U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth speaks to senior military leaders at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, U.S., September 30, 2025. Andrew Harnik/Pool via REUTERS
Longtime Pentagon reporter Helene Cooper said that she can't find any military officials who attended the meeting in Virginia with President Donald Trump and Secretary Pete Hegseth and liked what they heard.
"I have yet to find a single military official who was in the audience today who thought that this was a good presentation," she told MSNBC on Tuesday afternoon.
"All I've had from them so far, from the people I've talked to, is a combination of disbelief that some of them were made to fly from, some of them, Asia, from all over the world ... all the way to Quanico to listen to the same familiar type of culture war complaints that we've been having since Trump was reelected," she added, calling Trump's remarks a "campaign-style stump speech."
"Nothing that was said today could not have been put in an email or in a directive. So there's that, to begin with. There's also the fact that so much of this was partisan, and this is a military that is supposed to present itself as nonpartisan. So you didn't hear the kind of cheering that we usually get, because President Trump is used to playing for the type of crowds that favor him," Cooper explained. "And so he's not very used to performing in front of an audience that's just giving, looking back stone-faced. But that's what you were getting from these generals."
The other thing she noted is that she's gotten "so many emails from women in the military" who are seeing this as a message "that they are not welcome."
Hegseth has opposed having women in combat roles.
“I’m straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles. It hasn’t made us more effective. Hasn’t made us more lethal. Has made fighting more complicated,” Hegseth told a podcast hosted by Shawn Ryan on Nov. 7, 2024.
However, Hegseth has promoted content on his social media from a pastor who believes women shouldn't be working at all. Hegseth even shared a video of that pastor saying women shouldn't vote.