Jimmy Kimmel has torn Pete Hegseth’s “Project Meridian” to shreds.
The late-night host took his Jimmy Kimmel Live! show to Brooklyn on Thursday night, where he took aim at the Defense Secretary over the bizarre spoken-word verse he performed on stage to a room full of troops at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia on Wednesday.
Kimmel played the clip of Hegseth, who stumbled over several words to deliver this message: “We are no longer the woke department or the weak department. Simple translation of that: no fatties, no trannies, no beardos, no weirdos, no wimps, no radicals, just warriors.”
Kimmel gave him no grace, instantly pointing out the tangle he’d gotten himself in trying to get his words out.
“You know, he practiced that in the mirror all morning and still screwed it up. I mean, imagine writing that out.”
He then flipped his attention to what he framed as a gaping hole at the center of the promise Hegseth had just made.
“And while Pistol Pete’s cutting 20 percent of our generals and admirals, their loss will not be felt thanks to a new group of leaders spearheading an effort he calls Project Meridian.”
The show then cut to a clip of Hegseth introducing the three men who would be leading the future warfare project: Elon Musk, Palmer Luckey, and Newt Gingrich.
“They are—Now, wait a minute. He specifically said no fatties, no beardos, no weirdos. I saw all three of those right there.
“Elon Musk, Newt Gingrich, and Palmer Luckey. Who is Palmer Luckey? I looked him up. This is from his Wikipedia page,” he said, showing an image of the Anduril Industries founder Luckey wearing flip-flops, a Hawaiian shirt, and cargo shorts, topped off with a lengthy mullet.
“This is not even a real person. Pete Hegseth put Tommy Bahama in charge of our military. He hired a guy he met at a kayak rental shop to run—”
“I don’t know if there’s a Mrs. Luckey,” he added moments later, “but I will assure you she’s not.”
Gingrich’s involvement has already raised eyebrows. The hawkish Republican former House Speaker and Georgia congressman, 83, took deferments as a student and as a father from the war in Vietnam.
Hegseth—known in the military as “No Tab Pete,” because he never earned elite combat qualification patches on his uniform—has overseen a sweeping and controversial reorganization of the military’s top brass.
The former Fox News host has sought to implant his own ideology into the fabric of the U.S.’s fighting force while promising to rid it of ideology by attacking DEI.
The removals have led to an exodus of experienced leadership, disproportionately amongst women and people of color.
It wasn’t the only bizarre line to come out of the speech from Hegseth, who has hitherto not been known to break into spoken word.
“The ideological clowns are out,” he said. “The patriotic cowboys are in, with testosterone testing on top.
“Diversity is not our strength.”
“Damn right. The guy in the diva curl hair gel is going to make sure our fighting forces have big purple boners that are hard as a rock,” Kimmel ripped.
