Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s panel on autonomous warfare was derailed as protester after protester screamed at him and was removed, with some branding him a “war criminal.”
The disruptions began Wednesday, when Hegseth spoke at an Association of the United States Army gathering in Washington about the Pentagon’s push to adopt autonomous systems, defense reporter Briana Reilly reported.
The interruptions continued as the panel went on, halting it several times as security moved in to remove each protester. LiveNOW from Fox, a sister network of Fox News, cut away from its livestream more than once as protesters shouted profanity aimed at Hegseth.
The first protester was dragged out shouting about genocide and holding a “No War With Iran” banner, defense reporter Joe Gould wrote on X.
“Why are you all here making money off of bombs killing my family?” a second protester asked moments later, Gould reported.
“Pete Hegseth, you’re a war criminal,” the third protester shouted, according to Gould.
Gould wrote that the third protester was pulled out to chants of “USA! USA!”
“You’re a war criminal,” one protester shouted at Hegseth, Reilly reported.
“She thinks highly of me,” Hegseth replied, according to Reilly and defense reporter Miles J. Herszenhorn, who wrote that protesters had repeatedly called the secretary a “war criminal.”
“[W]hat the f— is wrong with you,” another protester shouted earlier in Hegseth’s remarks, NewsNation correspondent Kellie Meyer reported on X.
Meyer said she believed that protester was shouting about the war in Iran.
Protesters have confronted Hegseth before, including in April, when two demonstrators at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner demanded his arrest for “war crimes,” Raw Story reported.
By midmorning, reporter Tom Dempsey had posted video of a second anti-war protester being removed and later counted four taken out. Minutes later, Reilly reported that security escorted five protesters out.