The Pentagon's unusual new online hype man really wants you to know that the troops love Pete Hegseth
An unusual new Pentagon account is an online cheerleader for the defense secretary.
The DOD Rapid Response account on X and Facebook mirrors a similar White House account.
The account is run by a former right-wing podcaster who now works in communications at the defense department.
A new Pentagon account on X and Facebook has been hyping up Pete Hegseth with videos of jogs, handshakes, and football throws and taking shots at unfavorable media coverage like Signalgate.
The account, known as "DOD Rapid Response," has more than 155,000 followers on X and says it supports "the Mission Of @SecDef And Fighting Against Fake News!" It is managed by Graham Allen, a former conservative podcaster who is now the Defense Department's director of digital media.
Its initial tweet in late February featured a clip of Hegseth defending the abrupt firing of top military leaders with the caption: "Newsflash: The American people VOTED for radical change and TRANSPARENCY!! A shakeup at the DOD is WHAT THEY EXPECT!!"
Allen is a veteran of the Mississippi National Guard, where he served as an IT technician and a military truck operator. He deployed twice to Iraq during his military service, Army public affairs told BI.
Experts in civil-military relations and communications said the account's content — which features the frequent use of exclamation points, emojis, and capitalizations for emphasis — marks a noticeable departure from past DoD communications.
The account focuses heavily on the new secretary of defense, who maintains personal and official X accounts. It has amplified posts from other officials praising Hegseth's virtues, calling out mainstream media "hoaxes and lies," and refuting concerns about Hegseth and other top Trump officials using the unsecured Signal app to discuss pending military operations.
The account has lately been really pushing the message that servicemembers love the defense chief.
"SecDef is loved by our nation's warfighters," read an April 2 post that retweeted a Breitbart story saying Hegseth "earned respect" from special operations troops after working out with them.
One day earlier, the account posted a video clip of Hegseth tossing a football around with cheering midshipmen at the Naval Academy. "This is why he's America's @SecDef," the caption read. Another post from the trip said, "One thing is clear, the future of our nation's @USNavy and @USMC LOVES our @SecDef."
Since his confirmation, Hegseth has been visiting military bases, doling out handshakes to some of the 1.3 million active-duty troops he oversees. He is a veteran of the Army National Guard.
This is fairly common practice for Pentagon chiefs, though many troops in the rank and file privately grumble over the "dog-and-pony show" that comes with it. Visits can often require intensive cleaning and "beautification" efforts by troops, followed by hours of waiting to receive the VIPs in auditoriums or chow halls filled with troops usually required to attend by senior officers.
Beyond celebrating Hegseth and promoting an image for the new secretary of defense, the account is also focused on shielding him from criticism.
In the last week, it has called reports in the Daily Beast and Politico "fake news" and accused a reporter of being disconnected from reality. The account took a dig at CNN on March 27, saying that while the outlet has its anonymous sources, "@SecDef has the love of the Troops!!" An accompanying video clip showed Hegseth shaking hands with soldiers.
The account seems to mirror the language and approach of a "Rapid Response 47" X account focused on President Donald Trump.
This kind of social media account represents a shift from past defense secretaries and their public messaging, said Jason Dempsey, a senior fellow of the Center for a New American Security's Military, Veterans, and Society Program.
It's nothing new for Pentagon-run social media accounts to feature photos of officials glad-handing troops. But the accompanying messaging has historically been more focused on strategy, such as highlighting foreign relationships with other militaries or showcasing US troops in training events, Dempsey told BI.
Dempsey said it's historically unusual to focus so heavily on the defense secretary personally and convey troops' "love" for them.
"That's what you get when you change out your Secretary of Defense for an influencer," Dempsey said, saying that "it's government by influencers and TV personalities."
Before his nomination to be Trump's defense secretary, Hegseth was a Fox & Friends Weekend host.
Allen, who the Office of the Secretary of Defense said runs the DoD Rapid Response account, was previously a contributor for the conservative Turning Point USA movement and also ran the "Dear America" podcast. He made a play for a South Carolina congressional seat in 2021 but dropped out in early 2022.
He is a vocal and influential figure on social media; he has over 3 million followers on Facebook and another half a million followers on X. Allen did not respond to BI's requests for comment.
Renee Hobbs, a professor of communication studies at the University of Rhode Island, said that the posted videos of Hegseth among smiling and clapping troops and the captions about their love for him look a lot like propaganda. She told BI it's likely part of a broader strategy to build support from within the armed forces.
"The 'common man' strategy, with its 'he's one of us' themes, is a classic technique" in propaganda and American politics, she said. It's designed to evoke emotions and spur feelings of loyalty.
The way Hegseth dresses may be part of such an everyman strategy; he often dons a kind of "operator casual" look when he travels to meet the troops.
It's "basically tapping into perceived similarity," Hobbs said in a phone interview. "It's really effective because most of the time, we're not aware of that. We don't understand how that kind of persuasion is working on us, we just react to it."
"As a TV personality, these kinds of messages play to his strengths," she said, adding that "posting pictures of himself on social media every day is effective if he's aiming to communicate a message that the brass doesn't like him, but the troops do."
Hegseth has made having a grounded connection with the troops a key part of his image, especially amid questions about his qualifications; he was narrowly confirmed as a secretary of defense with a tie-breaker vote.
He has characterized himself as a "change agent" unlike his predecessors, senior leaders with more experience.
The defense secretary said in the past that he prefers engaging with the troops because "it's not that long ago that I was right there with them." He told reporters in February, "I probably connect more with those guys than I do with four-star generals."
Hegseth has faced mounting criticism since he became the secretary of defense, most recently for amateurish communications of sensitive military information via the Signal messaging app, which he said was "clean on OPSEC." Troops know such communications to be ill-advised due to the annual privacy and cyber training requirements they are required to complete.
To what extent the posted photo ops with the troops reflect genuine attitudes toward their civilian leader is unclear and arguably unimportant — Hegseth is the highest authority in the military chain of command save the president.
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The Hill
29 minutes ago
- The Hill
ICE raids accelerate, protests spread
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Los Angeles Times
33 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
Images of unrest, political spin distort the reality on the ground in L.A.
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The images and their true meaning and context have become the subject of a furious debate in the media and among political partisans, centered on the true roots and victims of the protests, which erupted on Friday as the Trump administration moved aggressively to expand its arrests of undocumented immigrants. As the president and his supporters in conservative media tell it, he is the defender of law and order and American values. They cast their opponents as dangerous foreign-born criminals and their feckless enablers in the Democratic Party and mainstream media. The state's political leaders and journalists offer a compelling rebuttal: that Trump touched off several days of protest and disruption with raids that went far beyond targeting criminals, as he previously promised, then escalated the conflict by taking the highly unusual step of sending the National Guard and Marines to Southern California. Reaction to the raids by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and the subsequent turmoil will divide Americans on what have become partisan lines that have become so predictable they are 'calcified,' said Lynn Vavreck, a political science professor at UCLA. 'The parties want to build very different worlds, voters know it, and they know which world they want to live in,' said Vavreck, who has focused on the country's extreme political polarization. 'And because the parties are so evenly divided, and this issue is so personal to so many, the stakes are very high for people.' As a curfew was imposed Tuesday, the sharpest street confrontations appeared to be fading and a national poll suggested Americans have mixed feelings about the events that have dominated the news. The YouGov survey of 4,231 people found that 50% disapprove of the Trump administration's handling of deportations, compared with 39% who approve. 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In reality, agitators set multiple spot fires in a few neighborhoods, including downtown Los Angeles and Paramount, but the blazes in recent days were tiny and quickly controlled, in contrast to the massive wildfires that devastated broad swaths of Southern California in January. Trump's hyperbole continued in a fundraising appeal to his supporters Tuesday. In it, he again praised his decision to deploy the National Guard (without the approval of California Gov. Gavin Newsom), concluding: 'If we had not done so, Los Angeles would have been completely obliterated.' The Republican had assistance in fueling the sense of unease. His colleagues in Congress introduced a resolution to formally condemn the riots. 'Congress steps in amid 'out-of-control' Los Angeles riots as Democrats resist federal help,' Fox News reported on the resolution, being led by Rep. Young Kim of Orange County. A journalist based in New Delhi pronounced, based on unspecified evidence, that Los Angeles 'is descending into a full-blown warzone.' Veterans Affairs Secretary Douglas Collins suggested that the harm from the protesters was spreading; announcing in a social media post that a care center for vets in downtown L.A. had been temporarily closed. 'To the violent mobs in Los Angeles rioting in support of illegal immigrants and against the rule of law,' his post on X said, 'your actions are interfering with Veterans' health care.' A chyron running with a Fox News commentary suggested 'Democrats have lost their mind,' as proved by their attempts to downplay the anti-ICE riots. Many Angelenos mocked the claims of a widespread public safety crisis. One person on X posted a picture of a dog out for a walk along a neatly kept sidewalk in a serene neighborhood, with the caption: 'Los Angeles just an absolute warzone, as you can see.' In stark contrast to the photos of Waymo vehicles burning and police cars being pelted with rocks, a video on social media showed a group of protestors line dancing. 'Oh my God! They must be stopped before their peaceful and joy filled dance party spreads to a city near you!' the caption read. 'Please send in the Marines before they start doing the Cha Cha and the Macarena!' And many people noted on social media that Sunday's Pride parade in Hollywood for the LGBTQ+ community went off without incident, as reinforced by multiple videos of dancers and marchers celebrating along a sun-splashed parade route. But other activists and Democrats signaled that they understand how Trump's position can be strengthened if it appears they are condoning the more extreme episodes that emerged along with the protests — police being pelted with bottles, businesses being looted and buildings being defaced with graffiti. On Tuesday, an X post by Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass reiterated her earlier admonitions: 'Let me be clear: ANYONE who vandalized Downtown or looted stores does not care about our immigrant communities,' the mayor wrote. 'You will be held accountable.' The activist group Occupy Democrats posted a message online urging protesters to show their disdain for the violence and property damage. 'The moment violence of property damage begins, EVERY OTHER PROTESTER must immediately sit on the floor or the ground in silence, with signs down,' the advisory suggested. 'The media needs to film this. This will reveal paid fake thugs posing as protesters becoming violent. ….The rest of us will demonstrate our non-violent innocence and retain our Constitutional right to peaceful protest.' Craig Silverman, a journalist and cofounder of Indicator, a site that investigates deception on digital platforms, said that reporting on the context and true scope of the protests would have a hard time competing with the visceral images broadcast into Americans' homes. 'It's inevitable that the most extreme and compelling imagery will win the battle for attention on social media and on TV,' Silverman said via email. 'It's particularly challenging to deliver context and facts when social platforms incentivize the most shocking videos and claims, federal and state authorities offer contradictory messages about what's happening.' Dan Schnur, who teaches political science at USC and UC Berkeley, agreed. 'The overwhelming majority of the protesters are peaceful,' Schnur said, 'but they don't do stories on all the planes that land safely at LAX, either.' Though it might be too early to assess the ultimate impact of the L.A. unrest, Schnur suggested that all of the most prominent politicians in the drama might have accomplished their messaging goals: Trump motivated his base and diverted attention from his nasty feud with his former top advisor, Elon Musk, and the lack of progress on peace talks with Russia and Ukraine. Newsom 'effectively unified the state and elevated his national profile' by taking on Trump. And Bass, under tough scrutiny for her handling of the city's wildfire disaster, has also gotten a chance to use Trump as a foil. What was not disputed was that Trump's rapid deployment of the National Guard, without the approval of Newsom, had little precedent. And sending the Marines to L.A. was an even more extreme approach, with experts saying challenges to the deployment would test the limits of Trump's power. The federal Insurrection Act allows the deployment of the military for law enforcement purposes, but only under certain conditions, such as a national emergency. California leaders say Trump acted before a true emergency developed, thereby preempting standard protocols, including the institution of curfews and the mobilization of other local police departments in a true emergency. Even real estate developer Rick Caruso, Bass' opponent in the last election, suggested Trump acted too hastily. 'There is no emergency, widespread threat, or out of control violence in Los Angeles,' Caruso wrote on X Sunday. 'And absolutely no danger that justifies deployment of the National Guard, military, or other federal force to the streets of this or any other Southern California City.' 'We must call for calm in the streets,' Caruso added, 'and deployment of the National Guard may prompt just the opposite.'