UNLIKE IKE

Pentagon Pete’s Diva Demand Leads to Humiliating Disaster

The defense secretary’s attempt to commandeer an Eisenhower artifact for his own office has ended in catastrophe.

Pete Hegseth’s attempt to bring a priceless piece of military history to his office has ended in disaster after his aides dropped the antique globe.

The defense secretary’s team wanted one of two enormous globes kept at the Pentagon, which are believed to have been used by Dwight D. Eisenhower.

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But when staffers tried to haul them across the building, it crashed onto its stand, puncturing the surface around Antarctica, the Washington Post revealed Thursday.

Photographs show a hole measuring several inches across in the globe, which is thought to date back to the 1930s. The Army confirmed the disaster happened on Feb. 3, during an “attempted move.”

Spokesperson Christopher Surridge explained that the accident also knocked the globe loose from the mechanism that allowed it to spin.

Hegseth, 46, never got to bring over the prized decoration because, in the end, the battered globe stayed put.

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Ordinarily, the Pentagon enlists trained specialists to transport its valuable historical possessions, according to the Post.

But those experts were unavailable because they had been furloughed during a partial federal shutdown sparked by a congressional dispute over Donald Trump’s immigration agenda.

Hegseth’s aides decided not to postpone the makeover and allegedly took matters into their own hands, with one person familiar with the debacle blaming it on “an apparent lack of patience.”

The incident quickly became a source of ridicule inside the building, where officials were already familiar with Hegseth’s enthusiasm for military nostalgia.

“Hegseth is no Ike,” retired Brig. Gen. Ty Seidule told the Post, referring to Eisenhower. “The globe won’t give him Ike’s attributes of humility, intellect, and judgment.”

The publication of embarrassing photos taken inside the Pentagon comes despite Hegseth’s crusade against leaking in his department.

The embattled defense secretary has been accused of creating an atmosphere of paranoia in the Pentagon, with military officials even being subjected to polygraph tests after a slew of damaging stories about President Trump’s war on Iran.

Hegseth himself was at the heart of one of the most embarrassing leaks of sensitive military information during the second Trump administration, sharing details of an operation in a Signal group chat to which a journalist had been accidentally added.

The defense secretary has become a regular punchline at his department since taking office last year.

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His staffers have blasted him after a room near the building’s press briefing facilities was revamped with a makeup mirror and director’s chair for television appearances.

Hegseth denied ordering those renovations, which were initially projected to cost more than $40,000 before being scaled back.

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He has also put up portraits of himself and his wife, Jennifer, around the building. She’s reportedly earned the nickname “Yoko Ono” at the department for her influence over her husband.

Hegseth has attracted monikers such as “No Tab Pete” to mock his failure to earn prestigious specialist qualifications during his military career.

Other officials have reportedly called him “Dumb McNamara,” comparing his enthusiasm for Trump’s war in Iran to the disastrous hawkishness of Robert McNamara, the defense secretary who helped drag America deeper into the Vietnam War.

The Daily Beast has contacted the Department of Defense for comment.

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