During an interview on the podcast "The Shawn Ryan Show" released last week, Hegseth denounced what he called diversity, equity and inclusion "woke s---" in the military and outlined a plan to "course correct it."

"Well, first of all, you gotta fire — you've got to fire the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and obviously, you're going to bring in a new secretary of defense. But any general that was involved — general, admiral, whatever that was involved — in any of the DEI woke s--- has got to go," Hegseth said.