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By Shane Croucher
Senior Editor
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Pete Hegseth wants nothing short of a "High-T Department of War." Back in July, the warrior-in-chief ordered annual testosterone screening for troops aged 30 and over so they could operate at their "absolute best."
Fatigue is among the symptoms of a testosterone deficiency. Whisper it, but the defense secretary is 46, and on Tuesday, as he stood at the Pentagon podium for the first time since May 5 to fight for his job, looked a little tired.
Hegseth was up there to speak a day after Republican Representative Thomas Massie filed eight articles of impeachment at the House. But this wasn't quite the same scowling, growling warlord we’ve seen in past performances.
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The script was classic High-T Hegseth, with big hairy words like "farce," "stunt," "sabotage." But the delivery wasn’t. This time, he read flatly for 16 minutes, half-heartedly took questions for under 10, and left. Perhaps he had a screening appointment.
In this latest edition of Newsweek’s Dissected, we take the scalpel to Hegseth’s low-T tirade against the attempt to impeach him.
"What one disgruntled and defeated congressman is attempting is not oversight, and it’s not accountability. It’s a political spectacle, a personal manifesto driven by ego and resentment."
A political spectacle, you say? A personal manifesto driven by ego and resentment, you say? Sounds like Massie took a leaf out of Hegseth’s book. And Donald Trump’s.
"In the 250 years of our American Republic, no secretary of war or secretary of defense has ever been impeached for carrying out lawful military operations."
That may say more about you than it does 250 years of the American Republic. Besides, the lawfulness is sort of the point. Massie’s articles claim the war violates the War Powers Resolution. Unfortunately for you, enough Republicans seem to agree with him.
"The proper remedy for a policy disagreement, it’s legislation, it’s debate, it’s the next presidential election."
To be fair, in June, both chambers of Congress, under Republican control, passed a resolution directing the removal of U.S. forces from hostilities with Iran. The House vote was 215-208. Such a resolution lacks the force of law, and Article II charges Hegseth with carrying on regardless.
As for elections, Hegseth conveniently skipped the one that just happened. His party lost both chambers. Can he guess why?
"They impeached President Trump over a perfect phone call. They impeached him again in his final week in office. Both times they failed.…Now they’re trying a third time, this time against a member of his cabinet."
Both times they succeeded, in fact. Trump was indeed impeached twice. What failed was conviction in the Senate. And "they" is carrying some weight. The man forcing this vote is a Republican who voted against impeaching Trump both times.
"Nuclear sites obliterated.…Crazy Islamists in Tehran will never, ever have a nuclear weapon."
The first sentence describes June 2025. Had it been the whole story, there would have been little need for the war launched eight months later, which Hegseth said Tuesday was fought "to ensure Iran never gets a nuclear weapon."
And "never, ever" lasted until the first question. "We know that they’re going to attempt to reconstitute," he said of Iran. So never comes with a caveat. And needs a lot of monitoring.
"By every measure, we achieved a historic military victory.…We control the Strait of Hormuz."
Well, a few measures are missing. The war is in its ninth month without an actual resolution that was supposed to have come within weeks. The regime maintains its grip on power. It may still have highly enriched uranium in nuclear facilities. Iran kept hitting bases used by U.S. forces and ships in the strait, which the conflict has throttled and imperiled, pushing up fuel prices and costing Republicans Congress.
If this is a historic military victory, we’d hate to see what a historic military loss looks like.
"The media can just never admit the military success because they, you, hate the president more than you love our country or our troops."
For a fleeting moment, old Hegseth appeared, fire in his belly to fight the real enemy in all this: journalists. Does loving your country and your troops extend to sending them to their deaths in a Middle Eastern war most Americans don’t want? Asking for a media friend.
"This is not about me.…If they want to come for the warriors, they’re going to have to come through me."
It is most certainly about you. The resolution names one man, Peter Brian Hegseth. In the same passage, he sneered at senators’ "cute videos," presumably including the one telling troops they can refuse illegal orders. Article VI charges him with retaliating against Senator Mark Kelly over it.
Nobody is coming for the warriors. Hegseth is standing behind them.
"Iran, the cartels, Maduro, Yemen, every one was a lawful operation ordered by the commander-in-chief, then ordered by myself, notified to Congress and executed by American warriors who did their jobs."
Massie had invited him to rebut the articles one by one. But Hegseth’s rebuttal of a 34-page resolution was, more or less, this sentence. Notifying Congress is not the same as being authorized by it. The central charge is that Congress never approved the Iran war and then voted to end it.
His defenders argue the War Powers Resolution binds presidents, not secretaries. But Hegseth strolled past the exit door they opened for him with "then ordered by myself."
"As to the claim that the American military targets civilians, well, that is a lie and that is slander…and I will dignify this claim no further."
That’s not really the claim. Article IV charges Hegseth himself with ignoring laws and degrading protections meant to minimize collateral civilian casualties. The Pentagon has yet to release the findings of an investigation into the February 28 airstrike on an elementary school in Iran. At least 168 people died, most of them children, Iranian officials say. They deserve some answers.
"Thankfully, politics is not really my thing."
This came some 20 minutes into an appearance that opened with a "defeated" congressman and moved on to a Democratic "show trial," Joe Biden’s recruiting record, and the need for Republicans to be "delivering wins" while they still control Congress.
Hegseth even once ran for the Senate and spent seven years co-hosting Fox & Friends Weekend. A brave sacrifice for a noble warrior who doesn't do politics.
"So you talk about this circus that one congressman has tried to unleash, like, that’s one small thing over here that we deal with."
The "one small thing" was the announced subject of a dedicated Pentagon news conference, his first there in six months. It reaches the House floor as soon as Tuesday evening, where it needs as few as three Republican votes if Democrats hold together.
Small things have a way of growing into big problems when left untreated. Like, say, low testosterone.
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