Pete Hegseth's Bench Press Is Embarrassing

Summary

Bulwark Takes – Pete Hegseth's Bench Press Is Embarrassing

Podcast: Bulwark Takes
Host: Will Sommer
Guest: Joe Perdicone (Press Pass newsletter, fitness expert)
Date: June 13, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into the recent viral video of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth bench pressing at Guantanamo Bay. Will Sommer and fitness commentator Joe Perdicone dissect the workout, critique the viral display of “performance masculinity” in politics, and consider the broader trend of physical feats among Trump Administration officials. The episode uses humor and expertise to question what these displays really say about politics, masculinity, and fitness.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Stage: Pete Hegseth in the Gym (01:30–03:02)

• Will Sommer introduces the viral video: Hegseth bench pressing with troops in Guantanamo Bay, questioning the Department of Defense’s claim that Hegseth is “crushing it.”
• Joe Perdicone notes the trend among Trump-era officials to film workouts and underscores that what Hegseth did “didn’t look like it went too well.”

2. Play-by-Play Breakdown of Hegseth’s Bench (03:02–06:14)

• Sommer describes Hegseth benching what appears to be 135 pounds “really quickly” and expresses skepticism at the government’s depiction of it as a feat of masculinity.
• Joe’s Analysis:
  • Hegseth begins with “a tilt,” suggesting possible shoulder problems.
  • The rep speed is more akin to CrossFit-style or military bonding than true strength training: “CrossFitters are weird and like to do things that would make injury very likely.” (03:30)
  • Critiques the spotter’s inattentiveness: “The spotter is not doing a good job. He’s just, like, kind of watching him.” (04:00)
  • Points to “hip thrusts” and “leg kicks” as signs Hegseth is just chasing rep numbers, not proper form.
  • Ultimately, the performance comes across as more about bravado than actual fitness: “They like to do this to brag about their macho status, but didn’t look very macho to me.” (05:56)

3. Rep Counting and Form Issues (06:14–07:53)

• Sommer frames 135 pounds as unimpressive for seasoned lifters: “135 is kind of like table stakes...he’s not lifting a ton of weight...they’re trying to make a big deal about the reps.”
• Joe observes that many of the reps “would have been disqualified” if judged strictly, as at the NFL Scouting Combine: “When you’re just kind of flailing about like that, you’re the only person you’re cheating is yourself.” (06:48)

4. The Politics of Performance Masculinity (07:53–09:49)

• The hosts discuss a larger pattern: officials, especially in the current administration, staging feats of strength for social media and political points.
• Joe draws parallels to RFK Jr.’s pushup challenges, critiquing the conflation of physical prowess with character:

  “Clinging to physical feats of strength as a display of masculinity…they love being like, this shows how great I am. But if you measure health and character by how macho or how much weight they can do...you’re making an excuse for many other bad, dangerous things. And it’s all very superficial.” (08:24)

• This performance is targeted at an “online weird audience,” not the broader public, emphasizing the echo-chamber nature of these displays.

5. More Examples: RFK Jr., Pushups in Airports, and Cash Patel’s Chin-ups (09:49–12:44)

• The episode references other stunts:
  • RFK Jr. and Sean Duffy’s pull-up bar setup at Reagan Airport.
  • Cash Patel’s chin-up and push-up routines on FBI grounds.
  • Marjorie Taylor Greene’s home workout videos.
• Joe connects CrossFit’s culture to modern conservatism—tribal, defensive if challenged, and prone to questionable safety:

  “There’s a strange parallel between crossfitters and modern conservatism…they both are like very offended if you question what they’re doing.” (11:41)

6. Critique of the Approach to Fitness (12:44–13:40)

• The use of fast, form-free reps is dismissed by Joe as ineffective and risky:

  “When you try and combine them [fast reps and multiple exercises], it creates a lot more room for error and you can have all these injuries. This is just kooky...they’re not fitness influencers. They want to be, but they’re actually just government officials.”

7. Final Technical Advice (13:40–15:32)

• Sommer asks if Hegseth’s “method” has any value.
• Joe gives practical advice:

  “I’m not a big fan of the bench press anyway. It’s rough on the shoulders...You need to be more controlled. There’s mirrors in gyms, presumably for people to just stare at themselves, but also to understand what you’re doing is right and watch yourself doing it right...I guess it makes good online content, but not the best workout.” (14:08)

• Joe would lift with Hegseth, but promotes a non-competitive, health-focused approach:

  “As long as you know you’re getting what you need and you’re feeling good, that’s the best thing.” (15:15)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Hegseth’s Spotter:
  “The spotter is not doing a good job. He’s just, like, kind of watching him... If that thing falls, it’s gonna hurt him...for a regular lifter, [135 pounds] is not a lot of weight.” — Joe Perdicone (04:00–05:00)

• On Performance vs Reality:
  “They like to do this to brag about their macho status, but didn’t look very macho to me.” — Joe Perdicone (05:56)

• On What the Video Really Shows:
  “It’s this ferocity, this virility with very little actually underlying it, I think could sort of sum up this whole administration.” — Will Sommer (13:40)

• On Measuring Leadership by Muscle:
  “Clinging to physical feats of strength as a display of masculinity...is a substitute for character.” — Joe Perdicone (08:24)

• On Conservative Fitness Displays:
  “There’s a strange parallel between crossfitters and like modern conservatism. They’re very like tribally connected...They want to be fitness influencers, but they’re actually just government officials who presumably have other work to do.” — Joe Perdicone (11:41–13:40)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:30 – Introduction, setting up the Hegseth video.
• 03:02 – Breakdown of the workout and “spotter” critique.
• 06:14 – Discussion of the low weight and “padded” rep count.
• 07:53 – The cultural/political appeal of public displays of strength.
• 08:24 – RFK Jr. and the superficiality of fitness as character.
• 09:49 – Airport pull-up bars and the Cash Patel example.
• 11:41 – Tribal nature of CrossFit and modern conservatism.
• 13:40 – The problem of performance with no substance.
• 14:08 – Joe’s closing fitness advice.

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Episode Tone and Style

The episode blends sardonic humor, pop-culture references, and real fitness expertise. The hosts are critical but playful, with a focus on exposing the superficiality of political macho-posturing through tongue-in-cheek commentary and technical fitness knowledge.

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For New Listeners

If you missed the episode, this is an irreverent yet insightful deep-dive into the intersection of physical performance, masculinity, and political spectacle, using Pete Hegseth’s bench press video as the perfect lens. The hosts encourage listeners to focus on substance—both in fitness and in politics—over online bravado and questionable feats of strength.

Transcript

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[Will Sommer]

Welcome back to the Bulwark. I'm Will Sommer, here with Joe Perdicone, the author of the Press Pass newsletter and our resident fitness expert. Now, look, I've got, I got my workout shirt. He's a little hamburger pumping iron. I've got my creatine for you, Joe. I got the muscle milk, right? We got the, the protein powder. And the reason for that is because we're going to talk about Pete Hegseth's workout routine. Now, the Department of War claims that he's crushing it, but I'm seeing some skeptics out there. So set the stage for us.

[Joe Perdicone]

So Hegseth. Well, a lot of members of the Trump cabinet like to film themselves working out. And Hegseth was lifting at Guantanamo Bay with some of the troops there, and it didn't look like it went too well.

[Unidentified Gym Participant/Counter]

9, 10, all the way down, all the way up. 13, all the way down, all THE way up. 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, all the way down, all the way. 28, oh 9, 30, 31, 36, 37. Somebody get in here. 44.

[Will Sommer]

So there we can see Pete Hegseth. He's benching what looks like about £135 really quickly. Now, the Department of War. The reason we're talking about this is not just, you know, we're looking at, you know, can the Secretary of defense hit the coveted 225 on the bench? But we're talking about this because the Department of War is making a lot out of this bench, and they're saying he's crazy. Crushing it. You know, look at how masculine he is. And yet there seems to maybe be an issue here with the bench. I'd love to get your take.

[Joe Perdicone]

So I can't even think of how many times I've hit the bench in my life. We've been working out since I was 16, so, like, 20 years. When he's going. He's, like, on a tilt from the start, which makes me think maybe he's got some shoulder problems that he hasn't addressed. And when you're going real fast like that, like, you never see people do that at an actual gym. That's, like, what troops do when they're bonding or, like, competing with each other or if you go to, like, a CrossFit thing. CrossFitters are weird and, like, to do things that would make injury very likely. So he's kind of going, and you can tell he's struggling. He's doing, like, the hip thrusts at the beginning, and he's just going for, like, hitting it as many times as he can, but clearly, you know, isn't caring about form, which I don't really know what that accomplishes unless you're just, like, doing it for morale purposes. Guys in the military love that. But he starts to struggle, and I'm gonna pick a book. I got a bone to pick with somebody. Not Pete Hegseth in this video, the spotter is not doing a good job. He's just, like, kind of watching him, like, oh, yeah,

[Will Sommer]

he doesn't care, man. He says he's got the secretary of defense's life in his hands.

[Joe Perdicone]

You can see when he starts struggling, the spotter still is just like, yeah, 20, 21. Like, a good spotter is gonna, like, start hovering their hands, because, like, okay, he's been at a tilt like that the whole time, which means his shoulder's not doing hot this morning. So if something goes wrong and, like, his shoulder pops, that thing's coming crushing down on him. And then we don't have a Secretary of defense slash war to yap at. Everyone on the TV every day. So maybe he knew what he was doing. But you. You wanna start. You wanna start hovering your hands over the bar because if that thing falls, it's gonna hurt him because, you know, he's got the. The bar itself is 45 pounds. He's got 45 on each side, which is like, for a regular lifter. That's not a lot of weight. That's like a, you know, a normal bench amount. But that, you know, that's really not safe. So when he finally does grab it, he also grabs it, like, in an awkward way. And Hegseth is like, absolutely gassed at the end of this thing. And he's like, he's doing the leg kicks. That's somebody who's like, I. I need to show everyone that I can do as many as I can and isn't trying to get a good workout in. When you start flailing the legs and then he gets up like, oh, like, give me a Diet Coke. Like, he's so exhausted. And it's just the. The whole thing is ridiculous. And they. They like to do this to, like, brag about their. Their macho status, but. Didn't look very macho to me.

[Will Sommer]

Yeah, I mean, I think the thing that's striking here is you have the Department of Defense saying he hit 44. What a tough guy.

[Unidentified Gym Participant/Counter]

44, 40. Couldn't get that last.

[Will Sommer]

Because as you said, 135 is kind of like table stakes. If you're like, begin, you know, in your benching journey, you're, you know, maybe six months, you know, whatever into it. But. So he's not lifting a ton of weight. But. So they're trying to make a big deal about the reps, but I think a lot of those rep really what we would classify as sort of like classic full arm elbow lockout reps. So I. I think he's kind of padding the numbers here.

[Joe Perdicone]

Yeah. Like, when you watch the NFL combine, if you're sports obsessed and you watch the guys do the bench, that's always fun because there's always like a D lineman and then like a random punter who crushes it at the bench. Most of those benches, like, they would have disqualified because they need to be like, perfect. And those were not. And like, the point of doing a perfect bench is not, you know, to show your mastery. It's literally to get a good workout to, like, show that you're engaging every muscle going down and back up. And when you're just kind of flailing about like that, like, you're the only Person you're cheating is yourself.

[Will Sommer]

You know, Pete Hegseth, you got to get in there. I want to see that range of motion, man. You know, let's focus on a good three sets of 10 maybe, you know, we don't have to be going for 44. You know, it also strikes me that I think, think these, the, the guy counting, he doesn't really want to be calling these reps as rigorously as he might if he had a, a, A private in front of him. I think he's like, oh, yeah, sure, whatever, man. Sure. That. That counts as a rep. Yeah.

[Joe Perdicone]

You can't tell your boss that their reps aren't good enough. We both know that, as we know

[Will Sommer]

from the Bulwark Gym with Sam. Yes, absolutely. Now, you know, you touched on this earlier. I mean, I, I think people might say, okay, well, okay, Pete. Petexeth maybe sees, you know, fudging the numbers a bit on the reps. The larger impact here, I think, is that we see this, this administration in general is very into. Every so often, they get really into these kind of, like, feats of strength. And obviously, America 250, the UFC fight, we're seeing a lot of, I think, new focus on this. But, you know, talk about, I mean, RFK Jr. I think, is a guy who is also, you know, I remember the RFK challenge where it was like, you know, how many push ups can you do?

[Joe Perdicone]

Clinging to, like, physical feats of strength as a display of masculinity is a thing that, like, these guys love. They love being like this. Shows how great I am. That doesn't factor into almost anything. And because it's like a substitute for character, because it's like, well, you know, rfk, oh, he's, he's jacked and he's old. But, like, he also engages in all this behavior that's and, and encourages things that are very unhealthy, that are not good for health. But if you measure health and character by, like, how macho or how, you know, much weight they can do, like, then you're, you're kind of making an excuse for the many other, you know, bad, dangerous things. And it's all very superficial and very similar to the things that you cover. There's the whole manosphere element of it. Like, they're, they're, when they post these videos, that's who they're trying to appeal to. Like somebody. A normal person in America, first of all, is not into weightlifting. Only weirdos are, like myself, and then a normal person whose groceries are really high and they're going to see like, wow, did you, did you see how much the Secretary of War bench pressed. It's like nobody's, nobody's gonna care. It's, it's appealing to like an online weird audience.

[Will Sommer]

Yeah. I can't take the family on a road trip, but, you know, but at least the Secretary of Defense is crushing it. You know, if we could play the RFK Junior, you know, in the airport video.

[Unidentified Gym Participant/Counter]

11, 12, 13.

[Will Sommer]

Oh, man, he's coming for you.

[Unidentified Gym Participant/Counter]

He's coming for me. Yes, sir. Yeah. Yes, sir.

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Let's go.

[Will Sommer]

Get up there.

[Joe Perdicone]

Come on.

[Will Sommer]

This was a few months ago, him and Sean Duffy set up a pull up bar at Reagan Airport. And it was sort of like there was this idea like maybe they're going to do this permanently or something. This would be a permanent installation in American airports. I will say I went to Reagan again after this. I did not see it there. You know, there was a lot of talk about, well, do people, we want sweaty people on flights, things like that. You know, another aspect here, you know, as long as we're doing this kind of Trump administration feats of strength. I remember when Cash Patel got really into the chin ups. To basically, Cash set up this giant in sort of like the open air deck of the FBI building which if you drive by, you can see all his like, you know, his power racks and what have you, you know, and he was doing all these chin ups but again, the reps were not there and then, you know, the push ups. And so you, you have these situations where it's this weird performance where they're kind of accomplishing things that don't like really matter in terms of running the government. But also they're necessarily even doing that.

[Joe Perdicone]

Yeah. So the primary job of the FBI is to do as many pull ups as possible. No, it's to solve and prevent crimes. I don't know what this does. It's. Once again it's to this weird audience. Like he's not convincing everyone that the country is safer by the amount of. So these are like kipping pull ups, which only crossfitters do. Marjorie Taylor Greene's repeat offender of posting videos. They're ripe for sustaining injury because you're just kind of flailing about. And Cash Patel doing these shows that like, like there's a strange parallel between crossfitters and like modern conservatism. They're very like tribally connected. They both are like very offended if you question what they're doing. Crossfitters. I hope we don't have Any crossfitting Bulwark fans here? But I have thoughts on crossfit.

[Will Sommer]

Crossfit Nation's going to come for you. But that's okay. That's why they call it Bulwark takes. Right? Like we're getting the takes out and

[Joe Perdicone]

he's doing like all these like fast pull ups and then he immediately goes into the push ups. People were tweeting that like there were bad push ups. I thought the push ups were fine. But again, like with the hexa thing, like they're going for speed and that's just to like show how like animalistic you are. It's not that great of a workout. It's really not like it. You should really try and separate these things. Like you do well form weightlifting and then you go ride a bike or run on the treadmill or run outside or whatever. When you try and combine them, it creates a lot more room for error and you can have all these injuries. And some people disagree. A lot of people who work out do all these high speed workouts. But this is, this is just kooky and, and beyond all that. Like, these aren't fitness influencers. I think they want to be, but they're actually just government officials who presumably have other work to do.

[Will Sommer]

You know, it's sort of this, the, this ferocity, this virility with very little actually under. Underlying it, I think could sort of sum up this whole administration. Now finally, Joe, in closing, would you recommend people, you know, you've been in the gym 20 years, you've been pumping that iron. Is Pete Hexa's method here of just like pumping and presumably he can handle more than 135 pounds if he's able to, you know, more or less push it up that much. Is. Would you recommend the Hegseth method of, of bench? Is this going to be the new fitness craze?

[Joe Perdicone]

I'm not a big fan of the bench press anyway. It's rough on the shoulder. It's rough on the shoulders. Especially Pete Hegseth, you know, at his age, at our age even, you know, you got to start taking care of your joints and your flexibility and just going berserk at Guantanamo Bay is not, it's not ideal. Like, you want to work on like your flexibility, your very controlled strength. Think of it like if you're holding a bowling ball, right? It's going to be a much better workout if you hold it straight and like very engaged in front of you as opposed to like wobbling around with it. It's, it's just like, you need to be more controlled. And that's why I, like, there's mirrors in gyms, presumably for people to just stare at themselves, but also to, like, understand what you're doing is right and watch yourself doing it right in real time when you're flailing like a maniac. I guess it makes good online content, but not the best workout.

[Will Sommer]

Well, Joe, if Pete Hegseth offers your advice, are you willing to hit the gym with him?

[Joe Perdicone]

Yeah, I'd lift with him.

[Unidentified Gym Participant/Counter]

I.

[Joe Perdicone]

But the thing is, is I'm not a competitive lifter. I'm not a very competitive person. So, like, if you work out with me, I'm not like, come on. I'm just like, you know what? As long as you know you're getting what you need and you're feeling good, that's the best thing.

[Will Sommer]

All right, Secretary Hegseth, you heard it here first. Watch out for those shoulders. I'm glad we took took this dive into the world of MAGA masculinity as performed in the gym, by the way. Sort of on enemy territory, so close to Cuba, which were menacing. I think that factor may have played in. You want to have a big show, like, almost like a 300, a Spartan type performance in front of the enemy. Joe, thank you so much for joining us, everyone. Check out Joe's press pass newsletter. Thank you all for listening.