Trump taps Fox News host Pete Hegseth for defense secretary
President-elect Donald Trump will nominate Fox News host Pete Hegseth to be secretary of defense, the former president announced Tuesday night.
Hegseth, 44, is an Army veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has an undergraduate degree from Princeton and a master's degree from Harvard.
"I am honored to announce that I have nominated Pete Hegseth to serve in my Cabinet as The Secretary of Defense," Trump said in a statement Tuesday night. "Pete has spent his entire life as a Warrior for the Troops, and for the Country. Pete is 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."
Hegseth, the co-host of "Fox & Friends Weekends," is a longtime conservative and staunch Trump ally who has talked about the changes Trump should make at the Pentagon. He said the Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Charles Q. Brown should be fired for "pursuing the radical positions of left-wing politicians."
And he believes women should not be in combat for the U.S. military, a point he reiterated last week in an interview with "The Shawn Ryan Show" podcast.
"I'm just saying straight-up, we should not have women in combat roles," he said. "It hasn't made us more effective. It hasn't made us more lethal. Has made fighting more complicated."
"We've all served with women, and they're great," he told Ryan. But "our institutions don't have to incentivize that in places where traditionally — not traditionally — over human history, men in those positions are more capable." Ashton Carter, who was defense secretary during the Obama administration, opened all combat roles to women in 2015.
Hegseth is the author of the recent book "The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free," a New York Times bestseller, in which he denounces what he calls the "warped, woke, and caustic policies of our current military."
In it, he blamed former President Barack Obama and the Pentagon for shortfalls in recruitment, claiming they "embraced the social justice messages of gender equity, racial diversity, climate stupidity, and the LGBTQA+ alphabet soup in their recruiting pushes." He continued: "Only one problem: 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."
In 2021, Hegseth was one of 12 National Guard members removed from a role guarding President Biden's inauguration after vetting by military officials due to possible extremist ties. He has tattoos associated with white supremacists and neo-Nazis (on a recent podcast, Hegseth defended one as "just a Christian symbol").
Hegseth previously served as head of Concerned Veterans for America, a group backed by conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch.
In 2012, Hegseth ran for Senate as a Republican in his home state of Minnesota but withdrew from the race following the state convention. Kurt Bills, a state representative, won the GOP nomination but lost in the general election to Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar.
Hegseth has "an excellent background as a junior officer but does not have the senior national security experience that secretaries need," Mark Cancian, a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told The Associated Press, adding that the lack of experience might make it more difficult for Hegseth to get through Senate confirmation.
Asked about the choice Tuesday night, Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst told CBS News that Hegseth is "going to be a very strong secretary."
But much of the rest of the initial reaction from other GOP senators was muted.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, asked what he thought of Hegseth for the post, responded, "I'd have to think about it."
Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina called the choice "interesting," and Sen. Todd Young of Indiana said he doesn't have "a sense of his background."
"Wow," was the response from Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, when she learned of the selection from a reporter. Asked if Hegseth was a good choice, she replied, "I'm just surprised. I'm not going to comment whether it's good, bad or indifferent. I'm just surprised because the names that I've heard for secretary of defense have not included him."
On his confirmation prospects, Murkowski said, "I don't know."
Two days after the pick was announced, in response to multiple public record requests, officials in Monterey, California, confirmed that Hegseth was investigated for an alleged sexual assault in 2017. The statement from the City Manager's Office and Monterey Police Department contained few details about the case and said they would not make any other public statements related to the investigation.
The incident allegedly occurred at a hotel and a police report was filed three days later, on Oct. 12, 2017.
Vanity Fair magazine first reported that Trump's incoming chief of staff, Susie Wiles, was briefed about the incident, and that Hegseth described it as a consensual encounter and a classic case of he-said, she-said, the magazine reported.
Hegseth's attorney, Timothy Parlatore, a former Trump lawyer who frequently represents current and former members of the U.S. military, told CBS News: "As confirmed by the Monterey Police Department, these allegations were fully investigated and Mr. Hegseth was cleared. This should not have any impact on the confirmation process."
In a statement Friday morning, Trump communications director Steven Cheung said: "President Trump is nominating high-caliber and extremely qualified candidates to serve in his Administration. Mr. Hegseth has vigorously denied any and all accusations, and no charges were filed. We look forward to his confirmation as United States Secretary of Defense so he can get started on Day One to Make America Safe and Great Again."