During Donald Trump’s first term as president, his administration kept a running list of “accomplishments” that the Republican and his White House team were especially proud of. One of the categories in the lengthy list credited the president for having “advanced women’s economic empowerment.”
More specifically, to bolster the point, the accomplishment list celebrated the fact that Trump “signed into law key pieces of legislation, including the Women, Peace, and Security Act.”
Oddly enough, that is true: In 2017, Congress easily approved a measure intended to boost women’s role in peace-building and conflict prevention missions. It sailed through both chambers with bipartisan backing, and Trump signed it into law in his first year in office. Trump’s Department of Defense continued to brag about the policy in 2020.
It was against this backdrop that the current defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, decided to make an announcement by way of social media:
This morning, I proudly ENDED the ‘Women, Peace & Security’ (WPS) program inside the [Pentagon]. WPS is yet another woke divisive/social justice/Biden initiative that overburdens our commanders and troops — distracting from our core task: WAR-FIGHTING. WPS is a UNITED NATIONS program pushed by feminists and left-wing activists. Politicians fawn over it; troops HATE it. DoD will hereby executive [sic] the minimum of WPS required by statute, and fight to end the program for our next budget. GOOD RIDDANCE WPS!
Except, of course, this wasn’t a “Biden initiative” — it was touted by the Trump administration as a Trump initiative.
But wait, there’s more. When the Women, Peace, and Security Act was still pending on Capitol Hill, the chief co-sponsor of the legislation was none other than then-Rep. Kristi Noem — before the South Dakota Republican became governor and before she started working alongside Hegseth in the White House Cabinet as the Homeland Security secretary.
In case that weren’t quite enough, when the Women, Peace, and Security Act was considered in the Senate, it was also co-sponsored by then-Sen. Marco Rubio — before the Florida Republican also started working alongside Hegseth in the White House Cabinet as the secretary of state.
Earlier this month, Rubio spoke at an event and boasted, “President Trump also signed the Women, Peace, and Security Act, a bill that I was very proud to have been a co-sponsor of when I was in the Senate, and it was the first comprehensive law passed in any country in the world — the first law passed by any country anywhere in the world — focused on protecting women and promoting their participation in society.”
Evidently, Rubio didn’t know Trump’s policy was a “woke” measure “pushed by feminists and left-wing activists.” As Politico reported, Hegseth’s move did not go unnoticed in Congress. Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, who co-wrote the 2017 bill with Rubio, said in a statement that Hegseth’s latest move reflected “a dangerous and disturbing pattern from the Secretary, who clearly does not listen to advice from senior military leaders. He also continues to ignore the invaluable role women play in our national security. It’s startling that just because the word ‘women’ is in the title, this evidence-based security program has been reduced to a DEI program.” Around the same time, during a Senate Armed Service Committee hearing, Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia noted that Lt. Gen. Dan Caine, Trump’s choice to serve as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, hailed the program during his confirmation hearing. “The fact that he doesn’t like WPS and the fact that he claims that it’s a Biden issue when it is an initiative that was supported unanimously by Republican majority of the Senate and ‘troops hate it’ when the newly confirmed head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff testifies to its value, I find shocking,” Kaine said. The president told The Atlantic last week, in reference to Hegseth, “I think he’s gonna get it together.” That might yet be true, but the beleaguered and hapless Pentagon chief apparently hasn’t gotten it together yet.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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