The United States is currently fighting a rebooted war with Iran, and the Secretary of Defense's big strategic innovation is mandatory testosterone screening for troops. Meanwhile, the Vice President of the United States has revealed that he eats corn dogs privately, in his kitchen, away from the public eye, for reasons he declines to explain. Everything is fine. The republic stands.
Pete Hegseth Has Discovered Hormones
Let's start with the defense secretary, because the defense secretary has gone somewhere new. As The Guardian reports, Pete Hegseth this week posted a video titled 'The High-T Department of War' in which he announced mandatory testosterone screening for all US troops aged 30 and over. Not a parody. Not a bit. A real policy announcement, delivered straight to camera with a lot of aggressive pointing.
The screening, per Hegseth's address, is dedicated to 'ensuring YOU have the right testosterone levels to operate at your absolute best.' Capital YOU. Finger jab. This is the man running the United States military, which is currently engaged in active operations in the Strait of Hormuz as part of what everyone is now apparently calling the Iran war reboot. The guy in charge of that situation has decided the main thing troops need right now is a hormone check.
Also worth clocking: the address was delivered to 'serving US military,' which the Guardian notes excludes the 231,000 active-duty women in the armed forces. So it's not really a Department of Defense initiative. It's more of a vibe piece for a specific audience. Very on-brand.
Fox News Took It Further, Somehow
You might think mandatory testosterone screening for soldiers is already a fairly complete thought. Fox News anchor Jesse Watters disagreed. He had notes.
As the Guardian reports, Watters reacted to Hegseth's announcement with genuine enthusiasm: 'You know what's going to happen? The guys that DON'T need it are going to take it. Triple boost! And then they're going to get out there, and, women on base — you guys better be careful!' He continued: 'Port calls, women in Asia — you better be careful. Because these guys are going to be WILD ANIMALS, and you better WATCH OUT.'
That's a primetime Fox News host, on television, warning women in Asia to brace themselves for the hormonal consequences of Pete Hegseth's military wellness program. In a more functional country, that clip would end a career. In this one, it will probably generate a segment sponsorship deal.
JD Vance Has a Corn Dog Situation
Meanwhile, the Vice President went on Joe Rogan's podcast. He had things to share.
According to the Guardian's account of the interview, Vance told Rogan that he could not get over Joe Biden's ice cream eating habits. Specifically, that the way Biden ate ice cream was 'the most ridiculous, suggestive way imaginable.' The Guardian's Marina Hyde notes, drily, that available footage suggests Biden is primarily a biter. Make of that what you will, JD. Apparently he made quite a lot of it.
Then came the corn dog confession. Rogan mentioned that he had no problem eating corn dogs in public, and thought it was sad that people were 'so afraid of anything that looks like a dick.' Vance's response, in full, per the Guardian: 'I try, I try to eat my corn dogs... That's — that's between me and my kitchen.' The Vice President of the United States eats corn dogs in private. In his kitchen. This is the detail he chose to share on a podcast with millions of listeners. No follow-up questions were apparently asked, which is frankly a dereliction of journalistic duty.
Oh Right, There's Also a War
Buried somewhere in JD Vance's Rogan appearance, between the ice cream psychoanalysis and the corn dog disclosure, was some actual foreign policy content. According to the Guardian, Vance claimed that certain figures within the Israeli administration are 'manipulating and trying to change American public opinion to keep the war going on indefinitely.'
That is a fairly significant thing for the Vice President to say about a close ally in the middle of an active military conflict. It also lands awkwardly against the backdrop of an administration whose current strategy in the Strait of Hormuz, as the Guardian notes, virtually every military analyst describes as insufficient to actually end anything.
So the war continues. The strategy isn't working. The defense secretary is running hormone clinics. The Vice President is doing psychosexual analysis of his predecessor's snack habits. This is the team that is going to bring the conflict to a decisive conclusion.
The Teleprompter Guy Who Bet on Trump's Words
One more, because it deserves to be in the record. The Guardian reports that the individual who operates Donald Trump's teleprompter allegedly made $100,000 on the prediction market platform Kalshi by placing bets on which words or topics would appear in Trump's speeches. He is currently on unpaid administrative leave.
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt addressed this by stating, with a straight face, that there are 'very strict ethical guidelines here at the White House.' The Guardian reports this straight. We are reporting it straight. Everyone is reporting it straight because there is nothing to add. The sentence is already complete.
The Dingo Take
Here is the honest summary of the week: the United States government is prosecuting a war in the Middle East with a strategy that military analysts say will not work, led by a defense secretary whose primary public contribution this week was a hormone announcement, supported by a vice president whose foreign policy interview was mostly about food he finds sexually charged. The teleprompter operator was gambling on the president's speeches. A Fox News host told women in Asia to watch out for testosterone-boosted sailors. And Karoline Leavitt said the phrase 'very strict ethical guidelines' without her face catching fire.
The testosterone stuff, in particular, deserves more scrutiny than it's getting. This is not a wellness initiative. It is a defense secretary using the machinery of the world's most powerful military to perform a very specific kind of masculinity at a specific domestic audience, while an actual war grinds on with no coherent endgame. That is a misuse of office dressed up as a fitness program, and the fact that Jesse Watters immediately turned it into a warning to women in foreign port cities tells you exactly what cultural current it's swimming in.
Vance's corn dog privacy is, genuinely, less important than all of that. But it is a useful symbol. These men are obsessed, loudly and constantly, with projecting a very particular idea of toughness, while behaving in ways that would embarrass a normal person on a daily basis. They picked the fights. They are losing them. And in between, they are going on podcasts to explain their complicated feelings about frozen desserts. The bar for American governance has not just been lowered. Someone took it off the wall and threw it into the Strait of Hormuz.
