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Department of Defense
It’s pretty well-known at this point that the use of social media by Donald Trump’s administration is rather unconventional – from a “childish” post about El Salvador deportee Kilmar Abrego Garcia, to just this week tweeting an image of Trump as Superman as James Gunn’s movie entered cinemas.
And now, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is being mocked online for appearing alongside a load of drones in a new promotional video from the US Department of Defense.
In the footage, released on Friday and captioned ‘Unleashing US military drone dominance', Hegseth says: “Today I’m rescinding restrictive policies that stifle production, and this will unleash American manufacturing and the engineering of our war fighters by doing three key things.
Department of Defense
“First, we’re going to bolster the US drone manufacturing base by producing thousands of American-made products, prioritising ‘buy American’.
“We’re arming combat units with a variety of low-cost, American-crafted drones, leveraging our world-leading engineers and AI experts.
“And third, we’re going to train as we expect to fight. Senior officers must overcome bureaucratic risk-aversion in budgeting, weaponing, weaponeering and training.”
In addition to shouting his lines over the buzz of drones, Hegseth is also seen reaching up to grab a memo from a hovering drone, which he then signs.
Concluding his remarks, the defense secretary says, “This is the future. We’re going to fight, we’re going to fight to win it, and we’re never going to back down.”
It comes after Trump signed an executive order last month around “unleashing American drone dominance” which said unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) or drones “enhance United States productivity, create high-skilled jobs, and are reshaping the future of aviation”.
“The United States must accelerate the safe commercialization of drone technologies and fully integrate UAS into the National Airspace System. The time has come to accelerate testing and to enable routine drone operations, scale up domestic production, and expand the export of trusted, American-manufactured drone technologies to global markets.
“Building a strong and secure domestic drone sector is vital to reducing reliance on foreign sources, strengthening critical supply chains, and ensuring that the benefits of this technology are delivered to the American people,” it reads.
Sharing the original version of the video on Thursday, in which Hegseth is soundtracked by Metallica’s “Enter Sandman”, MeidasTouch editor-in-chief Ron Filipkowski expressed his disbelief over the video:
In comments reminiscent of Vice President JD Vance attacking Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office and asking “have you said thank you”, CNN political commentator Adam Kinzinger noted Ukraine’s information-sharing around drones, which is helping the US:
Another Twitter/X user branded the video “embarrassing” and compared it to a skit from Saturday Night Live:
Former members of Congress also criticised the promo, with ex-Missouri senator Claire McCaskill telling Hegseth to “quit playing for the cameras and do your job”:
And former Illinois representative Joe Walsh attacked a “shallow, unserious” Trump for surrounding himself with “other shallow, unserious people”:
Oh, and of course, there were those who saw the moment of Hegseth reaching for the memo as a perfect meme template:
Needless to say, many social media users are wishing Hegseth would stop ‘droning’ on (sorry) about the government’s work in promotional videos and just get on with the task at hand.
Why not read…
- Hegseth takes 'politics out of ship naming’ - with political decision
- ‘Skedaddle… it means skedaddle’: 9 of Trump’s best language blunders
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