Hegseth scraps "woke" program signed into law by Trump in 2017

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Shaheen: Hegseth creating "chaos" astatine Pentagon

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen says Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has "created chaos" astatine the Pentagon 06:56

Washington — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Tuesday he's ending a programme astatine the Defense Department that promoted the information of women successful bid gathering and was signed into instrumentality by President Trump successful 2017.

In his initial post connected X, Hegseth called the Women, Peace and Security programme "yet different woke divisive/social justice/Biden inaugural that overburdens our commanders and troops." In a follow-up post, helium clarified that the programme had been "ruined" by the Biden administration.

Hegseth said the Defense Department would comply with the minimum requirements nether the law, but would "fight to end" the programme erstwhile Congress sets its adjacent budget.

Trump medication officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and nationalist information advisor Mike Waltz, supported the efforts erstwhile they were successful Congress. It was besides championed by Mr. Trump's daughter, Ivanka Trump, who served successful the White House during his archetypal term.

Earlier this month, Rubio touted the bill, saying successful remarks astatine the State Department that helium was arrogant to enactment it. He referred to it arsenic "the archetypal instrumentality passed by immoderate state anyplace successful the satellite focused connected protecting women and promoting their information successful society."

The program, according to the strategy released during Mr. Trump's archetypal term, seeks to summation women's information successful decision-making processes arsenic good arsenic beforehand the extortion of women and girls' quality rights astir the world.

Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, who introduced the authorities for the programme and said the defence caput is "short sighted and doesn't truly recognize what he's doing" erstwhile asked by CBS News astir Hegseth's station connected X.

"We person information that shows what a quality it makes to person women astatine the array successful negotiations," Shaheen said. "We cognize that bid agreements that are made with women astatine the array past 35% longer, longer than 15 years if women are astatine the table." On "Face the Nation" Sunday, Shaheen was captious of Hegseth, who she said has "created chaos" astatine the Pentagon amid a caller unit shakeup.

"For those radical who service nether him, helium has shown that helium is not the benignant of relation model, not the benignant of person that we request astatine this time," Shaheen said.

One of Hegseth's goals astatine the Pentagon has been to escaped the Defense Department of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives.

Kathleen McInnis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies has written that the Women, Peace, and Security programme is not DEI due to the fact that it establishes nary requirements, quotas, oregon goals for the organizational composition, world admittance oregon vocation fields successful the DOD.

When asked during his confirmation proceeding astir the program, Hegseth did not committedness to proceed it but said helium would "commit to reviewing that programme and ensuring it aligns with America First nationalist information priorities, meritocracy, lethality, and readiness."

Laura Garrison contributed to this report.