If your public incompetence in your high-profile role prevents you from being the government’s golden boy, you can still aim for bronze—by installing a makeup studio in the Pentagon to make sure that all pores are blurred and glows are sun-kissed. That appears to be the strategy Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is running with lately, reportedly ordering modifications to a green room in the Pentagon to make it a glam room for himself and other high-ranking officials before on-camera appearances.
CBS News reported the decor changes to the green room Wednesday, citing sources familiar with the upgrades. The outlet reported that Hegseth approved the addition of additional lighting, mirrors, and a director’s chair, among other furnishings, to optimize the space for grooming. Hegseth, meanwhile, reported via social media the same day that CBS should maybe shut the hell up, fitting plenty of scare quotes and even a surprise jab at gender equity and DEI into the tweet.
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“1) Totally fake story,” Hegseth sniped. “No ‘orders’ and no ‘makeup’—but whatever.”
“2) We should have installed tampon machines in every men’s bathroom at DoD instead — the leftist ‘news’ media would have loved that,” he continued. I…what? First of all, wow, guess someone’s got tampons front-of-mind. Kind of weird, but everyone has their passions. And, b, they don’t need to be in a machine. A tasteful wicker basket will do the job just fine.
Hegseth was, until recently, a co-anchor on Fox and Friends Weekend, a gig that prioritizes a certain degree of jawline definition above, oh, understanding of and sane takes on current events. Hegseth, plucked and preened over on a daily basis as a matter of routine, is barely even pretending like he’s not an obvious sign that the White House and Pentagon have become remote broadcast studios for the conservative media outlet he purportedly left behind. Consider: He even brought his own producer with him. That would be Jennifer Rauchet, Hegseth’s third wife and former Fox producer, the one Hegseth included on that other Signal chat distributing plans for a U.S. military strike on Yemen, not to mention sensitive meetings with high-ranking foreign officials. A scheduling reminder to one’s spouse along the lines of “don’t forget, Johnny has soccer practice at 6:30 and you know he gets grumpy if you forget his artistically carved fruits!” is acceptable, understandable. “We deploy at 1600 hours,” however, is not.
A Defense Department official told Vanity Fair that while initial quotes for the green room’s glow-up were in the “$10-15k range,” they took a cue from Tim Gunn and made it work, with the final cost described by the official as “marginal—a few hundred dollars to cut, stain, and install a wooden countertop in the room.” The official said that they cut costs by scavenging supplies and focusing on “recycled furniture modifications—a director’s style chair, mirror, and a makeup light—all of which were added from existing inventories. A countertop was added and constructed internally by the Facilities Services Directorate, Washington Headquarters Services.”
So, yeah, Pete, like you said, “no ‘makeup’” was included in the upgrade, nor did anyone say it was. Besides, we all know that you should bring your own shade-matched base to make sure you don’t look weird on camera.
