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The Secret Sauce of the Revival of the War Department: Merit Reigns

6 May 2026

During a recent Capitol Hill hearing, SecWar Pete Hegseth made powerful statements. Watch video:

TRANSCRIPT:

“Underwriting the change that we’ve seen in our department was a laser focus on getting back to basics. And the key word to that is Merit.

We had a department that was, that was obsessed with gender ideology and race, diversity, equity, and inclusion. In fact, the mantra you would hear dripping from the lips of generals with a serious look on their face was, “Our diversity is our strength,” which is the single dumbest phrase in military history.

Of course, our diversity is NOT our strength. Our unity is our strength, our shared purpose, the flag we wear and the Constitution we serve to defend.

And when you clear that debris away, whether it’s Marxist ideologies or social engineering political correctness or quotas based on gender and diversity, you get the best of the best rising up regardless of gender, regardless of race, motivated by that environment where merit reigns.

It’s accountability, standards, lethality, readiness, training, all the debris wiped away. That is the secret sauce of the revival of the War Department and why Americans are attracted to service.

Serving in it and why those inside it— why morale is sky high. And any insinuation that it is not are coming from folks who haven’t been in our units recently. Go visit the troops at every level and their morale is at record levels.”

Here’s another great clip. Buzz is on the STARRS Board of Advisors.

TRANSCRIPT:

“Earnestly, go into our formations right now and you talk to colonels and majors and staff sergeants and two-star generals and you ask them about the environment of our military right now and its capabilities right now compared to under the Biden administration, under Obama, they will tell you it is night and day.

Even the ranking member acknowledged that the troops performed incredibly well over the past 15 months and have demonstrated to the world. These are not new troops. In a lot of cases, these are the same troops with new leadership under President Trump, who gives them every authority, under a department that ensures they have what they need.

I have operators looking at me saying, for the first time ever, we have everything we need to accomplish the mission, both in equipment and in authorities.

That matters when you go 37 hours around the world for Midnight Hammers. That matters when you go downtown in Venezuela and grab the indicted dictator of a country in the middle of the night in the most fortified location.

That matters at the outset of the Iran conflict.

It matters during Operation Rough Rider. There’s a reason why the Houthis aren’t in this fight right now, because they experienced 50 days of the American military under President Trump.

That matters in the Caribbean in our fight against designated terror organizations.

This military is unleashed, and morale is at a level that this country has not seen for decades and decades because of the leadership of President Trump and because the War Department allows them to get back to basics.

No more distractions, no more debris. It’s simple accountability, training standards, lethality, and they respond to it.

And it’s that response that’s manifest in highly and historic successful military operations led by our incredible joint force, who are grateful to have a commander-in-chief that has their back.”

And one more:

TRANSCRIPT:

Senator: “Did the president direct you to single out female and Black officers to be dismissed?”

SecWar: “Senator, of course not. And as we’ve emphasized at this department from the beginning, the only metric is merit.

Members on this committee and the previous leadership of this department were focused on hyping social engineering, race and gender in ways that we think were unhealthy for the department—focusing on those things, making decisions based on those things.

In President Trump’s War Department, we make decisions based on only one thing: merit. That’s how we’ve made decisions going forward. That’s how we’ve made them.”

 

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