{"id":37836,"date":"2026-08-11T03:45:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T22:45:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=37836"},"modified":"2026-08-11T03:45:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T22:45:14","slug":"hegseth-impersonates-trump-fails-at-lindsey-graham-always-devolves-into-a-trump-accent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=37836","title":{"rendered":"Hegseth Impersonates Trump, Fails at Lindsey Graham: \u2018Always Devolves Into a Trump Accent\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_5656293\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5656293\" class=\"wp-image-5656293 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/am13.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2025\/09\/trump-hegseth-scaled.jpeg\" alt=\"Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-5656293\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">AP Photo\/Mark Schiefelbein<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Defense Secretary <strong>Pete<\/strong> <strong>Hegseth<\/strong> broke out his impressions of President <strong>Donald Trump<\/strong> and the late Sen. <strong>Lindsey Graham<\/strong> (R-SC) on Monday\u00a0\u2014 though he admitted his Graham impression \u201calways devolves into a Trump accent.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The moment came during the renaming ceremony for Joint Base Lindsey Graham \u2014 formerly Joint Base Charleston \u2014 in South Carolina on Monday after Graham&#8217;s July <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/politics\/lindsey-graham-dead-at-71\/\">passing<\/a>. According to a <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/LindseyGrahamSC\/status\/2076185414721847673?s=20\">statement<\/a> from his office, his death at the age of 71 was due to a \u201cbrief and sudden illness.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Recalling a moment he once shared with Graham, Hegseth told the crowd, &#8220;I&#8217;ll never forget it. In his accent, he sat there, and he said, &#8216;Gentlemen\u2014&#8217;&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Hegseth then paused before <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/HQNewsNow\/status\/2086860161856020667?s=20\">admitting<\/a>, &#8220;I can&#8217;t do a Lindsey Graham accent. It always devolves into a Trump accent.&#8221; The defense secretary proceeded on with his purported Graham quote \u2014 though in his own voice.<\/p>\n<p>Hegseth got a chance to show off his Trump impression at another point during the ceremony, though, quipping to the audience of troops, &#8220;When it comes to the president&#8217;s directive, he said, &#8216;Pete, deliver peace through strength, put America first, and apply common sense.&#8217; And we try to do that across our formations as much as humanly possible. I often ask him \u2014 I say, &#8216;Hey, Mr. President, I&#8217;m gonna go see your troops, this time out in South Carolina.&#8217; I always ask him, &#8216;What do you want me to \u2014 what do you want me to tell &#8217;em?&#8217;&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And his answer is always the same,&#8221; Hegseth <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/thehill\/status\/2086871698268188981?s=20\">continued<\/a>, now in Trump&#8217;s voice, &#8220;He goes, &#8216;Pete, tell &#8217;em I love &#8217;em.&#8217;&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Now, this isn&#8217;t the first time the defense secretary has attempted to impersonate his boss&#8217;s voice. In May, while campaigning for Kentucky GOP then-congressional candidate <strong>Ed<\/strong> <strong>Gallrein<\/strong> \u2014 who since <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/politics\/thomas-massie-mocks-he-had-to-find-ed-gallrein-in-tel-aviv-to-concede-kentucky-primary\/\">defeated<\/a> Rep. <strong>Thomas Massie<\/strong> (R-KY) in the state&#8217;s Republican primary \u2014 Hegseth did another Trump voice, this time <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CSPAN\/videos\/pete-hegseth-did-an-impersonation-of-president-trump-monday-afternoon-while-camp\/1716161539519184\/\">recalling<\/a> conversations where the president told him he would need to be &#8220;tough as sh*t&#8221; to thrive in his role.<\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/news\/hegseth-impersonates-trump-fails-at-lindsey-graham-always-devolves-into-a-trump-accent\/\">Hegseth Impersonates Trump, Fails at Lindsey Graham: \u2018Always Devolves Into a Trump Accent\u2019<\/a> first appeared on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\">Mediaite<\/a>.<\/p>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AP Photo\/Mark Schiefelbein Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth broke out his impressions of President Donald Trump and the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Monday\u00a0\u2014 though he admitted his Graham impression \u201calways devolves into a Trump accent.\u201d The moment came during the renaming ceremony for Joint Base Lindsey Graham \u2014 formerly Joint Base Charleston \u2014 in&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37837,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/am13.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2025\/09\/trump-hegseth-scaled.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsweek-trending"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}