‘Who the F–K Is This Guy?’: Trump Picks TV Host to Head the Pentagon

Source: Politico

President-elect Donald Trump’s Tuesday night surprise pick of a conservative commentator and television host as his Pentagon chief shocked Washington, which had expected the nominee to be a seasoned lawmaker or someone with defense policy experience.

National security officials and defense analysts had braced for surprises from Trump after experiencing his first four years in office. But even grading on that curve, they say the announcement of Fox News host and decorated Army veteran Pete Hegseth caught them totally off-guard.

“[Trump] puts the highest value on loyalty,” Eric Edelman, who served as the Pentagon’s top policy official during the Bush administration, said in an interview. “It appears that one of the main criteria that’s being used is, how well do people defend Donald Trump on television?”

One assessment was more blunt. “Who the fuck is this guy?” said a defense industry lobbyist who was granted anonymity to offer candid views. The lobbyist said they had hoped for “someone who actually has an extensive background in defense. That would be a good start.”

The pick will do little to quell fears inside the Pentagon and beyond that Trump, who jousted with his own defense secretaries, plans this time to install a loyalist who will unquestioningly carry out his policies. Trump’s campaign trail rhetoric has primed fears that his second term could see a swift and divisive overhaul at the Pentagon.

During the first Trump administration, Hegseth played a pivotal role in several episodes in which Trump inserted himself in the military justice system in order to grant clemency to troops convicted of war crimes.

The pick ensures that his confirmation hearing will be must-see TV, with a pugnacious television personality used to sparring on national security and culture war issues squaring off against a Senate Armed Services Committee with both friendly backers and hostile interrogators ready for their own moment praising the president’s pick or damning the choice.

“The dumbest phrase on planet earth in the military is our diversity is our strength,” Hegseth said on a podcast this month.

Amid fears Trump may use his powers as commander-in-chief to purge the top generals or civil servants, politicizing the Defense Department, Trump’s pick to be Pentagon chief has explicitly confirmed that he could target military leaders, including Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. C.Q. Brown, in an effort to remove diversity and inclusion programs at the agency.

“First of all, you’ve got to fire the chairman of the Joint Chiefs,” Hegseth said when prompted by podcast host Shawn Ryan about reforming the military. “Any general that was involved, any general, admiral, whatever, that was involved in any of the DEI/woke shit has got to go.”

Hegseth in a Fox appearance this year called for a fundamental shift in U.S. military priorities, warning that the current focus on diversity and inclusivity is weakening America’s defenses.

“These ideologies, political correctness, made their way into the ranks – and generals and leaders didn’t stand up and say, No, we should only be focused on readiness and meritocracy and lethality,” Hegseth said.

“I confess I didn’t know who he was until 20 minutes ago,” Smith told reporters. “And he certainly doesn’t seem to have any background whatsoever in DOD policy.”

Hegseth graduated from Princeton and then joined the Army National Guard. He served in Iraq and Afghanistan and earned two Bronze Stars. [Which mean he has far less experience as a soldier than even someone like Mike Waltz who has been appointed National Security Advisor.]

One expert said he was expecting the Pentagon pick to be a seasoned defense policy professional.

“I think it’s a surprising pick, someone who’s a TV personality when the entire rhetoric from Trump and everyone else is that the world is falling apart and you pick someone who is not necessarily the most experienced,” said Max Bergmann, a former Obama administration official now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.

“Shocking is sort of an understatement when it comes to that appointment for secretary of defense. This is why you want the Senate to carefully scrutinize nominations to ensure this person is in fact qualified,” Bergmann added.

“Wow. Trump picking Pete Hegseth is the most hilariously predictably stupid thing,” former GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a frequent Trump critic, posted on social media.