Pete Hegseth unknowingly criticizes Noem and Rubio while ending controversial Pentagon initiative

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has decided to terminate a program that aimed to enhance the involvement of women in national security sectors. This program was initially established and signed into law by President Donald Trump back in 2017.

In a surprising move seemingly directed at the previous Biden administration, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ended up targeting prominent members of Donald Trump’s own cabinet by declaring his intentions to dismantle a significant Pentagon initiative that focused on enhancing women’s roles in conflict prevention.

Hegseth made the announcement on Tuesday that he will commence the dismantling of the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) program. This initiative, implemented across the defense sector, was designed to support and boost women’s involvement in peace-building efforts and the planning of national security strategies.

The program was signed into law by President Trump in 2017, the WPS Act had bipartisan backing and global acclaim, but in a scorching post on X, Hegseth dismissed the effort entirely.

‘Yet another woke divisive/social justice/Biden initiative that overburdens our commanders and troops – distracting from our core task: WAR-FIGHTING,’ Hegseth tweeted. 

He didn’t stop there. Hegseth labeled the WPS initiative as a ‘UNITED NATIONS program pushed by feminists and left-wing activists,’ vowing the Pentagon would only comply with the bare minimum requirements under federal statute before lobbying Congress to kill the program outright.

But in aiming at ‘wokeness,’ Hegseth overlooked a crucial detail: the program wasn’t a Biden-era initiative but was in fact created and codified by the previous Trump administration. 

The program has even been celebrated by Trump, his administration and his family. 

It became a heralded part of the first Trump administration’s accomplishments for women, and in 2019, Ivanka Trump celebrated that the WPS program was starting a new partnership to help train female police cadets in Colombia.

In a later post, Hegseth wrote a post saying, without evidence the program was ‘straight-forward & security-focused’ but that it had been ‘distorted & weaponized’ by the Biden administration. He confirmed his intention to end it.

At the time of its introduction it received  significant help from Trump’s closest allies, including Kristi Noem and Marco Rubio, both now prominent cabinet officials in Trump’s second term.

But Hegseth’s inadvertently scorched the very figures expected to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with him in the administration’s ideological war against ‘wokeness.’

Kristi Noem, now Homeland Security Secretary, was the lead author of the House version of the 2017 Women, Peace, and Security Act when she served in Congress.

At the time, she introduced the bill alongside progressive Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Illinois).

Marco Rubio, Secretary of State and former senator from Florida, co-sponsored the Senate version of the same law and hailed Trump’s signature on it as a historic moment. 

Even as recently as this month, Rubio celebrated the WPS Act as ‘the first law passed by any country in the world focused on protecting women and promoting their participation in society.’

The legislation stemmed from a resolution unanimously endorsed by the U.N. Security Council, the most powerful UN body, in October 2000, aimed at including women in peacebuilding efforts because women and girls have historically borne the brunt of global conflict.

National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, another staunch Trump ally, previously co-chaired the bipartisan Women, Peace and Security Caucus in Congress and supported efforts to expand the program.

Hegseth’s post drew fire from Democratic lawmakers who are continuing to question his qualifications for the job following his use of the commercial app Signal to share sensitive military operations with other officials, his wife and brother. 

Many Democrats and national security veterans  accused him of willfully ignoring both the program’s origins and its track record.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-New Hampshire), who co-authored the Senate version of the bill with Rubio, issued a blistering statement.

‘It’s startling that just because the word ‘women’ is in the title, this evidence-based security program has been reduced to a DEI program,’ Shaheen said. 

‘This is a dangerous and disturbing pattern from the Secretary, who clearly does not listen to advice from senior military leaders.’ 

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) took aim at the credibility of Hegseth’s claim that the military hates the program.

‘The fact that he claims that it’s a Biden issue when it is an initiative that was supported unanimously by a Republican majority of the Senate and ‘troops hate it’ when the newly confirmed head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff testifies to its value, I find shocking,’ Kaine said. 

Indeed, that military leader, Lt. Gen. Dan Caine, Trump’s nominee for Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, spoke favorably of the WPS program during his recent confirmation hearing, lauding its role in creating more stable post-conflict environments and strengthening US national security.

‘When we would go out into the field after concluding an assault, we would have female members who would speak with those women and children who were on the objective, and they would help us to understand the human terrain in a new and novel way,’ Caine said during his April confirmation hearing. 

Trump met and became endeared to Caine when Caine was serving in Iraq, part of the reason Trump nominated him to the chairmanship. 

Despite the program’s bipartisan history and continued endorsements from military brass, Hegseth is pressing forward. 

He insisted in his post that social justice frameworks have no place in military planning and accused the Pentagon of being ‘distracted from its core task.’

But critics say Hegseth’s real distraction may be his obsession with performative anti-woke crusades, even if it means taking aim at his own administration’s accomplishments.

As of Tuesday evening, neither Rubio nor Noem had responded publicly to Hegseth’s remarks.

It’s the latest controversial move from Hegseth as the Pentagon works to nix programs or content seen as promoting diversity, equity or inclusion. 

After Trump ordered federal agencies to purge DEI content, the Pentagon issued a broad edict to the military services that ignited public outcry when online images of national heroes like Jackie Robinson were briefly removed.