Pete Hegseth is apparently following Donald Trump’s lead in more ways than one.
A new social media video pushing a MAGA-coded fitness challenge has revealed the defense secretary has redecorated the Pentagon with photos—of himself.
One scene in the promotional video shows Hegseth, 45, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., 71, walking through the corridors of the Pentagon. A photograph that shows Hegseth and third wife Jennifer Rauchet is on the wall as the pair shake hands.
The photo of Hegseth and his wife originally included JD Vance in the foreground but he was unceremoniously cropped out of the picture, which was taken by Kent Nishimura for Getty Images. Hegseth frequently rails against the “mainstream media” but apparently likes their photographs.
The video cuts to the two men walking down a corridor lined with more pictures of Hegseth, one inspecting what appears to be Marines and the other saluting in front of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery. There is also a framed poster of the mocked-up F-47 next generation stealth fighter, which was named for Trump in a sycophantic gesture.
The clip then shows both men inside a gym “in the bowels of the Pentagon” for the Pete and Bobby Challenge. It seems the pair hopes the exercise concept will gain traction, like the Ice Bucket Challenge, where people repeat it themselves and post the results online.
While Hegseth does his pull-ups and push-ups in gym shorts, Kennedy is wearing jeans, boots, and a belt.
In his Army Ken-style spokesman role, Hegseth says, “It’s all about Make America Healthy Again, we’re gonna be fit, not fat, we want recruits that are ready to go.”
Kennedy, the conspiracy theory-loving health and human services secretary, says, “Pete and I are going to do our part to encourage American youth to do this challenge.”
The challenge is 100 push-ups and 50 pull-ups in under 10 minutes.
In an attempt to make it go viral, at the end of the video, Kennedy challenged Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to complete the exercise routine while Hegseth challenged Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as his former colleague on Fox News, Will Cain.
The Daily Beast has contacted the Pentagon and Hegseth’s team for comment on the recent Pentagon decorations.
At the White House, Trump is turning the Oval Office into a wannabe Palace of Versailles, or Mar-a-Lago North. Photos show that Trump, 79, has stuffed the room with gaudy accents, including gold-plated moldings.
In July, Donald Trump signed an executive order to reestablish the Presidential Fitness Test and the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition for U.S. school children.
Before joining the Trump administration, Hegseth served as an Army National Guard Officer and co-host of Fox & Friends.
His third wife, Jennifer Rauchet, was a producer on Fox & Friends who became his mistress while he was married to his second wife, with whom he had three children. Rauchet, already a mother of three, became pregnant and after she gave birth Hegseth had sex with a woman at a hotel in California. The woman alleged it was non-consensual but Hegseth denied that, saying he was simply cheating while drinking heavily.
He and Rauchet married in 2019, with members of the Trump family attending the wedding.
Other pictures of the couple were plastered on another Pentagon wall, in a meeting room where he was photographed in April with then-Trump best friend Elon Musk and among others Musk’s then spokesperson, Katie Miller, the wife of White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.
Rauchet has become a constant presence at the Pentagon.In March, she was included in Hegseth’s second private Signal group chat that shared sensitive information about military strikes in Yemen.
