NOTE: VIDEO AT THE END OF ARTICLE
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sparked a media firestorm this week after laughing off a reporter’s question about gender representation during a Pentagon press briefing. The exchange followed the June 22 announcement of the success of Operation Midnight Hammer, a U.S. military strike targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities.
While addressing the mission, Hegseth had praised “our boys in those bombers,” a remark that drew criticism from progressive media outlets and political opponents. During the Q&A portion of the press conference, a reporter confronted him directly, asking why he had not acknowledged the female pilots who participated in the operation.
“The early messages that you sent out only congratulated the boys,” she noted.
Hegseth chuckled in response before offering a firm rebuttal. “So when I say something like ‘our boys in bombers’—see, this is the kind of thing the press does,” he began. “Of course, the chairman mentioned a female bomber pilot. That’s fantastic. She’s a hero. I want more female bomber pilots. But when you spin it because I say ‘our boys’ as a common phrase? I’ll keep saying things like that.”
He continued by emphasizing that gender plays no role in evaluating the bravery of military personnel. “I’m very proud of that female pilot, just like I’m proud of the male pilots,” he said. “I don’t care if it’s a man or a woman in that cockpit—and the American people don’t care either. It’s the obsession with race and gender in this department that’s changed priorities. We don’t do that anymore.”
The Department of Defense confirmed that at least one female B-2 bomber pilot participated in the Iran strike mission, and another female sailor served aboard a missile-launching submarine during the operation.
Hegseth, who has drawn criticism since his appointment for rolling back DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) policies, reiterated his stance that military excellence must be rooted in merit, not identity. He has previously ordered service academies to remove race, gender, and ethnicity as factors in admissions and removed DEI-themed DOD materials.
He also used the press conference to push back on media reports citing a leaked Pentagon assessment that claimed the strikes only delayed Iran’s nuclear ambitions by a few months. Hegseth dismissed the leaked analysis as “preliminary” and “uncoordinated,” accusing the press of weaponizing incomplete data to undercut the administration’s success.
