The US defence secretary has said he is ending “woke” culture and political correctness, telling top brass: “We are done with that s***.”

Pete Hegseth said diversity and inclusion policies would be rowed back, with changes including “gender-neutral” or “male-level” fitness standards for everyone.

He also hit out at “fat troops” and said height and weight requirements would be brought in – as well as twice-yearly fitness tests.

President Donald Trump was at the event and told reporters beforehand he was prepared to fire any generals or admirals he disliked “on the spot”.

Speaking in Quantico, Virginia, he said the new approach was “bringing back a focus on fitness, ability, character and strength [because] the purposes of American military is not to protect anyone’s feelings”.

Mr Hegseth drove home that message as he said the days of “the woke department” were over.

“The era of politically correct, overly sensitive don’t-hurt-anyone’s-feelings leadership ends right now at every level,” he said.

“No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses, no more climate change worship, no more division, distraction or gender delusions,” added the newly rebranded secretary of war.

Mr Hegseth said the changes were not intended to stop women serving, but “physical standards must be high and gender neutral” for combat roles.

“If that means no women qualify for some combat jobs, so be it. That is not the intent, but it could be the result… It will also mean that we mean that weak men won’t qualify because we’re not playing games. This is combat. This is life or death.”

Hundreds of US military officials from around the world had been summoned abruptly to the Marine Corps base without knowing why until Tuesday morning.

The gathering included admirals and generals called in from conflict zones in the Middle East.

Mr Hegseth told them grooming standards would also be raised, with beards, long hair and “individual expression” now prohibited – “the era of unprofessional appearance is over. No more beardos”, he said.

“We don’t have a military full of Nordic pagans, but unfortunately, we have had leaders who either refuse to call BS and enforce standards or leaders who felt like they were not allowed to enforce standards,” the defence secretary added.

A review of how bullying and hazing are defined will also take place to “empower leaders to enforce standards without fear of retribution or second guessing”.

Toxic leadership has been suspected and confirmed in many military suicides in recent years, including the high-profile case of sailor Brandon Caserta who killed himself in 2018.

The changes unveiled on Tuesday follow the recent rebranding of the US Department of Defense as the Department of War.

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President Trump said last month the name sent a “message of strength” – and his speech on Tuesday also lauded America’s nuclear weapons capability.

However, he said people shouldn’t “throw around” the word.

“I call it the N-word. There are two N-words, and you can’t use either of them,” he told commanders.

“You don’t have to be that good with nuclear,” the president added. “You could have one-twentieth what you have now and still do the damage that would be, you know, that’d be so horrendous.”

He cited his repositioning of nuclear submarines in August in response to comments by Russia’s former president Dmitry Medvedev.

“We were a little bit threatened by Russia recently, and I sent a submarine, nuclear submarine, the most lethal weapon ever made,” Mr Trump said on Tuesday.

“Number one, you can’t detect it. There’s no way. We’re 25 years ahead of Russia and China in submarines.”

“Frankly, if it does get to use, we have more than anybody else,” the president said of America’s nuclear arsenal.

“We have better, we have newer, but it’s something we don’t ever want to even have to think about.”

America’s military top brass have left their posts to attend a meeting with the US president and defence secretary about the “warrior ethos”.

Hundreds of officers travelled from around the world to attend the occasion at a marine corps base in Quantico, Virginia. It is a rare gathering of the US military’s top tier, all in the one place.

There has been much speculation about the substance of Tuesday’s meeting, given its scale and short notice with minimal explanation.

Donald Trump told NBC News, Sky’s US partner network, it is “really just a very nice meeting talking about how well we’re doing militarily, talking about being in great shape, talking about a lot of good, positive things”.

“We have some great people coming in, and it’s just an esprit de corps,” he said.

“You know the expression ‘esprit de corps?’ That’s all it’s about. We’re talking about what we’re doing, what they’re doing, and how we’re doing.”

‘Department of War’

The officers were summoned by defence secretary Pete Hegseth, who has adopted the slogan “Make America Lethal Again”. Ahead of the meeting, he has said his intention is to outline a new vision for the military and restore what he calls the “warrior ethos”.

Hegseth is the former TV presenter picked by Trump to run the defence department, now rebranded the Department of War. He has a military background, serving as an infantry officer in the National Guard.

His audience in Quantico will number the country’s most senior generals and admirals. Over 800 of the rank of brigadier-general and above will be there, along with their navy equivalents.

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Since he started in post, Hegseth has fired a number of senior officers. In May, he ordered a 20% cut in the number of four-star generals and admirals, and he targeted flag and general officers with a 10% reduction.

A controversial figure, Hegseth has accused some members of senior rank of being responsible for a woke culture and, in the past, has questioned the role of women in the military.

YouTube has agreed to pay $24.5m (£18.1m) to settle a lawsuit brought by Donald Trump after it banned his account following the January 6 Capitol riot.

The US president was suspended from the Google-owned platform over his role in the insurrection, which saw his supporters attempt to stop Joe Biden’s 2020 election win from being ratified.

More than four years on from the violent scenes that left a police officer dead, court documents filed on Monday revealed that $22m (£16.3m) from the settlement will go towards a trust for Washington DC’s National Mall and the construction of a White House ballroom.

The remainder will be paid to other parties involved in the case, including the American Conservative Union.

Google declined to comment on the reasons for the settlement, which does not constitute an admission of liability.

Mr Trump’s YouTube account has been back online since 2023.

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Google’s parent company Alphabet is the third tech firm to settle with Mr Trump over what he perceived as an illegitimate muzzling of him online following the riot.

He was also suspended from Meta’s platforms and Twitter, moves which saw him gravitate towards his own social media platform – Truth Social.

The president and his supporters have falsely maintained that the 2020 election was stolen.

Meta – which owns Facebook and Instagram – agreed to pay $25m (£18.6m) to settle Mr Trump’s lawsuit, and X (what Twitter became after being bought by Elon Musk in 2022) settled for $10m (£7.4m).

Alphabet boss Sundar Pichai, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, and Mr Musk all attended Mr Trump’s inauguration this year, with the latter having been a key contributor to his 2024 election campaign.

He led the Trump administration’s cost-cutting DOGE unit during the early months of 2025.