Fact Check: Did Defense Department's DEI Office threaten to mass resign over Pete Hegseth's nomination?

RICHMOND, VIRGINIA: President-elect Donald Trump's nomination of Fox News host Pete Hegseth as Defense Secretary has been considered one of Trump's most controversial Cabinet picks as it has raised many eyebrows.

Notably, a claim appeared online stating that staff at the Department of Defense, responsible for promoting equity and diversity, had threatened to mass-resign if Hegseth was hired for the role. Is there any truth to this? Let's find out below.

Claim: Staff at Defense Department's DEI Office threatens to mass resign

X (formerly Twitter) user @RickyDoggin posted on the social media platform, "BREAKING: All employees in the Office for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion are threatening to resign if Pete Hegseth is confirmed as Secretary of Defense."

The social media post has so far received more than 3 million views and around 13,000 people reshared the post. Actor James Woods also reshared the post and wrote, "They’re making it too easy for us!"

False: There is no evidence to support the viral claim

The statement made in the viral post is false as there is no evidence to support the claim. 

The Office for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (ODEI) was formed as the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Equal Opportunity in 1994. It plans and carries out "diversity management and equal opportunity policies and programs" that affect active, reserve, and civilian DOD employees, according to Newsweek.

The claim was shared on social media from the X account Wall Street Silver, now known as @WallStreetMav. It included no sources, references, or credible media outlets that substantiated the claim further, as per the research done by the outlet.

A Department of Defense official told Newsweek, "We are unaware and not tracking reports of mass staff resignations, and it would be inappropriate for the Department to speculate on hypotheticals."

Pete Hegseth mentioned in book about US military taking sides in 'civil war'

Pete Hegseth earlier wrote in a book that he could imagine a scenario in which the US armed forces would be used violently in American domestic politics, according to Guardian.

In one of his five published books, Hegseth wrote that in the event of a Democratic election victory in the US, there would be a "national divorce" in which "the military and police … will be forced to make a choice" and "Yes, there will be some form of civil war."

In another of his books, he exhorted conservatives to undertake "an AMERICAN CRUSADE" to "mock, humiliate, intimidate, and crush our leftist opponents", to "attack first" in response to a left he identifies with "sedition". He also claimed that the book "lays out the strategy we must employ in order to defeat America’s internal enemies".