Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has pledged to stand firm in celebrating what he calls America’s “proud” Confederate history, despite renewed criticism over the decision to restore monuments honoring the Confederacy.
“We recognize our history,” Hegseth told Fox News host Will Cain on Thursday. “We don’t erase it. We don’t follow the woke lemmings off the cliff that want to tear down statues. … We’re proud of our history.”
Hegseth’s comments came in defense of the plan to reinstall a Confederate monument at Arlington National Cemetery that opponents argue distorts the history of slavery in the United States.
Shortly after rejecting calls to remove Confederate symbols, Pete Hegseth signaled he is prepared to go to great lengths to confront critics. “Our job is to ensure our enemies know exactly what we will do to them if they threaten us up to and including total war,” he said.
The monument at the center of the debate is The Confederate Memorial by sculptor Moses Ezekiel. The statue includes a Latin inscription portraying the Civil War as a “lost cause” fought for noble principles and resistance to tyranny. It also features imagery of Black people appearing to support Confederate soldiers, implying they desired to remain enslaved.
According to an archived version of the National Cemetery website, the 32-foot-tall memorial presents “a nostalgic, mythologized vision of the Confederacy, including highly sanitized depictions of slavery.” First erected in 1914, the monument stood for more than a century before being removed in 2023 under former President Joe Biden.
The move to restore it aligns with a broader Trump administration effort to reinstate Confederate references across federal sites and institutions. Earlier this week, the National Park Service announced plans to return a statue of Confederate Gen. Albert Pike, who once wrote that the “white race, and that race alone, shall govern this country.
It is the only one that is fit to govern, and it is the only one that shall.” In addition to the Pike statue, the administration has reversed prior name changes to a number of U.S. Army bases originally named for Confederate leaders.
Supporters argue these measures preserve historical memory, while critics contend they glorify a rebellion fought to uphold slavery and white supremacy. For Hegseth, the decision is about principle. “We don’t erase it,” he said. “We’re proud of our history.”