Pete Hegseth’s nomination as Donald Trump’s secretary of defense has left many scratching their heads, trying to figure out what on earth qualifies the Fox & Friends host to lead the Pentagon and command 1.3 million active-duty troops.
While Hegseth does have military experience, previously serving as an infantry officer in the Army National Guard in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo Bay, he has nowhere near the expertise traditionally required for the role of Defense Department head.
For example, current Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin served in the military for 41 years, holding several high-ranking positions as commanding general of U.S. forces in Iraq, the army’s vice chief of staff, and commander of U.S. Central Command, which is responsible for all military operations in the Middle East.
Hegseth’s lack of experience isn’t the only reason he would be considered unsuitable for the position. He recently claimed that his orders to guard Joe Biden’s inauguration were revoked after he was “deemed an extremist” due to a tattoo of a Jerusalem Cross on his chest.
Hegseth failed to mention that he also has a corresponding “Deus Volt” tattoo on his arm, a Latin phrase that means “God Wills It” and a white supremacist slogan. Twelve national guard members were reportedly removed from Biden’s inauguration detail after making extremist statements, and according to Hegseth’s own admission, he was one of them.
So it’s not surprising his appointment seems to have left many across the political spectrum unimpressed.
Former Fox & Friends co-host Gretchen Carlson seemed simply confused by her former colleague’s appointment.
“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?” she wrote Tuesday in a post on X.
Democratic Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren also aired her frustration with the appointment. “A Fox & Friends weekend co-host is not qualified to be the Secretary of Defense,” she wrote on X. “I lead the Senate military personnel panel. All three of my brothers served in uniform. I respect every one of our servicemembers. Donald Trump’s pick will make us less safe and must be rejected.”
Former Republican Representative Adam Kinzinger put it bluntly. “Wow. Trump picking Pete Hegseth is the most hilariously predictably stupid thing,” he wrote on X.
Alyssa Farrah Griffin, a former Trump White House aide and current co-host on The View posted that she wasn’t concerned by his lack of military experience but his “lack of policy experience & a lack of Pentagon experience.”
“I’m for a disrupter at the Pentagon but you can’t disrupt an agency you’re not familiar with the inner workings of. The most likely outcome is he’ll be outmaneuvered at every turn by top Pentagon brass,” Griffin added in a separate post.
Upon hearing that Hegseth had been appointed, Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, simply said, “Wow.”
In the end, it seems like the president-elect appointed Hegseth because he is a faithful Trump acolyte, and well, he’s on Trump’s favorite television network.
Eric Edelman, who previously served as the Pentagon’s top policy official under George Bush, told Politico that Trump “puts the highest value on loyalty.”
“It appears that one of the main criteria that’s being used is, how well do people defend Donald Trump on television?” Edelman said.
Kinzinger agreed. “Obviously it’s weird, and there’s only one reason he’s doing it, because he’s on Fox News, and you know, that’s what Donald Trump picks based on,” Kinzinger said on CNN Tuesday.
South Dakota Senator John Thune will replace Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell as the chamber’s Republican caucus leader.
Thune won by a margin of five points, securing 25 votes to helm the party. Thune is, in many ways, a natural successor for the role. He has served as the Senate Republican whip since 2019, and has practically managed the Senate floor since McConnell suffered a concussion in 2023.
“I am extremely honored to have earned the support of my colleagues to lead the Senate in the 119th Congress, and I am beyond proud of the work we have done to secure our majority and the White House,” Thune said in a statement after the vote. “This Republican team is united behind President Trump’s agenda, and our work starts today.”
Thune was also the popular choice among Senate Republicans, with colleagues describing him as affable, well liked, and humble, according to The Hill.
But regardless of the plain logistics of Thune’s win, his ascension to the top of Senate GOP leadership serves as an interesting start to Donald Trump’s second term, marking the possibility that the upper chamber will remain an independent entity separate from the president-elect’s whims. Thune is an establishment conservative and longtime McConnell ally who has not always seen eye to eye with Trump. Thune won in two rounds of voting, despite an aggressive lobbying campaign by some of Trump’s key allies, including Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Vivek Ramaswamy, and Charlie Kirk, who claimed Florida Senator Rick Scott would be a better alternative for the MAGA administration.
“Without Rick Scott, the entire Trump reform agenda wobbly,” Kennedy Jr. posted on X last week, responding to a rant by Carlson in which he claimed that Thune and the other man in the race, Texas Senator John Cornyn, “hate Trump and what he ran on.”
Ultimately, the Scott campaign rubbed some Republicans the wrong way, driving a deeper intraparty rift between neoconservatives and Trump’s far-right base. But the secret ballot vote ensured total privacy for a group of senators, many of whom are unthreatened by reelection odds until 2028 or later, to side for or against Trump’s candidate.
Still, Thune passed a Trumpian litmus test Sunday night, quickly bending the knee to the chief Republican’s unusual demand that whoever won the position unequivocally agree to recess appointments and thwart the appointment of Democratic judges.
This story has been updated.
President-elect Donald Trump does not appear to be interested in assuaging any concerns about a total pursuit of power.
Speaking before the House Republican Conference on Wednesday, the 78-year-old soon-to-be forty-seventh president openly joked about running for a third term, telling the crowd that they could “figure something else out.”
“I suspect I won’t be running again unless you say he’s so good we got to figure something else out,” Trump said while laughing, according to the Associated Press’s Farnoush........