Why Hegseth ordering generals to meet is so unusual
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 29 September 2025
⏱️ 23 minutes
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Summary
On Tuesday, the top U.S. generals will meet at Quantico for an audience with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and President Donald Trump.
Hegseth’s order for the gathering comes on the heels of the firing of top military officers. It also lands in the middle of Hegseth’s attempts to purge the military of DEI initiatives and programs that he sees as not aligned with the military’s core mission of “lethality.”
President Trump is expected to address the group. His speech comes after his recent order to send the National Guard into “war ravaged” Portland, Oregon, over the objection of local officials.
Host Colby Itkowitz speaks with Pentagon reporter Dan Lamothe about how The Post broke the story of the generals’ meeting, the logistics of gathering so many senior military officials in one place, and the optics of the president and defense secretary speeches to the top brass.
Today’s show was produced by Rennie Svirnovskiy with help from Laura Benshoff. It was edited by Ariel Plotnick and mixed by Sean Cater.
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Transcript
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| 0:29.5 | A big, unusual meeting is happening tomorrow. |
| 0:36.1 | Defense Secretary Pete Hegeseth called hundreds of top military brass from all over the world to come, in person, to Quantico. |
| 0:45.3 | That's a Marine Corps base in Virginia. |
| 0:48.1 | Initially, when the order went out last week, Hegeseth provided almost no information about why he was calling this meeting. |
| 0:55.0 | Dan Lamath, who covers the U.S. military and the Pentagon for the Post, says that alarmed some military officials. |
| 1:02.0 | Because it seems like such a significant event, costly, time-consuming, and just kind of out-the-box unusual. |
| 1:13.3 | Dan and others here did more reporting. |
| 1:17.5 | And it turns out the meeting is a chance for Hegeseth to give a speech. |
| 1:21.5 | He plans to talk about how the U.S. military needs to have a, quote, |
| 1:23.0 | warrior ethos. |
| 1:33.0 | The idea is to get back to the basics, focus on lethality, being lethal, basically being the big stick that the American government has when it needs it. |
| 1:36.8 | And then over the weekend, Dan and his colleagues covered a new development. |
| 1:40.5 | President Trump announced that he was going to come address the generals too. |
| 1:48.6 | From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post reports. |
| 1:50.2 | I'm Colby Echowitz. |
| 1:52.5 | It's Monday, September 29th. |
| 1:58.2 | Today, what we know about this big meeting between the president, his defense secretary, |
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