U.S. Sen. Cory Booker said on Saturday that the damage to a World War II-era globe used by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower showed “what happens when arrogance replaces competence,” two days after reports that staff for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth broke it while moving it to his office.
“Pete Hegseth wanted Eisenhower’s globe in his office. His staff skipped the historians, moved it themselves, and broke it. This is what happens when arrogance replaces competence. Our history, our troops, and the American people deserve better,” the New Jersey Democrat wrote in a post on X.
Booker attached a segment that The Bulwark posted on Thursday, in which host Tim Miller said, “The world is on fire and Pete Hegseth has broken Dwight D. Eisenhower’s globes because he did not rely on any experts. It’s a perfect metaphor.”
Former Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who appeared with Miller, said in the segment, “Can I just also say how do you drop a globe?” He later said Hegseth “needs to be the first person that they impeach, you know, in January.”
Booker had commented on the story a day earlier, calling it “A fitting metaphor” in a Friday post on X that shared an image of the Washington Post report that first disclosed the incident on Thursday.
Three U.S. officials told NBC News that the incident happened in February, after Hegseth said he wanted the globe in his office. The officials said several of his staffers tried to move it themselves rather than wait for Army historians, and dropped it, creating a hole in the lower part and damaging another area.
The globe is cataloged by the U.S. Army Center of Military History and displayed in the Pentagon, and it bears green notations Eisenhower made on areas of Europe during the war, the officials told NBC News.
The Pentagon disputed that the globe was the original. “An accident occurred while staff were transporting a replica of the Eisenhower globe as part of its relocation. Accidents happen, we are grateful no one was harmed, and the globe is being repaired,” a Pentagon official said in a statement to NBC News. The network said it had verified from the three officials and a photo that it was the original globe used by Eisenhower.
A War Department spokesperson added, in a statement to the Guardian, that “It is unsurprising that the Washington Post is once again dedicating time to another inconsequential non-story.”
Booker’s description of the episode as arrogance replacing competence is his characterization; the record shows the globe was damaged during a move in February and is being repaired, while the Pentagon and NBC News’ sources disagree on whether it was the original. As of Saturday night, neither Hegseth nor the Pentagon had responded to Booker’s post.