Former President Trump issued a stark warning about a "woke" U.S. military during an exclusive interview with "Fox & Friends Weekend," vowing to fire far-left military leaders as the Pentagon faces backlash for honoring Pride Month.
"I got to know the real fighting generals. There's not ‘woke’ in the military. There's ‘woke’ at the top," Trump said during the sit-down interview with hosts Pete Hegseth, Will Cain and Rachel Campos-Duffy.
"They want there to be woke, but these guys aren't meant for woke. I would fire them. You can't have a woke military. You said it so great... You need people that want to win. They want to win wars. That's what their purpose is, to win wars, not to be woke… but we do have great military."
ARMY MAKES PROGRAM TO SHAPE UP OVERWEIGHT RECRUITS PERMANENT AS IT FIGHTS ONGOING RECRUITING CRISIS
The official Facebook page for the U.S. Navy SEALs and Naval Special Warfare Command was mocked this weekend for marking the start of Pride Month.
Backlash to the post surged when it was highlighted on the popular "Libs of TikTok" page on X, formerly known as Twitter. The post had no caption and included a photo with rainbow designs that read, "NSW. Dignity. Service. Respect. Equality. Pride."
"Those are not the colors I care about. The colors I care about are red, white, and blue," Fox News' Pete Hegseth told Ainsley Earhardt on Monday.
"We all wore green together. We all bleed red together. Who we slept with is not the issue... The issue is how good are you at your job? And are you being promoted because you're the best rifleman, or you're the best pilot, or you're the best tank commander? Not are you the first to this or are you the first that? And that's the story I tell time and time again."
Libs of TikTok shared the post to X on Saturday, writing, "The Navy SEALs have gone woke. Our elite special forces. This is terrifying."
The post prompted a swarm of backlash from critics concerned about how the military's priorities have impacted its military readiness as recruitment continues to be a struggle across nearly all the branches.
"I talked to dozens and dozens of actively serving men and women, junior enlisted high-ranking officers, and they all said the same thing," Hegseth said. "We're walking on eggshells. There's no accountability. The standards are being lowered, slowly eroded to conform to woke Marxist ideologies the Democrat politicians have pushed into the Pentagon. Pentagon should be the biggest meritocracy in the world. Instead, it's a social experiment."
Meanwhile, the Army, Air Force and Navy all missed their recruitment goals last year, prompting concern among critics who blame far-left ideologues who prioritize "woke" agendas over military readiness.
The Army announced earlier this year the service is cutting its force by about 24,000 in a restructuring that it says will help the service fight in future wars.
The almost 5% of jobs cut will mostly affect posts that have remained empty and not actual soldiers, and stem from counterinsurgency positions, cavalry squadrons, Stryker brigade combat teams, infantry brigade combat teams and security force assistance brigades, which are used to train foreign forces.
The U.S. military missed its recruiting goals in 2023 by 41,000, going into the new year facing a recruiting crisis, a Pentagon official said in December.
"A commander-in-chief needs to be focused on winning the wars we fight, and that means installing leadership at the Pentagon who are laser-focused on that," Hegseth said.
"Unfortunately, the incentives for generals under the Biden administration and the Obama administration was to conform to ideologies of leftist politicians who were ramming stuff into the Pentagon that has nothing to do with winning wars."
"What is your gender? What is your race? DEI, CRT, are we driving electric tanks? Are we saving the climate with the military? None of that is important to the men and women who I served with. We were focused on succeeding in the mission we were given," he continued.
"The Pentagon likes to say our diversity is our strength. What a bunch of garbage. In the military, our diversity is not our strength. Our unity is our strength, and we need a commander in chief that understands that. Donald Trump certainly does. Getting woke out will go a long way in making sure we're the top in the world."
Fox News' Stephen Sorace, Anders Hagstrom and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
