Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wanted the world – but it shattered in a rush to get it to him.
President Donald Trump’s controversial pick to lead the Pentagon wanted a giant globe used Gen. Dwight D Eisenhower during the Second World War to be moved into his office. Instead of waiting for historians to move the artefact, his staff tried to move it and broke it along the way, the Washington Post reported.
“It’s a perfect metaphor for the entire goddamn administration. Everything they touch breaks,” one social media user noted.
The Washington Post reported the Army office in possession of the 30-inch globe had expected trained curators from the U.S. Army Center of Military History to undertake the move. However, the center’s experts were furloughed during the February demand because of a partial government shutdown caused by a dispute on Capitol Hill over Trump’s immigration crackdown, which had reached a crisis point after the shooting of two civilian protesters by federal agents in Minneapolis.
With the professionals unavailable, Hegseth’s staff reportedly took it upon themselves to shift the artefact unaided. Disaster soon struck.
“They lost control of the artefact and dropped it, sending the globe crashing onto its base and impaling the fragile shell near Antarctica,” the newspaper stated and added the damage incurred amounted to a gash measuring several inches across.
Asked why Hegseth’s team had not simply waited for expert help in moving the fragile historical relic, a source familiar with the matter blamed what ensued on an “apparent lack of patience.”
The episode thereafter provided “instant fodder for gossip and jokes” behind the scenes.
Army spokesman Christopher Surridge acknowledged to the Post the item had been damaged during the “attempted move” on February 3.
In addition to the gash, “the spherical portion of the globe was detached from the metal mounting that allows it to rotate,” Surridge said. It has not been moved again.
Pentagon officials denied the paper’s request for a photo of the damaged globe or an opportunity to examine it in person, but it nevertheless obtained pictures of it through other means. A Defense Department spokesperson told The Post: “Accidents happen. We are grateful no one was harmed, and the globe is being repaired.”
Social media users had a field day over the report.
“This is emblematic of the whole Administration. There is no regard for history, protocol, etc. They really are the bull in a china shop. And there are two more years. I hope that globe, and the real one, can be repaired,” one X user stated.
“Crazy you can just request US historical artefacts to be in your office just because,” another added.
“He’d have only put ‘Gulf of America’ and ‘Lake America’ on it with a Sharpie anyway,” one poster joked.
Eisenhower, a five-star general hailed for his role in masterminding the defeat of Nazi Germany by co-ordinating D-Day and other major combat operations, was well-known for his fondness for globes and can be seen in many pictures from the 1940s using them to illustrate strategy or simply posing with them.
He went on to serve as president from 1953 to 1961 before being succeeded by John F Kennedy.
Hegseth is said to have an affinity for Second World War history, as does Trump, who moved a bust of Sir Winston Churchill back into the Oval Office after returning to power in January 2025, it having been removed by his predecessor Joe Biden to make way for statuettes of civil rights activists Rosa Parks and Cesar Chavez.
A plaque at the Pentagon explains that, according to popular theory, Eisenhower used the globe “while serving on the General Staff as Chief of the War Plans Division from February to March 1942 and Operations Division from March to June 1942.”
Another similar model on display in the office reportedly features pen markings by both Eisenhower and Gen. Omar Bradley.
A third globe also associated with Eisenhower was transferred from a military history storage site in Anniston, Alabama, to a nearby Army installation in Huntsville in 2022, and was carefully wrapped in a protective covering and sealed in a crate by specialist movers, who acknowledged at the time that it was “considered priceless” and required particular care.
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