White House officials confirmed Wednesday that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's nameplate at Tuesday's Cabinet meeting identified him as "SSecretary of War," a title that is neither spelled correctly nor actually his job.
The placard, which survived multiple rounds of review before being placed in front of cameras at the highest-level meeting of government officials, reportedly sat unnoticed for two full hours while President Trump nodded off periodically and Budget Director Russell Vought drew mountains in his notebook like a bored seventh-grader.
"In our defense, we were really busy," said Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, gesturing vaguely at nothing. "There were boats to bomb twice and Fox News appearances to schedule."
The double-S typo, which multiple Democrats noted bears an unfortunate resemblance to Nazi Germany's Schutzstaffel, was dismissed by Pentagon officials who insisted they "don't really see it" and that "people are reading way too much into two letters that happened to be placed directly next to each other by accident on an official government nameplate at a televised event."
Sources confirmed that approximately eleven different staffers saw the error before the meeting but assumed it was either intentional or that mentioning it would require filling out paperwork. The nameplate itself was reportedly created by an unpaid intern who was never told Hegseth's actual title and "just Googled it or whatever."
The incident occurred as Hegseth faced questions about allegedly ordering a second strike on a boat full of migrants, which he defended by explaining he had already left to go do other important Secretary of War business that he definitely remembers.
