Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth confirmed on Monday a report that dozens of high-ranking military officials have backed out of appearing at a woke "globalism" forum in Colorado.
In a post on X, Hegseth shared a headline that read, "Pentagon Pulls All Military Speakers From 'Globalist' Aspen Security Forum."
He wrote simply, "Correct." Reading through reactions to Hegseth's comment, there was overwhelming support for this move, writing things like "good" and "thank you."
Correct. pic.twitter.com/tbi8vvTWBu
— Pete Hegseth (@PeteHegseth) July 14, 2025
His response was to an article by Just The News that reported:
The Pentagon has pulled roughly a dozen high-ranking U.S. military officials who had been slated to participate in this week's annual Aspen Security Forum, Just the News has learned.
The forum, which calls itself "the premier national security and foreign policy conference in the United States," has been aptly labeled "the mountain retreat for the liberal elite," the report noted.
It's no surprise that Hegseth has stepped in and made it clear that this Pentagon will have nothing to do with it, given he's tried to rid our military of the woke-mind virus, making moves like renaming a ship that was previously named in honor of a San Francisco gay rights icon to honor instead a World War II Congressional Medal of Honor recipient.
"I am pleased to announce that the United States Navy is renaming the USNS Harvey Milk to the USNS Oscar V. Peterson," the post on X from Hegseth read. "We are taking the politics out of ship naming."
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A statement from Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson on not being part of the forum to the outlet read:
"The Department of Defense has no interest in legitimizing an organization that has invited former officials who have been the architects of chaos abroad and failure at home," Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson told Just the News.
"They are antithetical to the America First values of this administration. Senior representatives of the Department of Defense will no longer be participating in an event that promotes the evil of globalism, disdain for our great country, and hatred for the President of the United States," Wilson also said.
A spokesperson for Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) also confirmed to the outlet that he would not be attending after his name appeared as a speaker for the event.
The report noted that the forum is held every year by the Aspen Institute:
The Institute receives funding from left-leaning donors, stacks its commissions with anti-Trump activists, and has been linked to a series of events which Republicans say contributed to the censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop stories in October 2020, critics say.
The Capital Research Center, a right-leaning think tank, stated that in 2022, the group spent $95,042,121 on public policy programs "addressing issues including economic distress, educational opportunity, environmentalism, and the left-wing concept of racial justice," according to the center's Influence Watch project.
Taking a glimpse at this week's agenda and who will be attending is again a perfect reason for President Donald Trump and his administration to steer clear. After all, this is the same forum in August 2020 that wanted then-Secretary of Defense Mark Esper to speak on the impact of George Floyd's death on the military.
Editor's Note: Thanks to President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's leadership, the warrior ethos is coming back to America's military.
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