Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of defense, said he believes women shouldn’t serve in combat and that he wants to see the military purged of “woke” officials who support diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
The Fox News host, 44, has an extensive history of eyebrow-raising commentary, especially when it comes to military matters he’d oversee should he be confirmed to join Trump’s second Cabinet and become sixth in line to succeed the presidency.
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Hegseth has long maintained a close relationship with Trump. The pair have frequently appeared together in photographs on social media and on Fox’s airwaves. Hegseth started at Fox News in 2014 as an on-air pundit, working his way up to co-hosting the weekend edition of “Fox & Friends,” the network’s flagship morning show.
Trump on Tuesday evening described the “Fox & Friends Weekend” host as “tough, smart and a true believer in America First.” “With Pete at the helm, America’s enemies are on notice — Our Military will be Great Again, and America will Never Back Down,” Trump said.
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Neither Fox News nor the president-elect’s transition team immediately responded to requests for comment about Hegseth’s on-air remarks about the military. Hegseth was an Army National Guard infantry officer, serving tours in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay.
Hegseth has already given clues on how he’d like to remake the Department of Defense, the largest and oldest U.S. government agency with a budget of approximately $850 billion. Appearing last week on “The Shawn Ryan Show” podcast, the conservative pundit said that in Trump’s second term, “any general that was involved — general, admiral, whatever that was involved in any of the DEI, woke s--t has got to go.”
The first order of business, he said, would be to fire the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. CQ Brown, Jr, who Hegseth said has pushed a “woke” agenda.
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He also declared that female soldiers should not be allowed to fight on the front lines.
“I’m straight up just saying that we should not have women in combat roles,” Hegseth said on the podcast. “It hasn’t made us more effective, hasn’t made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated.”
The Pentagon first opened all combat roles to women in 2015, a historic policy shift meant to reflect the changing attitudes of gender-based barriers within the military. Women currently make up more than 17% of the military’s active duty force, according to the Defense Department, and have proven themselves in training, excelled as fighter pilots in overseas combat and broken ground in top roles throughout the armed forces.
Hegseth has also suggested the rules of war ought to be reworked to benefit the United States. In early 2020, after Iran fired missiles at U.S. forces housed at Iraqi air bases, in retaliation for the Trump-authorized strike killing top Iranian Gen. Qassam Soleimani, the Fox News host said on-air that the U.S. military should be allowed to bomb Iranian historical sites.
“I don’t care about Iranian cultural sites,” he said in one appearance. Two days later, he said, “If we’re going to fight to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear bomb, this regime, then we need to rewrite the rules that are advantageous to us,” adding that “I don’t want to hit cultural sites on purpose, but if you’re using one to harbor your most dangerous weapons, then that should be on the target list, too.”
More to the point, as Hegseth said last week on Shawn Ryan’s podcast, “The rules of war are for winners.”
Hegseth has also been vocal about defending military members in controversial cases.
The Fox host in 2019 publicly lobbied Trump to pardon three U.S. servicemen who were either convicted or accused of war crimes. Among those soldiers was Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher, a Navy SEAL platoon leader who was acquitted by a military jury in the killing of a militant in Iraq in 2017, but convicted on a related minor charge.
“They’re not war criminals, they’re warriors,” Hegseth said on-air that year about the men he hoped Trump would pardon.
Trump reversed the sentence against Gallagher that demoted his military rank, prompting the firing of then-Navy Secretary Richard Spencer, who opposed the president’s decision. Trump also pardoned two others in separate cases involving the killings of Afghans during war.
More recently, Hegseth defended Daniel Penny, the Marine veteran who is on trial for the chokehold death of a homeless Black man in a New York City subway in 2023, posting to X that Penny is ”an American hero” and “the woke mob is trying to ruin” him.
Early in his career at Fox, Hegseth went viral for a 2015 on-air incident in which he overshot a target and struck a West Point drummer in the arm with an ax. The man, Master Sergeant Jeffrey Prosperie, later sued Hegseth. The Associated Press reported Wednesday that the case was discontinued in 2019 and Prosperie’s lawyer wrote in a statement that “The parties have resolved the matter and will make no further comment.” Prosperie could not be reached for comment.
The Fox host’s selection comes amid a flurry of Cabinet-level picks by Trump, including longtime allies like Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, as attorney general, Sen. Marco Rubio as secretary of state, and former House Democrat Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence.
Hegseth’s selection was met with some skepticism from his cable news colleagues.
“From silly diner interviews on Weekend Fox and Friends to Secretary of Defense? I never thought I’d say I’m stunned about any pick after the election but nominating Pete Hegseth for this incredibly important role? Yes he’s a veteran … and?” former “Fox & Friends” host Gretchen Carlson posted to X on Tuesday evening.
Hegseth’s Fox News colleagues, meanwhile, heaped praise upon him.
“You don’t realize how qualified he is until you really look at the résumé,” co-host Brian Kilmeade said Wednesday morning.
The decorated veteran could face a challenging confirmation process. Republicans will hold a slim majority in the Senate, and the Fox host’s comments and status as a relative unknown may prove to be obstacles.
“Who?” Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., said on Capitol Hill when asked Tuesday evening about Trump picking Hegseth. “I don’t know Pete. I just don’t know anything about him.”
Nevertheless, even skeptical Republican senators seem open to confirming the pick.
“I’m not going to be negative right now, because I want to learn more about his background and, you know, and his approach to this stuff, so he’ll go through the regular process,” Sen Mike Rounds, R-S.D., told reporters on Tuesday.
This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:
