Hillary Clinton threw shade at Republicans like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in an X post, questioning how “macho” they believe themselves to be.
”On one hand, Republican officials call themselves ‘warfighters,’” Clinton wrote.
”On the other, they become whiny crybabies at the thought of setting foot in DC streets and New York City subways that literal schoolchildren navigate every day without incident.”
On one hand, Republican officials call themselves “warfighters.”On the other, they become whiny crybabies at the thought of setting foot in DC streets and New York City subways that literal schoolchildren navigate every day without incident.Real macho stuff.
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) August 15, 2025
”Real macho stuff,” she finished Thursday.
While she avoids mentioning any Republicans by name, Hegseth has been referring to ”warfighters” for months, dating back before his elevation to Trump’s cabinet.
In a December interview on Fox News, then-nominee Hegseth told Sean Hannity that his goal as defense secretary would be, “Return the Pentagon to the warfighters. Get in there and clean out all the social justice, politically correct garbage on top, and get back to lethality, war-fighting, accountability, meritocracy, and readiness.”
”Return to that and it changes the culture of the institution,” he finished.
His deployment of this term was so consistent and so unusual that the conservative-leaning The Free Press criticized his usage of the term in a piece published late last year.
”As a co-host of Fox’s signature morning show, Fox & Friends, Hegseth used his platform to champion a particular kind of warfighter, one that should make even his Republican supporters nervous: service members convicted of or accused of war crimes,” author and veteran Elliot Ackerman wrote.
While a favored term of Hegseth’s, the term predates the second Trump administration—the Department of Defense was using it during Biden’s presidency, and it was gaining so much traction that military news outlet Task & Purpose published a piece arguing against its use.
William Treseder argued, “‘Warfighter’ is the rhetorical equivalent of a ‘Support the troops’ bumper sticker or an American flag lapel pin. It reduces the complexity and ambiguity of modern national security, dragging it back to an imagined era of good wars, bad guys, and clear-cut victory.”
Clinton’s post also referred to President Donald Trump’s decision to federalize D.C. police and deploy 800 National Guardsmen to address the capital’s “crime problem,” which fact checkers were quick to point out has been misrepresented by the president.
Republican New York mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa, who founded the Guardian Angels organization in response to crime in the city in the 1970s, have also sought to spread fear about rising crime.
In a video posted to social media earlier this week, Sliwa spoke about how unsafe New Yorkers feel, particularly on the subway.
A post shared by Curtis Sliwa For NYC Mayor 🗽 (@curtissliwaformayor)
”The subways are the lifeblood of New York City, but they’ve become unsafe, disorderly, expensive, and dysfunctional. Rising crime, mental health breakdowns, and fare evasion have turned trains and stations into hotbeds of lawlessness,” the caption on the post read.
Last month, New York Democrat Representative Jerrold Nadler criticized Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy for distorting statistics to make the New York City subway sound more dangerous than it is.
“Secretary Duffy, why do you continue to lie about New York City?” Nadler asked.
The post Hillary Clinton Shades Hegseth Over His One-Word Obsession appeared first on The Daily Beast.
