The Secretary of Defense promoted a Marine colonel whose brother's podcast co-host said Hegseth deserved to be shot, then told reporters anyone questioning it was smearing the officer.

"Six bullets. I'd have to put another one in there after I emptied the whole chamber."

— Matt Wakulik, co-host of The Berm Pit Podcast, on how many bullets Pete Hegseth deserved

Thomas Siverts is a brigadier general now. On June 10, the Marine Corps confirmed his promotion to one-star rank, completing a process that began when Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth nominated him last December. The U.S. Senate voted unanimously to approve it. No one in Washington seemed to think twice about it.

Except for the part where Siverts appeared on an episode of The Berm Pit Podcast alongside his younger brother Scott, and the show's other co-host suggested that Hegseth should be executed.

The exchange happened in March 2023, roughly 18 months before Wakulik's "six bullets" comment came to light in connection with Siverts' promotion. During the episode, Scott Siverts asked his co-host Matt Wakulik to rate Trump's Cabinet appointments. Wakulik proposed grading them "on a scale of how many bullets I put in their head."

The conversation worked its way through Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Border Czar Tom Homan before landing on Hegseth. The underlying premise, as Raw Story reported, was that support for Israel constituted treason. By that metric, the pro-Israel Hegseth was prime collateral.

Siverts did not object to the framing on the podcast. He asked the question. Wakulik delivered the answer. Neither man backtracked during the episode.

Translation: a Marine officer sat through a segment in which his fellow guest advocated murdering the person who would eventually become his boss, and said nothing.

When Raw Story connected Siverts' podcast appearance to his promotion, the Pentagon's response was swift. Acting Pentagon Press Secretary Joel Valdez told reporters that Colonel Siverts "clearly stated in his letter to Sen. Wyden that he does not share the views of these hosts" and added, "Shame on those attempting to smear his name after writing this letter to a senator in good faith."

The letter in question was sent to Senator Ron Wyden, who had placed a hold on Siverts' nomination. Wyden listened to the podcast episode himself and said he did not hear anything objectionable from Thomas Siverts personally. He cited the letter as "unequivocally condemning antisemitism and racism" and lifted his hold.

But the letter did something else: it carefully avoided addressing the specific question of whether Siverts agreed with a co-host who said the Secretary of Defense should be shot. It condemned broad ideologies without engaging the concrete threat that was made on air, by a man sitting next to the officer's own brother.

Wyden told Raw Story separately that he "condemns anyone who uses their platform to openly discuss murdering government officials, or to amplify antisemitism." The Berm Pit hosts, he said, "have done both."

The Marine Corps Inspector General was asked to look into Siverts and declined to open an investigation. A complaint had been filed against the officer. The IG closed it without action. Hegseth nominated him anyway.

This was not a case of the Pentagon missing something. It was a case of the Pentagon seeing something, deciding it did not matter, and moving forward. The anti-extremism framework that existed under Lloyd Austin's Department of Defense had already been dismantled by the time Siverts' nomination came up. In his Senate confirmation hearing, Hegseth called those efforts a "made-up bogeyman" and said focusing on extremism in the ranks had "created a climate inside our ranks that feel[s] political when it hasn't ever been political."

He cited a 2023 Pentagon-commissioned study claiming only 100 extremists were identified among three million service members. The Associated Press found that study relied on outdated data and misleading analysis. Hegseth used it to justify gutting the very programs designed to catch people like the people who produced The Berm Pit.

Here is what happened after Siverts got his star: Scott Siverts took to X and gloated. "He's still at the Pentagon and he got promoted to a 1 star," he wrote in late May. "When we go golfing this summer we'll cheers to a couple cigars. A for effort to all the r----ds that tried hard to harm his career. You lost."

The X account for The Berm Pit, which Scott Siverts appears to manage, has continued circulating old clips of Wakulik's inflammatory rants. In May, it reposted a clip of Wakulik telling listeners "Your government hates you" and referring to the U.S. government using the antisemitic acronym ZOG, which stands for "Zionist Occupied Government." In April, Scott Siverts shared another clip in which Wakulik advocated supporting draft-dodging because people should not "fight for ZOG."

Matt Wakulik died of cancer in April. But the account he built with his co-host continues to operate, and the brother of a newly minted general is still running it.

A Pittsburgh City Paper investigation documented the full arc of Scott Siverts' public record: he lost his job as a bar manager at Mario's Saloon after his antisemitic and racist comments went viral in March. He appeared on Holocaust denier Stew Peters' podcast, where he said The Berm Pit's "talking points were apparently in the manifesto of the shooter" referring to the Tree of Life synagogue massacre. The Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh issued a public statement expressing deep concern that Siverts continues spreading antisemitic rhetoric.

None of this stopped his brother's promotion.

The contrast with other officers in the military is stark. Since taking office, Hegseth has "fired or sidelined nearly three dozen senior military leaders," according to the New York Times. Nearly 60 percent of those officers were Black or female. Multiple Black and female colonels have been blocked from promotion to one-star general through repeated interventions by the Secretary of Defense himself.

Scott Siverts noticed the pattern and posted about it on X. "Credit where it's due," he wrote, with the implication left hanging for his followers to fill in.

The Pentagon's press office defended Thomas Siverts. Hegseth pushed his nomination through. The Senate confirmed him unanimously. The IG closed its complaint without investigation. Black and female officers watched their careers stall.

In his letter to Wyden, Thomas Siverts wrote that "the ideologies of antisemitism and racism are antithetical not only to the values of the Marine Corps, but to the core of who I am as a person." It is a reasonable statement. It does not answer what he thought when his brother's co-host said his future boss should be shot.

The Secretary of Defense who was allegedly targeted for murder called anti-extremism programs a sham and eliminated them. The Inspector General who could have investigated the officer declined to act. The Senate confirmed the promotion without objection. And the officer's brother celebrated on social media, still managing an account that spreads the same content that made his co-host want to put bullets in people.

The question is not whether Thomas Siverts personally holds extremist views. The question is what it means for a system to promote someone through every checkpoint after they appeared on a podcast that called for killing the person running the department, and then declare the whole thing above reproach.