Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said his mission has been to uproot diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in the military during his address to top brass in Quantico on Tuesday. Newport News Mayor Phillip Jones is taking issue with this comment, as noted in a statement released after Hegseth's address.

During his nearly hour-long speech, Hegseth announced plans to end what he calls "toxic ideological garbage" through a series of sweeping changes for the U.S. military, including updating physical readiness tests to be "gender neutral" or "male-level." Currently, men and women are held to different fitness tests standards in all branches of the military except the U.S. Army, which announced gender-neutral fitness test standards in June .

Hegseth went on to say that the U.S. mi

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