Fox News’ Pete Hegseth drew an eyebrow-raising comparison between the Russian invasion of Ukraine and “woke” culture on Monday, as part of a discussion of President Joe Biden’s upcoming State of the Union address.

Hegseth made the comments on The Faulkner Focus, after host Harris Faulkner brought up Biden’s speech, scheduled for Tuesday evening.

The “backdrop is grim” for Biden’s first SOTU address, Faulkner noted, with the war in Ukraine causing the White House to make last-minute changes to the president’s planned remarks, plus his “cratering poll numbers.” She quoted a recent AP article that was “not mincing words,” describing the situation in America as “a state of disunity, funk and peril.”

Faulkner played a clip of Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) offering advice for Biden to avoid spin in his speech, and instead offer solutions.

“We want solutions, regardless of whether you are Republican, Democrat, conservative, liberal,” said Zeldin. “Don’t spin us for an hour. Just tell us what you are going to do. We want competency in government, we want consistency in government, and we want policies, whether it’s abroad or here at home, prioritizing our economy, our safety, our freedom.”

Asked for his reaction, Hegseth said that he didn’t envy the White House speechwriter “whose task it is to take the last year and a half and try to make it look rosy.” He concurred with the assessment in the AP headline and Zeldin’s take, and then brought up conversations he had with attendees at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando:

I was at CPAC this weekend talking to conservatives and young people. And they said, yes, what’s happening in Ukraine is important, but it pales in comparison to the crime I see in my streets, to the wokeness I see in my culture, to the inflation I see in my pocketbook, to the real border I care about, which is the southern border, which is wide open.

On every single issue, the quality of life of average Americans has gone down. The taxi driver I spoke to just yesterday said it costs me twice as much. I didn’t vote for Biden but costs me twice as much to fill up my tank every time I drive. I feel it and I realized I was wrong.

So the best thing Joe Biden could do on this grandest of stages with all eyeballs on him, is admit some short fallings, admit we aren’t where we should be and course correct. But he is in a box of the left, of the hard left, a devil which he made a deal with at the beginning of his administration, and therefore I don’t think he can course correct. I hope that White House speech writer writes the spinniest of spin speeches. Because that’s what they’re gonna need if they stick to the policies they’ve been pursuing.

Perhaps Hegseth would have benefitted from talking to one more CPAC attendee, Ukrainian student Kateryna Lieshok, to get a different perspective.

Watch the video above, via Fox News.

The post Pete Hegseth Says Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine ‘Pales in Comparison’ to the ‘Wokeness of My Culture’ first appeared on Mediaite.

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