Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is “laser focused” on military personnel’s testosterone levels because he is trying to compensate for his own lack of it, says Jennifer Welch of the I’ve Had It podcast.
“I think this is the governing of Low-T people,” Welch told Joanna Coles on The Daily Beast Podcast, while discussing MAGA men and Hegseth’s announcement Wednesday that he had authorized a new screening program to monitor testosterone deficiency among service members.
The self-styled “secretary of war,” 46, unveiled the policy in a video posted to X captioned “The High-T Department of War,” saying service members over 30 would receive testosterone screenings as the department seeks to “optimize your performance, your resilience, and your long-term health.”
Welch took aim at the way Hegseth delivered the announcement, noting that the secretary appeared with a “full face of makeup” and “multiple camera angles” that made him appear like an “unserious person.”
“The MAGA men are laser-focused on masculinity because all they think about are men,” Welch said, adding that “now we’ve reached the next layer of this where we know they’re thinking about penises.”
Hegseth, who has overseen a macho rebrand of the department as Pentagon chief and, in his Wednesday video, called service members the “most elite warriors on the face of the earth,” is not the only member of the Trump administration fixated on the claim that boosting testosterone can enhance fitness and physical health.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., 72, has publicly acknowledged using testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) and has repeatedly claimed levels among young men are plummeting.
Vice President JD Vance, 41, has also weighed in on the issue, while President Donald Trump, 80, has made no secret of his admiration for well-built, muscular men during his second term in office.
“People who have high testosterone, number one, probably don’t even know it because they’ve never had to test it,” Welch said.
Hegseth plans to offer hormone replacement therapy to service members with low testosterone levels, though doctors have warned that claims of a widespread decline in men’s testosterone are “non-evidence-based and could cause harm.”
Adriane Fugh-Berman, a Georgetown University professor of pharmacology and physiology, questioned the reliability of any mandated testing, noting that testosterone levels naturally fluctuate.
“There’s a wide range of testosterone levels at every age, and they vary hourly, daily, weekly, and seasonally,” Fugh-Berman told The Washington Post. “Testosterone levels go up if you hold a gun; they go down if you hold a baby,” she added.
Similarly, Adrian Dobs, a TRT specialist and professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University, told the Post that normal testosterone levels can range widely from 300 to 800 nanograms per deciliter. She added that “it doesn’t mean that the person who’s 700 is any better or stronger or smarter than the person that’s 300,” pushing back on Hegseth’s claims.
In response to a request for comment, the Daily Beast was referred to a statement from Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell outlining the testosterone screening plan.
Hegseth’s own testosterone levels are not publicly known, and he has not disclosed whether he has undergone testing himself.
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