Hegseth ousts military officials, then installs 'true warrior' loyalist as Navy secretary.

As it ran on the front

Look, nothing here is complicated, and I resent the implication that it is. The Secretary is restoring standards to a military that had gotten soft on paperwork, on promotion boards stacked with — well, with people who followed the old rules. Six Army officers came off the list. That's not a purge, that's quality control. We looked at the whole list and found six names that didn't — that didn't fit the new — did I say 'new'? I meant the existing, the traditional, the — you know what, we found six names we wanted gone, and we took them off. That's allowed. That's the Secretary's job.

And on the Navy pick — Hung Cao isn't some crony. He's a 'true warrior,' the President said so himself, on television, which is where these things get decided now, and rightly so, because who's more qualified to run the Navy than a man who spent four months as the acting Secretary already agreeing with everything the building above him wanted? That's not favoritism, that's continuity. That's — hang on, that's actually favoritism, isn't it. Four months auditioning for the permanent job, and he got it, and the officers who might have said no about it got taken off a different list entirely that same season. I don't see the — I do see the connection, I just don't think it's the connection you think it is.…