Retired Brig. Gen. Steve Anderson had nothing but scathing words on CNN Tuesday morning for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's all-hands speech to generals and admirals who had been called off their assignments from around the world to hear him speak — an event other experts have warned is an unnecessary security risk.
"Have you heard anything that constitutes a change, or an announcement or a reason to be addressing the group in the room today?" asked anchor John Berman.
"I think that there's probably a lot of general officers sitting there right now muttering to themselves, I traveled 8,000 miles to hear this?" said Anderson. "I mean, this is essentially a canned speech that really could have been delivered by anybody in almost any time. But I think that there are some clues that he's leaving about refocusing on homeland security and taking away perhaps some of our forward presence in the strength of our alliances overseas. And that really concerns me."
"I mean, that has kept this world safe for 80 years," he continued. "I mean, the NATO alliance and the alliances that we have in Japan and Korea have kept this world relatively safe for a long time, and for us to come off on that would be a terrible, terrible mistake. And I think that there were probably a couple of clues that he left there to that regard.
"The other thing that he talked about was changing the culture and, you know, talking about accountability and responsibility. I mean, there's nothing like being lectured to by a reserve major about things like that. I mean, these guys can write books about their service and their sacrifice and the bravery that they have shown."
Ultimately, Anderson said, "If you talk about accountability, responsibility, he needs to start with himself. He should have resigned after the Signalgate disaster. We shared our classified secrets on an insecure line. Every single person in that room knows that they would have been fired had they done the same thing. So, I mean, this is really a sad moment in our history."
"I think that the speech in what's going on right now is probably going to turn into a political rally for President Trump, but it's really all about trying to get the military to kowtow to them and their will," Anderson concluded. "And unfortunately, I think we're going to see a lot of that for the next hour or so."
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