban on transgender military service and blocked the promotions of about 10% of top military officers. "Tellingly, more than half of those officers have been female or Black," said Oliver.
At an address to generals and admirals last year, Hegseth characterized service members as people who "kill people and break things for a living." Oliver responded, "What the fuck is he talking about there? You break things for a living and don't necessarily belong in polite society? That is not a message for the military; that is a message for the fucking Minions."
Oliver concluded by predicting that if Hegseth is impeached, he would return to Fox News to host a show called Battle Lines with Pete Hegseth, where he would do "stunty bullshit like playing beer pong with Kid Rock, or dressing up as a bear and catching a salmon in his mouth."
