California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) took a jab at former President Donald Trump’s weight on Tuesday, after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said he no longer wanted “fat generals” in the military. Responding on X to a clip of Hegseth’s remarks at Quantico, Va., Newsom wrote: “I guess the Commander-in-Chief needs to go!”The post featured an unflattering photograph of the president from a campaign stop last October at McDonald’s. A subsequent post from the governor’s press office account made another remark about the president’s weight, this time including an AI-generated image of Trump holding two McDonald’s Big Mac cheeseburgers as drones delivered bags of fast food to the president, who was uncharacteristically wearing a grey t-shirt.“IT’S COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE TO SEE A FAT COMMANDER IN CHIEF IN THE HALLS OF THE WHITE HOUSE!” the post read.The criticism followed Hegseth’s highly unorthodox speech on Tuesday, when he informed the US military’s senior-most officers that he no longer wanted to see “fat generals and admirals” or overweight troops and emphasised the need to adhere to strict fitness standards. “Frankly, it’s tiring to look out at combat formations, or really any formation, and see fat troops,” he stated. “Likewise, it’s completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon leading commands around the country and the world.” “It’s a bad look. It is bad, and it’s not who we are,” he continued. Hegseth convened the officers at a military base in Quantico to reinforce his vision for the Defence Department, having earlier announced that the US military would require those in combat roles to meet the “highest male standard only” of their service’s physical fitness test. “I don’t want my son serving alongside troops who are out of shape, or in a combat unit with females who can’t meet the same combat arms physical standards as men, or troops who are not fully proficient on their assigned weapons, platform, or task, or under a leader who was the first but not the best,” the secretary stated. “Standards must be uniform, gender-neutral, and high.” Hegseth has repeatedly emphasised that US troops meet new fitness requirements as part of a broader effort to return to what he describes as the military’s “warrior ethos.” Trump earlier this month also signed an executive order rebranding the Defence Department as the “Department of War.”
