The defense secretary yelled at his son not to ruin his awesome workout video.
In response to a video shared by the Navy Football team on X on Wednesday, which showed players working out in the weight room, the Defense Department’s Rapid Response account shared a clip of Pete Hegseth trying to get in on the masculine action.
The post, showing the former Fox & Friends Weekend host with his 15-year-old son, Gunner, in the weight room, was captioned, “.@SECWAR CHECKING IN—”
“Alright, here we go. For the detail,” Hegseth, 45, said while preparing to bench press 315 pounds. “Three plates. Gunner on the spot. Long time coming. Let’s go.”
Hegseth’s 15-year-old son from his second marriage, Gunner, stood behind the weight rack ready to assist if his dad was unable to lift the weight himself.
“Gotta keep the butt down. Gotta keep the butt down, if I can,” Hegseth said to himself, psyching himself up for his macho show of strength.
“Now, don’t lift—I got it,” he told his son as he put his hands in position on the barbell. “One, two, three!”
As he lifts the barbell off the rack, Hegseth continues to tell his son not to touch it, affirming, “I’ve got it, I’ve got it.”
The defense secretary dropped the bar down, bouncing it off his chest and pushing it back up toward the rack as his butt indeed lifts to support his efforts. As he nears the height to rest the bar back on the rack, he snaps at Gunner as he reaches to help.
“Don’t touch it!” he exclaims, before lifting it up the rest of the way to rack the bar to clear one rep. “Yeah! There we go, haaa!”
The Trump appointee’s obsession with appearing masculine is no secret, thanks to his frequent public displays of physical strength.
Last month, far-right influencer Laura Loomer thirsted over the thrice-married defense secretary as he led a public exercise with ROTC cadets at UCLA.
Loomer, 32, called attention to Hegseth’s workout attire of “gym shorts and a T-shirt in the freezing cold,” saying that was “one of the reasons” Army recruitment is at a record high.
Hegseth has previously shamed “fat troops” and called for new military fitness requirements, taking another opportunity to pat himself on the back over his physique.
“Frankly, it’s tiring to look out at combat formations or really any formation and see fat troops,” he said during an address to top military officials in Quantico, Virginia, on September 30. “If the Secretary of War can do regular hard PT, so can every member of our joint force.”
The defense secretary has seven children: three from his second marriage to Samantha Deering and one from his third marriage to his former Fox News colleague, Jennifer Hegseth (née Rauchet). Jennifer also has three kids from a previous marriage.
Among his children with Deering are Gunner, 15, Peter, 13, and Rex, 10. His daughter with Jennifer is eight-year-old Gwendolyn.
