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| - A rumor that U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth was arrested for drunkenly crashing a tank into the Pentagon circulated online in January 2025. For example, The Borowitz Report posted the following article on Jan. 28. Variations of the rumor spread on Facebook and Threads, as well.
ARLINGTON, VA (The Borowitz Report)—Pete Hegseth's tenure as Secretary of Defense got off to a wobbly start on Monday after he was arrested on suspicion of DUI for crashing an M1A2 Abrams Main Battle Tank into the Pentagon.
The arresting officer, Harland Dorrinson, arrived at the Pentagon shortly after receiving reports of a large battle tank making figure 8s in the parking lot.
Finding the smoldering Abrams protruding from the side of the building, Dorrinson said that Hegseth was "extremely combative when I asked him to step out of the tank."
Hegseth was later booked, released, and driven home by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Some readers seemed to interpret the rumor as a factual recounting of real-life events. However, there was no evidence that Hegseth crashed a tank into the Pentagon or was arrested on a DUI charge for .
Rather, the rumor originated with a page known for humor and satire content. Comedian Andy Borowitz has been writing satirical news on the internet since the early 2000s and wrote a satirical news column in the New Yorker for 11 years, according to The Borowitz Report's about page:
I've been writing satirical news since I was eighteen. This represents either commitment to a genre or arrested development.
In high school, I became editor of the newspaper solely because it produced an annual April Fool's issue. Later, as president of The Harvard Lampoon, I published parodies of the college newspaper, which got me hauled into the office of Dean Archie C. Epps III, which was his actual name.
For the next two decades, I took a break from news satire while I waited for the Internet to be invented. Then, in 2001, I started emailing made-up news stories to friends. One suggested that creating a "website" would make it easier to "blast" my "posts." Soon, The Borowitz Report was live at BorowitzReport.com, and my free newsletter was reaching untold dozens of people.
The fictional story spread after Hegseth was confirmed as defense secretary by the Senate. During his confirmation hearing, he faced intense questioning about his past drinking habits and promised to stop drinking if confirmed.
Snopes has addressed other satirical claims from The Borowitz Report in the past, including the assertion that U.S. President Donald Trump had nominated former drug lord Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán as ambassador to Mexico.
For background, here is why we alert readers to rumors created by sources that call their output humorous or satirical.
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