Election & Politics

See what happened when U.S. Rep. Greg Landsman blasted Hegseth’s merit-based promotions as ‘bigoted’ 

By Breeauna Sagdal | June 08, 2026

Cincinnati Democrat Rep. Greg Landsman took to X last week to blast Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s decision to block several Navy captain promotions to rear admiral, labeling the merit-focused move as “bigoted” and a threat to national security.

Landsman, sharing an anonymously sourced New York Times report, claimed Hegseth overruled a Navy selection board, resulting in an all-male, “mostly white” list of nominees.

“This is bigoted, and it will make us less safe,” Landsman wrote, arguing it excludes qualified women and minorities willing to serve.

While Landsman’s post was heavily ratioed by commenters clapping back about DEI quotas, the backlash to the NYT’s sourceless article was just as fierce. Replies quickly ricocheted across social media from veterans, active-duty supporters, and conservative voices, lambasting the ideological pedagogy of DEI as cultural Marxism.

Pentagon chief spokesman Sean Parnell, a combat veteran and Assistant to the Secretary of War for Public Affairs, fired back with a clear message.

“The American warfighter does not care about pronouns or diversity quotas. They care about the mission—and fighting for the warrior standing beside them.” Parnell’s accompanying graphic declared, “THE MISSION COMES FIRST. MERIT MATTERS. READINESS WINS.”

Retired Army Colonel and X commentator Cynical Publius framed the controversy in stark terms. Referring to the military as the Marxist’s “last redoubt,” he wrote that the left nearly conquered the nation through Biden-era DEI policies that reward collectivist alignment over merit.

“Pete Hegseth and his team came riding over the hill, defeated the attackers, and drove off the ones who got inside the walls,” he posted. “It’s glorious.” The thread resonated strongly with veterans tired of what they see as ideological capture.

In a related post about ending identity politics in the military, Fox News host Greg Gutfeld championed Hegseth’s reset on his show, highlighting the return of meritocracy after years of lowered standards, diversity lectures, and “patriot extremism” filters. Gutfeld has mocked the outrage, noting that real warfighters prioritize lethality over demographic engineering.

Hegseth’s team maintains the blocked officers — roughly 8 captains, including those with DEI program ties — were reviewed under standard merit criteria emphasizing combat readiness, not identity.

For the first time in years, detailed dossiers have not been leaked to the press on individual cases, yet the Wall Street Journal – citing the NYT – inferred that the blocked promotions were solely due to race and gender.

“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has blocked the promotion of eight Navy captains to be one-star admirals, including two female and two Black officers, according to current and former U.S. officials.”

Despite adamant denials from the Pentagon that race played any role in the decision, Landsman and fellow Democrats have used the issue to attack the Trump administration’s reversal of DEI priorities.

Yet, recruiting numbers, which suffered under the Biden era, have ticked way up under Hegseth’s approach. As the Army has attained its recruiting goals four full months in advance, military veterans have praised the reversal of DEI policies as a return to combat readiness and lethality.

While never serving in the military, Landsman has been extremely critical of Hegseth, calling for his resignation on multiple occasions. Such criticisms, however, have only rallied former senior officers like Cynical Publius to speak out.

In a critique of a War on The Rocks article that resulted in his doxxing by the publisher, Cynical Publius clearly identified the juxtaposed doctrines—garnering wide support from fellow veterans.

Calling DEI “cultural Marxism,” Cynical Publius warned that the doctrine nearly transformed the military into an endless bureaucracy, rewarding the risk-averse while spreading forces thin across endless inconclusive wars and eroding national security from within.

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