President-elect Donald Trump has made a largely unexpected pick to run the world’s largest military, nominating Fox News host and decorated veteran Pete Hegseth to be defense secretary.
Trump has picked someone who has no previous experience in government or in running a large business. But the Army National Guard officer and “Fox and Friends” weekend host has raised his profile through hinting at several changes to the Defense Department.
Hegseth has said he opposes diversity, equity and inclusion programs, or DEI, which he has called “woke.” He has questioned the role of women in combat positions, all of which were opened to women by Secretary of Defense Ash Carter in January 2016. Since then, women have earned positions as Green Berets, Army Rangers and Navy combat-craft crewman after completing the same grueling tests as men.
Hegseth, a graduate of Princeton and Harvard, authored the book “The War on Warriors,” which blames the military’s DEI programs for its recruiting crisis.
“There just aren’t enough lesbians from San Francisco who want to join the 82nd Airborne. Not only do the lesbians not join, but those very same ads turn off the young, patriotic, Christian men who have traditionally filled our ranks,” he wrote.
The nominee has also hinted he could target military leaders, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. C.Q. Brown, to push out those who have supported DEI programs.
“First of all, you’ve got to fire the chairman of the Joint Chiefs” and “any general that was involved, any general, admiral, whatever,” he told podcast host Shawn Ryan earlier this year.
Hegseth served tours of duty in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay as an infantry officer and has pushed to make the U.S. military more lethal. Trump has praised his pick as “tough, smart and a true believer in America First.”
Hegseth’s nomination will need to be confirmed by a Senate majority. Republicans currently hold the majority by at least three seats.
One former Pentagon official, who spoke to VOA on condition of anonymity to discuss a nomination before a Senate vote, praised Hegseth’s dedication to American troops and veterans.
“He will fight for them because he really cares,” the former official said.
Other national security officials, who also spoke to VOA on condition of anonymity, said they were surprised by the pick.
After Congressman Mike Waltz of Florida was chosen to be Trump’s national security adviser, many had expected the secretary of defense position to be filled by one of the established national security heavy-hitters in the Republican party, such as U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama, who chairs the House Armed Services committee, or a Senate Armed Services committee member such as Joni Ernst of Iowa or Tom Cotton of Arkansas. Both are veterans.
The Defense Department oversees more than 2.5 million active-duty and National Guard troops and has a budget that is expected to exceed $800 billion this year.
Trump had a rocky relationship with defense secretaries in his first administration. His first secretary of defense, retired Gen. Jim Mattis, resigned in protest of Trump’s treatment of allies and his decision to withdraw all U.S. troops from Syria. His other Senate-confirmed secretary of defense, Mark Esper, has called the president-elect “unfit for office.”
Ahead of the election, Trump told podcaster Joe Rogan that his “biggest mistake” in his first term was appointing “bad people,” including “neocons.”
Hegseth was the executive director for Concerned Veterans for America, a group funded by the Koch brothers that advocated greater privatization of the Department of Veterans Affairs.
He was reportedly under consideration to run the Department of Veterans Affairs in the first Trump administration.
