President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth were raked over the coals by a former GOP campaign advisor after their appearance at the Marine base in Quantico, Virginia, for giving aid and comfort to enemies of the United States.
In a scorching take-down of the appearance by the two before hundreds of high-ranking military personnel who were lectured and put on notice about what will be expected of them going forward, Reed Galen, who served on Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign, blew up when asked about what he had just witnessed.
Asked by MSNBC host Chris Jansing how the speeches would be remembered, Galen quickly exclaimed, “Let me say a couple things here first, Chris. One, the only thing worse than Zippy the Pinhead [Hegseth] getting up there and doing what he did was having the orange pumpkin [Trump] get up and do what he did.”
"Now, let me just say this, like for Pete Hegseth, right? Now, look, I'd be as skinny as he was if I lived on a steady diet of Zyn pouches and Jack Daniels. But like, the idea that he goes around explaining why it's not okay for people to be fat in the military while the president of the United States waddles around the West Wing, you know, talking about people's signatures is ridiculous.”
“And I mean, you know, let's expand the aperture out here, Chris,” he added. “Like our opponents, our adversaries are watching this, and they're laughing —they're laughing at us. These are two, three, four-star, one-star flag officers. These are men and women who have dedicated their careers and their lives to serving our country. Many of them have probably served in combat. Now they have to sit here and have these two idiots tell them, one, what it is they need to do, and two, talk about autopen?”
“I mean, it's a ridiculous, ridiculous expression of political authority,” he continued. “And I'll tell you what. As Americans, we should feel sorry for the men and women in uniform that they have to take orders from these two.”