Viral clips of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth huffing through calisthenics and trailing younger service members on runs have become a favorite talking point for his online detractors. But according to a columnist at The Daily Wire, that mockery may be backfiring — and handing Hegseth exactly the image he wants to project.
In a piece published this week, the outlet argues that critics who seize on footage of Hegseth struggling to finish a workout misunderstand what physical training in the military is actually designed to do. The video that sparked the latest round of dunking showed the secretary joining Marines from the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing at the Miramar Sports Complex in San Diego for a session that included push-ups, pull-ups, weighted lunges, burpees and other exercises spread across ten stations. Commentators zeroed in on Hegseth appearing winded, with one account captioning a clip of the event: “Pete Hegseth struggles while working out with troops in San Diego.”
The Daily Wire’s rejoinder is essentially: yes, and that’s the point. Calisthenics circuits of that kind are built to push participants to muscle failure, then demand they keep going. A workout that leaves everyone wrecked isn’t evidence that it was too hard for one participant — it’s evidence the session was run correctly. The columnist, who went through Army Basic Training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, in 1999, recalls core workouts that “reduced grown men to tears,” and notes that looking like you’re dying by the end is roughly the expected outcome.
That logic matters outside the gym, the piece continues. Training is meant to induce failure in a controlled environment precisely because failure isn’t an option in combat. The enemy doesn’t call a water break, and a soldier whose legs give out halfway to safety needs to have already learned how to push past that wall. In that framing, a clip of the secretary grinding through the final reps is a feature of the program, not a bug.
The push-up that went viral for a different reason
The column also points to a recent moment aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, where Hegseth was greeting sailors. According to the account, while praising the crew’s combat flight operations during an operation referred to as Epic Fury, Hegseth said they had performed “60 hours of constant combat flight ops.” Someone in the crowd called out that the number was actually higher than 100.
Hegseth’s response was to drop to the deck and knock out two push-ups — the customary military penalty for a verbal misstep — while the sailors laughed and cheered. He then corrected himself: “160 straight hours with 60 strike hours, okay, I stand corrected!” The Daily Wire presents the exchange as evidence that the troops grasp what the online commentariat doesn’t: a leader willing to absorb a correction in front of his people, and to take his punishment with good humor, is demonstrating something more valuable than a fast mile time.
The piece leans on a generational argument as well. Hegseth is 46 and no longer on active duty, the columnist writes, while the service members he trains alongside are often in their late teens and early twenties. A man old enough to be their father finishing behind them isn’t a scandal — it’s arithmetic. The writer volunteers his own experience: at 47, he says, he’s slower than he was during training at 20 and can no longer match the nine pull-ups he once managed at peak condition.
To drive the point home, the column recounts the story of the author’s father, CPT John Greenplate (1954-2017), who received his commission into the U.S. Army Reserve at 44 — two years younger than Hegseth is now — and needed an age waiver to do it, since the cutoff at the time was 37. A recruiter warned that the waiver would depend on his physical training scores. Greenplate, a four-minute miler who held Delaware’s state high school record in the two-mile from 1972 to 2012 and ran for William & Mary’s fourth-place cross country team at the 1973 NCAA championships, found the concern amusing. At 44, he could still run a mile in under six minutes. After a few reserve drill weekends, he called his son with a complaint that inverted the usual generational gripe: he was outrunning the younger soldiers easily, and it worried him that they weren’t faster.
Why the troops may be watching for a different reason
There’s a competitive dynamic at play whenever a senior official shows up for PT, according to the column. Rank-and-file service members treat a high-profile visitor as an open challenge — beating the War Secretary on a run or in a pull-up contest is a story they’ll dine out on for years, particularly if there’s video proof. That incentive cuts against the idea that troops are quietly judging Hegseth’s performance. If anything, they’re the ones pushing the pace.
The broader argument is that Hegseth’s posted workout videos serve a signaling function that has little to do with fitness benchmarks. Hegseth, the piece says, isn’t trying to prove he’s the strongest or fastest person in uniform. He’s trying to communicate to enlisted personnel that he’s willing to get in the mud alongside them — a gesture the columnist describes as central to how military leaders earn respect.
The Daily Wire’s closing note to critics is that they’re welcome to keep circulating the clips. Every time they highlight Hegseth getting tired at the end of a session, struggling through a circuit, or finishing behind the troops, they’re amplifying the exact message his office would want out there — that the secretary of defense shows up, sweats, and takes his lumps with everyone else. The criticism, in this telling, isn’t a liability. It’s free distribution.
It’s a notably friendly read of a secretary who has drawn scrutiny from many directions, including over his stewardship of the department and his public profile. But the column’s core claim is narrower than a blanket defense: the fitness-video genre, it argues, is being read by critics through the wrong lens. In military culture, showing up and failing publicly alongside subordinates isn’t an embarrassment — it’s the credential.
Source: www.dailywire.com — https://www.dailywire.com/news/how-hegseths-critics-just-handed-him-a-win