Pete Hegseth Gets Turning Point USA Crowd to Boo Idea that ‘Diversity Is Our Strength’

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth took time out from what he called his “day job” on Friday to address a Turning Point USA gathering, where he received a predictably rousing reception and got the crowd to jeer at the idea of “diversity”.

“So, a little bit about my day job right now,” Hegseth began. “At the War Department, we’ve been focused on three very basic things from the beginning that I think apply to this organization and all organizations, but specifically to ours. It’s to revive the warrior ethos, rebuild the military, and re-establish deterrence.”

“Restoring the warrior ethos seems like common sense. That’s what we do,” Hegseth said, continuing:

HEGSETH: Getting focused on training and readiness and lethality and accountability and discipline and war fighting. That should be what the Department of Defense and the Department of War does, right? Deter our wars and, if necessary, fight our wars and win our wars, full stop. But because of policies of previous administrations, specifically mostly the Obama administration and the Biden administration —

TPUSA CROWD: [Boos]

HEGSETH: You had a department. That was built around odd forms of social engineering. As if your gender or your race should determine or should be a focus of who you are. And we had generals — I say this all the time and you have to keep repeating it — We had generals who would stand at podiums just like this one, stars on their shoulders, and say the single dumbest phrase in military history. The single dumbest phrase in military history is, “Our diversity is our strength.”

TPUSA CROWD: [Boos]

HEGSETH: And here’s why. Because our strength, in our country, a very diverse country, is our unity. That’s our strength.

TPUSA CROWD: [Cheers]

HEGSETH: It’s our oath to the Constitution. It’s our shared purpose. It’s our core mission. It’s the man or the woman to your right and to your left, and I know that from having been there in combat. None of that other stuff matters. You just want the most capable American next to you, who’s well trained and lethal in what they do. That’s all you want, regardless of their gender, regardless of their race, regardless of their politics, and that’s why our department is done with all the DEI crap.

TPUSA CROWD: [Cheers]

HEGSETH: We are sex neutral, gender neutral, colorblind and merit-based. That’s it — merit.

TPUSA CROWD: [Cheers]

HEGSETH: And I can’t tell you what how incredible the reaction has been, because the Americans who join our military want to do just that. They don’t want to be part of a social justice experiment. If they wanted that, they’d go to college!

Hegseth has been accused of fomenting bias in the Defense Department by actions like striking the names of Black and female officers from a military promotions list.

Watch the clip above via OANN.

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