Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Acting AG Todd Blanche spoke at Meridian Hill Park in DC, hosting a DC Safe & Beautiful Task Force Ceremony, and it didn't go down well for either of them. Bummer.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche showed up in DC on Wednesday to deliver some rousing remarks to National Guard troops, only to find the noise of protesters outdid whatever he was trying to say.
Pete Hegseth ran into the same wall of sound and, swallowed up by the noise of protesters, rather than take the hint, decided to spin it: "This background noise is perfect," he announced, before diagnosing the crowd as "ingrates" too "blinded by ideology" to appreciate what he was selling.
Two members of the administration, one deployment of troops used as a backdrop, and a crowd that made its opinion of the whole spectacle very clear. In response, Hegseth called Americans "ingrates." Keep it up, big guy.
Aside from Hegseth, an Acting Attorney General doing rally-style remarks to National Guard troops is something else — The DOJ doesn't command troops, doesn't run military operations, and has zero business doing a hype speech for a deployment. It's just another loyalty photo-op, the same genre as Blanche's whole "Trump's guy in the room" act since he took over from Pam Bondi.
Hegseth rightfully got a taste of the same treatment Acting AG Blanche just received — a crowd that wasn't interested in hearing him out — and instead of reading the room, he decided to gaslight it. Nothing says "I have everything under control" quite like reframing your own heckling as a personal accomplishment.
Poor Todd and Pete. Trump has lost his juice, so they were left flailing. And I'm not even sure what juice had to begin with, unless it's labeled 'gaslighting.'
