The Pentagon is stunned by Donald Trump’s pick for Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth. He is a National Guard veteran and Fox News host who has called for the purge of generals who promote “woke” diversity policies.
Hegseth questioned whether Gen. Charles Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was in the top job because he is black, calling him “a left-wing politician pursuing radical positions.” ” he criticized.
Hegseth, a major in the Minnesota National Guard, served as a guard at Guantanamo Bay and served in Iraq and Afghanistan before becoming an outspoken right-wing critic of the military.
He has advocated for faster delivery of U.S. weapons to Ukraine to defend against Russia, but has also cast doubt on U.S. membership in NATO. His nomination will also be a boost for Israel’s far-right wing. He has expressed support for territorial expansion and suggested Jews could build a new temple on the sacred grounds around Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque, known to Jews as the Temple Mount.
Hegseth told an audience in Jerusalem in 2018: “There is no reason why the miracle of rebuilding the Temple on the Temple Mount would be impossible.”
The Israeli settler movement is also celebrating President Trump’s nomination of former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee as U.S. ambassador to Israel.
“There’s no such thing as the West Bank. It’s Judea and Samaria,” Huckabee, an evangelical Baptist pastor, said during a 2017 visit to the region.
“There is no such thing as a settlement. They are communities. They are neighborhoods. They are cities. There is no such thing as an occupation,” he said. policy and international law.
President Trump’s appointment of Mr. Hegseth, 44, a chat show commentator with little management experience, to run U.S. military installations that employ 1.3 million active-duty military personnel and nearly 1 million civilian employees is a sign that Congress and It surprised the Pentagon.
Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said: “It’s not that this person isn’t a serious enough policy maker, a serious enough policy implementer, and someone who can do the job successfully.” There are reasons for concern.”
Military officials said the choice came “out of the blue,” Army Times reported, citing an unnamed senior military official, who said Hegseth has experience managing large-budget government departments. It was reported that he said it raised concerns about whether or not. Over $800 billion.
During his first term in the White House, Mr. Trump found himself at odds with the people he chose to run the Pentagon, but Mr. Hegseth has shown himself to be a loyalist with a shared hostility toward the military. Ta.
Hegseth wrote in his memoirs: “The next president of the United States must overhaul the senior leadership of the Department of Defense to ensure it is ready to protect our country and defeat our enemies. Many people will need to be fired.”
Hegseth asked about Brown’s appointment as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Was it because of his skin color?” Or his skills? we never know. ”
There are concerns among U.S. military leaders that Hegseth could join Trump in seeking retaliation against generals and other senior officials who have been seen as insufficiently loyal to the president-elect in the past.
In particular, retired Gen. Mark Milley, who served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during Trump’s first term and resisted Trump’s calls to deploy troops against protesters, has been recalled by Trump to face a court-martial. It is reported that he is afraid of
Milley recently told journalist and author Bob Woodward that she believes Trump is “a fascist to the core.”
