John Oliver urges new Dem congress to axe Pete Hegseth

From there, Oliver deployed truth bombs aplenty, from running down Hegseth’s past history of workplace sexual creepiness and drunkenness (including paying off a woman accusing him of rape), to his buffoonish tenure at Fox News (including almost killing a guy with an errant axe) that brought him to Donald Trump’s attention over the horrified objections of advisers, to his elevation to oversee the largest military bureaucracy in the world. Along the way, Oliver couldn’t restrain himself from bringing up the time Hegseth’s own mother called him “an abuser of women,” while rebutting Hegseth’s on-the-record misogyny about women’s suitability for combat by noting, “I don’t know what you’re talking about Pete with this ‘women can’t be life-takers’ shit, because your own mom just took you the fuck out.'”

Moving on to Hegseth’s work at the DOD, Oliver noted that Hegseth has “taken a wrecking ball” to the nation’s military, purging Black and women officers according to his anti-DEI crusade, spouting slur-riddled rhetoric that sounds like “Dr. Seuss For Concussed Bigots,” instituting a ban on transgender troops who’ve served with distinction for years, and telling the soldiers under his command that war crimes regulations and prevention of civilian casualties are for sissies, essentially. Oliver pointed to Hegseth’s most trusted spiritual advisers, whose fervent Christian nationalism and warnings about demonic cabals of feminists and homosexuals mirror the white nationalist tattoos Hegseth sports all over his body. Not to mention the time he okayed a military chopper fly-by of pal Kid Rock’s tacky mansion, a breach of discipline so egregious that even the talking heads at Newsmax admitted it was grounds for dismissal.

Of course, Hegseth’s boorish bigotry isn’t all just for show, as Oliver segued to bloody real-world examples of Hegseth’s disregard for international law and collateral damage. From hundreds of dead schoolgirls on the first day of Trump’s incompetently waged Iran war to ordering the murder of helpless victims shipwrecked by illegal U.S. strikes on supposed drug boats in the Caribbean, Oliver closed in as unequivocal a message to Democrats as possible. “Look, there is clearly damage here that cannot be undone, but the very least we can do is to try and stem it by impeaching and removing this fucking asshole as soon as possible.”