Hegseth falsely claims Obama called 2009 Fort Hood attack ‘workplace violence’ – US politics live

In an interview on Thursday with the rightwing network Real America’s Voice, Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, joined Donald Trump in trying to use the 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood in Texas to attack former president Barack Obama.

On Wednesday night, Trump made the wildly false claim that Obama had emails from the attacker describing his plans in advance but chose not to stop him.

Speaking on Thursday to the far-right influencer Jack Posobiec, who helped spread the debunked Pizzagate conspiracy theory to smear Democrats in 2016, the defense secretary announced that Nidal Hasan, the former army psychiatrist who killed 12 soldiers and one civilian at Fort Hood, would be executed by firing squad later this year.

Hegseth, a former Fox News host, then falsely claimed that Obama had downplayed the attack.

“It was a radical Islamist terror attack,” Hegseth said. “Remember what Obama called it? ‘Workplace violence,’” the defense secretary said, falsely, as Posobiec nodded vigorously.

“I mean, that’s what we’re up against. That’s the worldview we’re up against, it’s ‘workplace violence,’” the supposedly nonpartisan defense secretary continued, referring, incorrectly, to a controversy over how the US military categorized the deaths of the 12 active-duty soldiers killed by Hasan at the time.

Relatives of those killed in the attack by a Muslim service member who later called it revenge for US military operations against Muslim countries, were enraged that the military refused to classify those killed as victims of combat or terrorism, since they were not deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan at the time.

The families sued in federal court, claiming that “the Army has refused to deem the soldiers killed and wounded in the attack eligible for a Purple Heart decoration, with its attendant recognition and medical and retirement benefits.” The suit, which criticized Obama for failing to call the attack terrorism, was dismissed in 2019.

In 2015, during Obama’s second term in office, the military did award the victims and survivors of the Fort Hood attack with Purple Hearts and other medals after Congress changed the definition of who was eligible for the military award to include victims of an attacker who “was in communication with the foreign terrorist organization before the attack” and “the attack was inspired or motivated by the foreign terrorist organization.” Hasan, the army major, did send messages to Anwar al-Awlaki, a cleric at a mosque in suburban Virginia where Hasan worshiped who went on to become a radical cleric and an al-Qaida propagandist. Awlaki was killed in Yemen in 2011 in a drone strike ordered by Obama.

While some experts, including the political philosopher Michael Walzer, have argued that the definition of terrorism should be reserved for attacks on civilians, and exclude soldiers, Republicans continued to criticize Obama for not describing the attack as an act of terrorism, even though he appeared to do so in a 2013 speech at the National Defense University.

After describing the threat from foreign groups that plot “acts of terror” in that address, Obama said, “we face a real threat from radicalized individuals here in the United States.”

“Deranged or alienated individuals – often US citizens or legal residents – can do enormous damage, particularly when inspired by larger notions of violent jihad,” Obama added. “And that pull towards extremism appears to have led to the shooting at Fort Hood and the bombing of the Boston Marathon.”