The former Secretary of State thought she could score cheap political points by mocking Hegseth’s reported directive to halt certain cyber operations against Russia.
But Hegseth wasn’t about to let Clinton’s selective memory go unchallenged.
And Hillary Clinton instantly regretted attacking Pete Hegseth when this embarrassing Russia photo resurfaced.
In a masterful display of political jiu-jitsu, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has turned Hillary Clinton’s attempted criticism of his Russia policy into a devastating reminder of her own diplomatic failures.
Clinton smugly tweeted, “Wouldn’t want to hurt Putin’s feelings” in response to reports about changes in the U.S. Cyber Command’s operations.
With surgical precision, he responded by sharing a photograph that spoke volumes about Democrat hypocrisy on Russia relations.
The image showed Clinton’s infamous 2009 “reset” button ceremony with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov – a diplomatic disaster that perfectly encapsulated the Obama administration’s failed Russia policy.
— Pete Hegseth (@PeteHegseth) March 2, 2025
For those who may have forgotten this embarrassing chapter in American diplomacy, Clinton’s State Department couldn’t even get the Russian translation right on their prop.
Instead of “reset,” they wrote “overcharge” – a mistake that became a perfect metaphor for the Democrats’ incompetent handling of U.S.-Russia relations.
The red button itself looked more like an emergency stop switch than a symbol of diplomatic renewal.
Yet, Clinton and her team pressed forward with the stunt anyway, seemingly oblivious to how amateurish it made American diplomacy appear on the world stage.
This was the same Hillary Clinton who would later claim in 2014 that the “reset worked” with Russia.
Days after making that bold assertion, she completely reversed course, telling CNN she was actually the “most skeptical” of the reset policy all along.
The whiplash-inducing flip-flop perfectly demonstrates the Democrat Party’s situational ethics when it comes to Russia.
When Obama was President, reaching out to Putin was enlightened diplomacy.
When Trump took office, suddenly, any attempt at diplomatic engagement with Russia became evidence of “collusion.”
The same Democrats who mocked Mitt Romney for calling Russia our greatest geopolitical foe in 2012 – “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back,” Obama said at the time – became overnight Russia hawks the moment it served their political narrative.
This isn’t about principled foreign policy – it’s about partisan politics at its worst.
The Left’s selective outrage machine only kicks into high gear when they can use it as a cudgel against conservatives.
Hegseth’s photo response did more than just expose Clinton’s hypocrisy – it reminded Americans that the Democrat Party’s positions on Russia have everything to do with political convenience and nothing to do with consistent principles.
While reasonable people can debate the best approach to handling relations with Russia, Clinton’s attempt to attack Hegseth only served to highlight her own failed legacy.
