Ousted heroes sound alarm over ‘intimidated’ Hegseth: ‘Bigger than these clowns’

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s purge high-ranking military officers has ousted officers speaking out about their serious concerns with his leadership, according to a new report.

Former officers, who say they were forced to retire after questioning command decisions, are now determined to go on the record despite a sense of loyalty to the organization, MS NOW’s Priya Sridhar reported Thursday.

“For many of us, part of it is a sense of loyalty to the organization that is bigger than these clowns,” one officer told Sridhar. “We know that in the organization, there are still good people trying to do good things and we don’t want to say things that might hurt them.”

Among their concerns is the ousting of Gen. Christopher Donahue, the final soldier to leave Afghanistan in a retreat that Hegseth has repeatedly attacked as “humiliating.”

An officer argued to MS NOW that it was hypocritical of Hegseth to claim his focus is on warfighters and then remove people like Donahue.

“[Hegseth] is intimidated by people who have real warfighting background and don’t just talk about the warrior ethos,” the former officer said, adding, “I think he just can’t stand people around who will call him on his b——-.”

The officers believe Hegseth wants the public to see him turning senior officials into yes-men, MS NOW reported.

They pointed to a September Hegseth speech in which he called on hundreds of senior military officers to focus on “restoring a warrior ethos.”

“What he was trying to do was establish primacy over the armed forces in a public way,” a formal official said. “‘We can get the most senior people in the military to do exactly what we’re going to tell them to do.’”