Hegseth team’s reported travel invite to extremist sends clear message to military

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s team reportedly invited a prominent right-wing extremist and conspiracy theorist to travel with him and other Pentagon officials on their trip abroad this week. 

The Washington Post reported Thursday that MAGA influencer Jack Posobiec was invited to travel with Hegseth’s team to Germany, Belgium and Poland. Hegseth’s trip has been marred by backlash he’s received from military families — and even students at a military school in Germany — protesting his assault on military diversity.

The Post reported:

Trump administration officials at the Pentagon invited a far-right activist, Jack Posobiec, to participate in Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s first trip overseas, according to a planning document obtained by The Washington Post and people familiar with the decision, triggering alarm among U.S. defense officials worried about the military being dragged into partisan warfare. … On Thursday, he posted on the social media platform X that he was in Ukraine and shared video of Trump Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in the capital city of Kyiv. Posobiec later said in an online recording that he was traveling with Bessent and had met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during the visit. Bessent traveled to Kyiv as Trump attempts to secure a deal to extract Ukrainian minerals in exchange for continued U.S. military assistance.

The Post went on to note that it was unclear if Posobiec intended to join Hegesth’s travel party. A spokesman for Hegseth did not respond to a request for comment and Posobiec could not be immediately reached for comment, the outlet reported. Neither NBC News nor MSNBC has independently confirmed the Post’s report.

On Friday, Posobiec posted a photo to X of what he said was Hegseth doing pushups in Poland. It’s unclear if Posobiec was with Hegseth or if he took the photo.

Hegseth has faced condemnation for having his own links to right-wing extremism, and he’s complained about the military’s efforts to root out extremism from the military. His team’s reported offer to Posobiec to tag along with the Pentagon sends the message that the armed forces welcome bigoted and conspiratorial extremists to join their ranks.

Posobiec, who’s been known to associate with white nationalists, was key in spreading the “pizzagate” conspiracy theory falsely accusing prominent Democrats of engaging in pedophilia. But his list of extremist bonafides extends far beyond that. Posobiec promoted the phrase “white boy summer” — which had become a rallying cry for white supremacists — at a far-right event held for then-candidate Donald Trump. And at last year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, Posobiec said his goal is to end democracy. 

“We are here to overthrow it completely,” he told the audience. “We didn’t get all the way there on Jan. 6, but we will endeavor to get rid of it.”

I should also note: Vice President JD Vance, then a senator from Ohio, wrote a glowing review of Posobiec‘s 2024 book, in which the author portrayed liberals as “unhumans.”

Needless to say, the guy who pines for the end of democracy and attempts to dehumanize millions of Americans is not the kind of person who ought to be granted the privilege of traveling with the U.S. military. But the message seems clear. From banning Black History Month celebrations to abandoning the Pentagon’s traditional recruitment efforts at a top conference for Black engineers, Hegseth’s Defense Department appears intent on making the military dumber, whiter and more right-wing. Pentagon officials’ reported invitation to Posobiec is startling evidence of that trend.