First posted on Instagram · @profilopolitics
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth was the headline speaker at the AUSA 2026 Annual Meeting in Washington on Wednesday, seated on a panel about the future of autonomous warfare — and six protesters planted through the packed ballroom spent the first half hour trying to shut him down. One after another they stood and shouted "war criminal," "Nazi," "You're not a warrior, you're a coward," "Children in Gaza are starving," "You're killing my family." The last one promised him The Hague as security pushed him out of the room.
Security dragged every one of them out. One woman had to be carried by several officers, still screaming as she went. Hegseth never left his seat.
"She thinks highly of me."
That was his answer to the first outburst — it drew applause, and at one point the crowd answered the protesters with chants of "USA, USA." Once the pattern was clear, Hegseth named it — "Appears we have a bit of a tactic" — and from there the panel simply talked over the remaining interruptions and finished its full hour.
The panel itself was there to discuss Project Agincourt, the Pentagon's initiative to accelerate the development and deployment of autonomous systems — drones, robotics and AI-driven weapons — and how the services will integrate them on the battlefield. Hegseth sat alongside acting Army Secretary Adam Telle, acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao, Air Force Secretary Troy Meink and Derrick Evans, the assistant secretary for special operations and low-intensity conflict.
The protesters came to make the Secretary of War look weak on the Army's own stage, and produced the opposite picture: him composed in his chair, joking, while they were carried out one by one in front of an audience that applauded him. The open question now runs the other way — the interruptions were semi-coordinated, and it is still unclear how the protesters obtained credentials to get inside a secured defense conference filled with Army brass and defense contractors.
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