Austin snubs Trump's criticism of US Army being 'too woke', says 'many don't understand our troops'

Outgoing US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin on Thursday snubbed President-elect Donald Trump’s comment about the US military where he called the army “too woke”.

The Republican leader in June 2024 had vowed to “get rid” of army generals he deems as “too woke”. “I would fire them. You can’t have woke military,” Trump told Fox News.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Austin dismissed claims that the military is “woke,” stating, “You probably couldn’t get two people to provide the same definition of ‘woke’ because nobody really knows what that is.”

“Many of the people who make those comments may not really have a full understanding of what our troops are doing and how well they’re doing it,” Austin added.

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“The United States of America has a military that reflects the United States of America — we are a diverse country, we will have a diverse military.”

The departing defence secretary added that it is important to ensure that people joining the military feel welcomed. However, since does not always happen naturally, “sometimes you have to educate, you have to have the right policies. And when you do, people feel good about the team that they’re on,” Austin said.

Trump’s defence sec pick Hegseth wants to reverse ‘wokeness’

Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News host, has been chosen as the next Secretary of Defence by Trump. The army veteran shares a close rapport with Trump and is not free of controversies. He has often been spotted with Trump and is known to make contentious statements on defence-related matters.

Hegseth has pushed for making the military more lethal and said that allowing women to serve in combat roles hurts that effort.

“Everything about men and women serving together makes the situation more complicated, and complication in combat, means casualties are worse,” Hegseth said during an interview last week on “The Shawn Ryan Show” podcast to promote his new book.

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“I’m straight up just saying that we should not have women in combat roles — it hasn’t made us more effective, hasn’t made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated.”