Throughout hours of podcast and tv interviews, Military veteran and Fox Information host Pete Hegseth has articulated his plan for a “frontal assault” to reform the Division of Protection from the highest down, together with by purging “woke” generals, limiting girls from some fight roles, eliminating range targets and using the “actual menace of violence” to reassert america as a worldwide energy.
As President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for the Secretary of Protection, Hegseth, 44, might have the prospect to implement that imaginative and prescient, commanding the nation’s greater than 1,000,000 lively obligation troopers.
An infantry officer within the U.S. Military Nationwide Guard, Hegseth deployed to Guantanamo Bay, Iraq and Afghanistan earlier than leaving the service with the rank of main, in keeping with army data. Hegseth has labored for Fox Information since 2014, the place he co-hosts “FOX & Associates Weekend.” As soon as a critic of Trump’s international coverage and army stances throughout Trump’s 2016 marketing campaign, Hegseth grew to grow to be considered one of Trump’s fiercest on-air defenders.
“Pete is hard, good and a real believer in America First. With Pete on the helm, America’s enemies are on discover – Our Army will probably be Nice Once more, and America will By no means Again Down,” Trump mentioned asserting the nomination.
A New York Occasions best-selling writer, Hegseth has often commented on army coverage and advised considered one of his first orders of enterprise can be firing any generals who supported the Pentagon’s range, fairness, and inclusion efforts.
“Initially, you bought to fireside the Chairman Joint of the Chiefs and clearly going to usher in a brand new Secretary of Protection, however any normal that was concerned — normal, admiral, no matter — that was concerned in, any of the DEI woke s—, has obtained to go,” Hegseth mentioned throughout a latest interview on the “Shawn Ryan Present” podcast. “Both you are in for warfighting, and that is it. That is the one litmus take a look at we care about.”
Hegseth had preemptively defended the transfer, saying it might be a return to normalcy for troopers reasonably than a “MAGA takeover.”
On this Might 27, 2022, file picture, host Pete Hegseth is proven throughout a taping of “FOX & Associates” at Fox Information Channel Studios in New York.
Roy Rochlin/Getty Photos, FILE
Whereas Hegseth has described international locations like Russia and China as threats, he has framed the army’s greatest menace as an inner one, arguing that “wokeness” divided the army internally and created a difficulty that adversaries can exploit.
“I feel our greatest menace is inner. I feel we’re committing cultural suicide, and we have misplaced full give attention to the fundamentals and constructing blocks of what made Western civilization in America distinctive, fruitful, affluent, sturdy, free,” Hegseth mentioned on the podcast.
Hegseth has proposed a wholesale purge of army officers who’ve supported DEI insurance policies, urging a “frontal assault proper again at what’s been performed to this army from the highest and to the underside.”
“The dumbest phrase on planet Earth within the army is our range is our energy,” Hegseth mentioned on the podcast, arguing that uniformity between troopers is a key to the army’s energy.
“Each time I hear a army chief say [diversity is our strength], I throw up in my mouth a bit of bit extra, as a result of in the event that they imagine it, it reveals you ways sideways and the way indoctrinated they’re,” Hegseth mentioned on “The Proper Take With Mark Tapson” podcast.
Whereas 17.5% of active-duty army personnel are girls, Hegseth has argued that army leaders ought to acknowledge that their primary constituency is “sturdy, regular males,” rebuffing efforts to diversify the ranks of the armed providers.
“There aren’t sufficient lesbians in San Francisco to employees the 82nd Airborne such as you want, you want the boys in Kentucky and Texas and North Carolina and Wisconsin,” Hegseth mentioned on Tapson’s podcast earlier this yr.
Hegseth was on the “Take It Exterior with Jay Cutler and Sam Mackey” podcast and mentioned that transgender troopers are “not deployable” as a result of they’re “reliant on chemical compounds” and advised that ladies shouldn’t serve in sure fight roles.
“Every little thing about women and men serving collectively makes the scenario extra difficult, and complication in fight means casualties are worse,” Hegseth mentioned on Ryan’s podcast, arguing that males are “extra succesful” in fight roles due to organic components.
An ardent defender of the president-elect, Hegseth has argued that america army below Trump was simpler by posing each “uncertainty” and the “actual menace of violence.”
“No less than below Trump, there have been missiles falling on terrorists’ heads,” Hegseth mentioned on the “Man of Battle” podcast with Rafa Conde. “They knew he meant enterprise. Kim Jong Un, although it did not work, knew Trump meant enterprise. Fireplace and fury was an actual factor. Uncertainty is an actual factor. The true menace of violence is an actual factor, and none of that exists below these globalists who assume they’ll sanction their manner.”
He has additionally criticized worldwide establishments just like the United Nations as a “farce” and “big joke” whereas advocating a army coverage that goals to finish long-term conflicts by way of decisive motion.
“We anticipate this clinically sanitized, you already know, no civilian casualties. Every little thing’s going to be good. Nobody’s going to get damage, the whole lot. It is simply not how warfare operates, and that is unlucky,” Hegseth mentioned on “The Approach I Heard It with Mike Rowe” podcast. “But when we attempt to do it with child gloves or with surgical gloves, we’re by no means actually going to eliminate, really exterminate the enemies that we have to defeat to create a peace on the opposite aspect.”
